Good, Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. Also not the first time they lost in court.[1] Basically the Uber of ticket sales, move fast, break laws, make an exit and walk away millionaires. This crap needs to stop.<p>Viagogo purchases tickets with fake names and addresses to then resells them for a much higher price. This is illegal in Switzerland and probably also in many European countries.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.srf.ch/news/panorama/eintrittskarten-zurueckbezahlt-ticketboerse-viagogo-in-die-knie-gezwungen" rel="nofollow">https://www.srf.ch/news/panorama/eintrittskarten-zurueckbeza...</a> (German)
Good for them! Love Rammstein.<p>However, the ticket market is changing and these resellers are getting sidelined a little more, but that doesn't mean the market is getting better.<p>Ticketmaster, who are part of live nation who in turn own a lot of the big venues and festivals are horrible and owned a lot of resellers or were responsible for the reseller market, as it started to become more outlawed they simply side stepped it.<p>Now you have tickets that have dynamic pricing, with prices that go well over double the face value, strange extra fees or just out right miss-selling.<p>A concert I tried to book about 2 years ago, was 'sold out' of general admission tickets the minute it went on sale, including several 'presales' but these 'special access' tickets were available for double the general admission price, it was listed with the VIP tickets, but when you read the small print, with confusing language, it said things such as the ticket would ensure you got access to the concert (Shouldn't a standard ticket do that?) it was basically just a general admission ticket at a 'demand driven price'
I was wondering, if ticket resale is a viable business model only because tickets are not priced properly in the first place.<p>What if tickets were sold using a reverse auction system[1] instead? For instance, tickets could start at $1000 and then go down by $1 every hour until the minimum price set by the promoter is reached – or all the tickets are sold out.<p>This way, even if resellers bought a huge number of tickets, it's possible that they wouldn't be able to resell them for a large enough profit to cover the risk.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction</a>
I hope scalping in general become outlawed. The practice is just pure opportunism - it literally brings no value to anyone, it only extracts value from hotspots of popular demand.
Viagogo is one of the worst out there.<p>Back in 2015 I bought 2 tickets for AC/DC through them and I paid ~£270. When I got the tickets in my hands I saw that the price was ~£75-£80 each and Viagogo added more than £100, just because they could.<p>Kudos to Rammstein and I hope more bands will follow and help us get rid of these scammers.
In Australia, a lot of the time if you search Google for specific concert tickets, Viagogo will come up before the official ticket reseller results.<p>My mum got stung by this and accidentally bought $800 of tickets from them for a show in December (that should have cost $400. Tickets were still available on Ticketmaster)<p>Tickets were bought 3 months ago, and Viagogo won't give her the tickets or seating Information until 1 week before the show. After some reading this is apparently how they work.<p>Every single aspect of their service is a dark pattern.
They’re not the heroes we deserve, but the heroes need.<p>I’m fascinated by the price discovery problem in concert tickets, but I’m incredibly frustrated by the lack of artist involvement in that system. I usually hate bringing up NFTs and blockchains, but if any industry would benefit from a verified seller market, it could be this one.<p>It’s not like Bad Bunny (the company, not Benito) is hurting from missing out on the 9X multiple on floor seats, but acts are increasingly dependent on performance revenues to make a living, and they’re largely cut out from that resale market.
Why not just insist as Glastonbury does that each ticket is personal and that the ticket holder's ID must match the name declared when buying the ticket when they enter the festival grounds.<p>Then a second hand ticket is worthless.<p>"GLASTONBURY TICKET INFO<p>ONLY SEE TICKETS ARE AUTHORISED TO SELL TICKETS FOR GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL
No other site or agency will be allocated tickets. All tickets for the Festival are individually personalised to the named ticket holder and are strictly non-transferable. Security checks are carried out on arrival, and only the specified ticket holder will be admitted to the Festival."<p><a href="https://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/information/tickets/" rel="nofollow">https://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/information/tickets/</a>
Somewhat off-topic, but I wanted to buy some tickets for a comedian and the venue uses Ticketmaster. The tickets were $75/ea and the service fees were $65/ea. How in the hell are the service fees basically the same price as the price of admission?
I live in Japan, ticket scalping is almost non-existent here due to the local regulations and all major second-hand sales sites prohibiting resell for profit.<p>What we have now is lotteries, lotteries everywhere.<p>You need be sure to track the upcoming concerts, through all the bullshit ways the band may promote them — via twitter, facebook, their fanclub subscription (each email from it may get to spam) or whatever.<p>If you've missed the lottery submission period, you're screwed. If you've lost the lottery, you're screwed.<p>I do understand that scalpers don't create value, but I'd rather have the bands set market-based prices that avoided the necessity for lotteries.
StubHub was acquired by Viagogo a few years ago. I used StubHub to get "feuerzone" tickets for the second Rammstein show in LA last weekend which, for those of you don't know, are for the GA zone that's right in front of the stage.<p>I really hope this doesn't affect StubHub in the future because the experience was great and it came through when Ticketmaster was entirely sold out for FZ. I get why there's a restraining order for Viagogo; I just hope they don't take StubHub down with them in terms of whether I can use them again.<p>Also, it was an awesome, awesome, awesome... AWESOME show! One of the best things I've ever done. Even if you aren't that into the music normally, it's a performance like no other that's worth seeing in person.
A good decision, because everyone can have an opinion. But it's the decision of the artists/organizers how much a ticket costs. If they want to make money, they can charge it, if they want equal opportunities for their fans, they decided it that way. You have no say in that and neither do scalpers or resellers.<p>edit: fix wording
If Rammstein wants to hurt the resellers and help their fans then add more shows at each venue. Quantity will cross a point where the price of resell tickets will be diluted.
1. Make an app that is 1:1 tied to a physical person's identity. You can only have one account.<p>2. Only sell tickets to people with these accounts. Only allow 2 tickets to be sold to a single account holder per concert.<p>3. If someone wishes to sell their ticket (eg. changed plans, etc.), they can do so for 95% of the original purchase price with 5% going back to the band and marketplace.<p>4. As an added bonus, loyal fans can get first dibs at tickets.<p>5. Furthermore bad actors at concerts can be tracked and permabanned.