Who’s Got Tickets?

Queen's Park wants to make sure fans get more of them

The provincial government wants to do something about ticket sales for concerts, to keep computer ‘bots’ from snapping up a good portion of the tickets before fans have a chance to buy them. It’s been an issue for a long time, but became pronounced last summer when fans of the Tragically Hip had trouble getting their hands on tickets for the band’s cross-country tour. Concert promoter Live Nation figures bots snatched up about a third of tickets and broker’s grabbed another third, leaving just a third for fans to fight over. Ticketmaster says it uses security measures to try to keep the bots at bay, but admits even if it was 99 per cent effective a hundred bots a minute are getting through the system. And then there’s this, industry insiders telling CBC’s Marketplace most of the best tickets to shows are never offered up to the public; that by the time tickets go on sale 90 er cent might already be gone through various promotions.

photo: Bradley Fortner via Flickr