What I don't get about my state is the weird scalping laws. Try this one on for size:
My daddy and I wanted to go see the Eagles in concert, but tickets sold out in 45 minutes. Why? 'Cuz ticket brokers bought up all the good seats, only to turn around and re-sell them at 4 times their original price. Now we both love the Eagles, but there was no way we were shelling out upwards of $300 a pop for seats.
And yet... a coworker of mine originally from NYC really misses Yankees games. He was going to be travelling in a city where and when the Yanks were playing an away game and thought he'd try to get tickets for it. He went online and found out that at this particular stadium, season-ticket holders who were not going to use their tickets for a particular game could turn them back to the stadium for a refund. The stadium would then turn around and sell those tickets (at a slightly inflated price, something like 20%) online. He went through the entire registration process, including submitting his name, address, and credit card number, and selected a set of tickets that he thought to be reasonably priced. He clicked on "purchase tickets," only to be given an error message informing him that such a purchase was illegal in his state. He was booted off the site.
Is anyone else confused here? Why is one considered scalping and the other legal "brokerage"?
__________________
History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Mark Twain
|