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I need information about ticket sales to major sporting events and concerts. Specifically, I need to know: 1) What percentage of tickets are first sold to ticket re-sellers (who plan to sell the tickets for a profit) as opposed to people who simply plan to attend the event themselves?
Executive Summary
The ticket sales market of major sporting events and other concerts is dominated by the pre-sale programs, better online ticket sales (BOTS) such as Ticketmaster, AXS and StubHub, or brokers who misuse their relationships with the club or concert sponsors to sell the tickets as speculative tickets. These entities buy and resale the tickets to attain a huge profit; for examples, a ticket with a cost less than $59.50 can be resold at a value of $315 just one week later or a ticket with a face value of $40 to $150 can be offered at a price which ranges from $307 to $9,370, as stated by Vulture.
FINDINGS
This high ticket offerings led many states, e.g. New York, to investigate this phenomenon. According to an investigation of the ticketing industry in the New York state, there were only 46 percent of all tickets available to the public while the remaining 54% portion was acquired by the pre-sale programs or brokers. Some states (e.g. Delaware), as a result, issued "laws restricting resale only on the physical grounds of an event," while others, e.g. Minnesota, released scalping laws to get all ticket sales legal. However, the process of controlling the ticketing industry is very complicated. In 2016, the Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act) to criminalize the use of computer programs to buy and resale the tickets at "inflated prices."
The New York Times stated that Ticketmaster has estimated the BOTS market share of the ticketing industry in the U.S. to 60%. Moreover, in 2016, the office of "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman completed an investigation into bots." The New York AG reported that 46% of tickets were sold by BOTS. According to this report, the event or concert promoters and venue operators provide the tickets to the ticket vendors who, in their turn, sell the tickets to the brokers and ticket resale platforms. Thus, the number of tickets available for the public is highly reduced and sold in speculative approach that increases the prices accordingly.
Finally, NYAG found that, "on average, only about 46% of tickets are reserved for the public. The remaining 54% of tickets are divided among two groups: holds (16%) and pre-sales (38%). Holds are tickets that are reserved for industry insiders, such as artists, agents, venues, promoters, marketing departments, record labels, and sponsors. Pre-sales make tickets available to non-public groups before they go on sale to the general public. The two most common pre-sale events are for credit card holders and members of fan clubs, but venues, promoters, or other groups may run pre-sale events as well. Brokers, as discussed below, often begin harvesting tickets at these pre-sale events and later during the general on-sale."
Likewise, according to Consumer Reports (CR), 54% of the tickets nationwide are held or pre-sold to the BOTS or entities other than the public while the remaining 46% is sold directly to the public.
Similarly, Forbes published that 60% of the tickets are sold on "the secondary market" and bought by Bots.
CONCLUSION