Using a proprietary barcode format won't help if people post the barcode image itself (which they do in the example image provided). More work might be required to 'unskew' perspective shifts to get it back looking like the original if the photo wasn't taken from directly in front of the printout, but barcode readers are generally designed to deal with that sort of skew anyway.
I remember when the Xbox One came out last year a lot of people were posting ebay listings for digital download games in the form of scannable QR codes and posting those QR codes as proof of the item existing (since otherwise it is all digital). Not surprisingly people claimed those QR codes using the ebay images without ever buying the item.
As someone who works in the industry (but not Ticketmaster) and has spoken frequently to higher ups at TM, people should realize that the majority of the time "handling charges" are a way for performers to generate more revenue from sales while deflecting the bad PR to Ticketmaster. That's one of the services TM provides to their clients (performers/venues).
If you're a performer and you want to sell tickets for a face value of "$50", but generate revenue at the $60 or $65/ticket range, you add on some fees and let TM take the hit from the fans for "gouging" them. It's very common.
Interesting that you'd create a new account, which parrots a commenter in the previous ticketmaster thread about them buying a YC alum. The only positive comment in the thread, in fact.
What you are saying flies in the face of what bands said when they testified before congress about Ticketmaster [1]. I'll believe the people who swore under oath, thanks.
I've never heard of TM sharing ticketing fees with artists.
In my experience TM fees are for TM. They may share with the venue, but the venue isn't sharing that with the artist. In fact they are taking a cut of the face value from the artist directly.
In fact I've even seen TM take a small percentage of the gross face value!
You're splitting hairs between who is considered the TM client: venue or performer. Of course there may be any number of organizations between you the ticket buyer and the actual person singing and dancing onstage (venue, promoter, manager, record label, etc.).
Regardless of which of these is getting the biggest cut of the "fees", the reality is that in most cases the "fees" are line items used to increase revenue without raising ticket face prices, and TM is not the primary beneficiary.
But sharing with the venue means that the artist is taking a higher cut of the ticket than you'd expect.
I read once that some parts of the US have laws requiring X% of the ticket price to go to the performer and that Ticketmaster fees were partly designed to allow the venue to charge its venue hire fees at a higher percentage than is allowed by these laws. Any truth to that?
Hard to tell considering they have a monopoly on the original purchase industry (most venues, and I'd venture to guess 90%+ of venues that would actually attract large acts) <strike>and the reseller industry as well </strike>. The worst is going to the box office to buy a ticket and being told that they can't sell the ticket at the box office, you have to buy through TM or you have to pay the same fees as if you bought through TM's site / services.
Regarding your last point (and also from the POV as someone who works in ticketing but not for TM) -- many organizations I work with (non-TM venues) and for are now transitioning to a lower unified fee structure. That is, a single fee that is the same no matter the sales channel. This trains our customers to expect a small fee at all times, we can keep that fee very consistent, and is often more in line with the nature of the agreement held with the performer regarding net adjusted gross income.
Just this morning I was selling tickets to an Interpol concert in Seattle and realized people on Craigslist were posting pictures of their tickets with the barcodes visible.
Yes -- a scheme like this is used to prove the origin of a digitally signed email without revealing the sender's private key. So there's a model for this functionality.
Many times the order item numbers will be sequential within the order, but each order will have a different number.
You can order three tickets and you'll get 08737401, 08737402, and 08737403, but the next person to order three tickets will get 08343201, 08343202, and 08343203.
Has this happened to anyone? What would happen if you showed up and find that your ticket is invalid. I'm guessing it varies by venue but is there any recourse? I can't imagine they'd just turn you away without at least a little investigation.
You almost certainly aren't going to see the show.
In theory it should be simple to identify who you are in conflict with if the ticket is not general admission. They would just have to send an usher to the seat. However, it is difficult to determine who defrauded who without a whole lot of investigation.
You would have to establish the entire chain of custody for both of the tickets. Three possibilities with different culprits are: the original purchaser double sold the tickets, a third-party got the barcode and sold a fraudulent ticket to whoever is in your seat, or the person in your seat made the fraudulent ticket themselves.
this hasn't happened to me, but i witnessed it at Outside Lands SF this year and it is devastating to watch. there is basically zero recourse for the buyer of the ticket that scans invalid and many of them have very legitimate looking pdfs and emails they got from craigslist.
neither the ticketmaster folks nor the venue folks tend to be super compassionate in my experience. it's a real mess though, the venues often have no in-and-out privileges (possibly due to how scanning invalidates some 24-hour key), so even as a law-abiding consumer, you're stuck at an event for the whole time just to deal with ticketmaster's implementation details.
i'm sure others have said this, but that is definitely a business that wants disrupting. there's so many bits of tech that could make this experience better and safer for consumers, but i suspect ticket fees are more profitable than user experience.
I just worked admissions for a festival in Seattle, and we have started seeing scalpers actually walk with the customer to the gate, and verify they get entrance. If the scalped ticket isn't valid, the scalper will refund right there. People have stopped trusting scalpers with print outs, because they often don't work. The resellers are realizing this and offering guarantee.
As an aside, many festivals and venues don't disallow re-entry due to TM implementation (I've been to enough TM ticketed events that have re-entry). They ban in-and-out so that you cannot go elsewhere to drink or eat without the festival surcharge and kickback.
Disrupting ticketing is such a painful thing, but its something I've been passionate about for a number of years. Unfortunately, the way things are run at least in Australia means that venues have exclusive agreements with various ticketing providers, so it becomes exceedingly capital intensive to break in :(
It's generally not the people at the doors job to investigate. If your ticket doesn't scan they assume you're the one with the fake or that someone went in and came out with multiple tickets to get more people in.
Generally, as far as I've seen, you'd be SOOL. (Shit out of luck, is that an acronym yet?)
If you search eBay for tickets and see that someone snapshot a ticket they are trying to sell it sounds like it's pretty easy to steal it. So quite possibly it is more than just theoretical.
Though if you take a picture of the barcode it seems like you're just asking for trouble. But people don't really think about those kind of things when they post to social media...
OP here. Well I've never heard if it being abused yet so I suppose you're right, but it seems so easy. For the festival I referred to in my post, it only has a capacity of 40k, yet I ended up with 6 of these tickets that I gleaned from eBay and local auction sites.
I remember when the Xbox One came out last year a lot of people were posting ebay listings for digital download games in the form of scannable QR codes and posting those QR codes as proof of the item existing (since otherwise it is all digital). Not surprisingly people claimed those QR codes using the ebay images without ever buying the item.