Even if they don't break them up, there needs to be some limits and regulations as this scene is getting obscene:
1. I thought scalping was illegal? Maybe that has changed, or maybe there's a big loophole, but most of the big ticketing apps have essentially legalized scalping and they even have conventions for their "partners" (scalpers) where they entertain them and teach them how to buy and sell more tickets. Since the ticketing apps take massive fees on each ticket, more secondary sales benefits the ticketing company even more.
2. If scalping is still illegal, there needs to be a limit on the price hike for secondary sales. Clearly, someone who bought 50 tickets to a concert was not planning to use them all. This is a scalper. Since they could create many different accounts, it's hard to determine who is a scalper and who isn't. Either way, if you can't go to the concert and you want to resell them, then a max increase for your time to relist the tickets is fair for everyone.
3. There needs to be a limit on service fees. There's no reason why the service fee for selling an online ticket should be $50 PER TICKET. Sure, it's not always that high, but that's how high I've seen it in the past couple years. I can ship a cell phone across the country in 5 days for $5 and it is profitable for the service provider. There's no reason the efforts to furnish a digital ticket should cost more than that. It's clearly a hidden fee that is there as an additional profit center.
4. Not only do the ticket primary ticketing companies own the primary sales, they also own the secondary sales. So, for example, they can take a $30 fee PER TICKET on the primary sales and then they also get that $50 PER TICKET fee on the secondary sale of each same ticket. Then if that ticket gets sold again, they can get another $50 PER TICKET. It's absolutely insane.
5. Most major venues have exclusive deals with the major ticketing companies. So, if a large band/artist wants to play at a large venue and they don't want to charge their fans huge fees or allow scalping, they have no choice -- that venue has signed a deal and the artist has to use the venue's ticketing partner.
6. Some tickets aren't sent until just days before the event. If I bought tickets today, and they're charging me a $50 digital ticket fee, those tickets should be available to me immediately. Again, I can ship a cell phone across the country in 5 days for $5, there's no reason digital tickets should be withheld for months when a $50 fee was paid.
7. There's no transparency. Since it's so obscene, it's time for transparency. At a minimum, I should be able to see how many tickets for each event the person I'm buying the tickets from has sold in the past year.
I know there are more issues, these are just the ones off the top of my head.
Another issue: the venues, the artist, etc sometimes get a piece of the fees, the resale tickets, etc. The ticket seller should not be allowed to share revenue from anything besides the initial ticket sale.
1. I thought scalping was illegal? Maybe that has changed, or maybe there's a big loophole, but most of the big ticketing apps have essentially legalized scalping and they even have conventions for their "partners" (scalpers) where they entertain them and teach them how to buy and sell more tickets. Since the ticketing apps take massive fees on each ticket, more secondary sales benefits the ticketing company even more.
2. If scalping is still illegal, there needs to be a limit on the price hike for secondary sales. Clearly, someone who bought 50 tickets to a concert was not planning to use them all. This is a scalper. Since they could create many different accounts, it's hard to determine who is a scalper and who isn't. Either way, if you can't go to the concert and you want to resell them, then a max increase for your time to relist the tickets is fair for everyone.
3. There needs to be a limit on service fees. There's no reason why the service fee for selling an online ticket should be $50 PER TICKET. Sure, it's not always that high, but that's how high I've seen it in the past couple years. I can ship a cell phone across the country in 5 days for $5 and it is profitable for the service provider. There's no reason the efforts to furnish a digital ticket should cost more than that. It's clearly a hidden fee that is there as an additional profit center.
4. Not only do the ticket primary ticketing companies own the primary sales, they also own the secondary sales. So, for example, they can take a $30 fee PER TICKET on the primary sales and then they also get that $50 PER TICKET fee on the secondary sale of each same ticket. Then if that ticket gets sold again, they can get another $50 PER TICKET. It's absolutely insane.
5. Most major venues have exclusive deals with the major ticketing companies. So, if a large band/artist wants to play at a large venue and they don't want to charge their fans huge fees or allow scalping, they have no choice -- that venue has signed a deal and the artist has to use the venue's ticketing partner.
6. Some tickets aren't sent until just days before the event. If I bought tickets today, and they're charging me a $50 digital ticket fee, those tickets should be available to me immediately. Again, I can ship a cell phone across the country in 5 days for $5, there's no reason digital tickets should be withheld for months when a $50 fee was paid.
7. There's no transparency. Since it's so obscene, it's time for transparency. At a minimum, I should be able to see how many tickets for each event the person I'm buying the tickets from has sold in the past year.
I know there are more issues, these are just the ones off the top of my head.