Ticketmaster: Undercover Video forces the company to answer uncomfortable questions about its resale business



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"People know that Ticketmaster has a resale platform," a reseller told Billboard. "How do people think the tickets have arrived?"

The images of the video shot by a team of undercover journalists were questionable. Sent to Summit Summit Annual Conference for Dealers and Scalpers in Las Vegas, Toronto Star The journalists captured a Ticketmaster representative on the film admitting that the company offers software that allows resellers to quickly download and download tickets to the Ticketmaster resale market with little oversight from Ticketmaster.

TradeDesk software is a ticket management system that automates many of the tedious tasks of reselling multiple tickets – competing secondary sites such as StubHub, Vivid Seats and TicketNetwork offer a similar product. When asked if Ticketmaster was monitoring his rules against the use of multiple MT accounts, the unidentified employee in the video told the reporter, "Uh, no." I have a man who has more than 200 Ticketmaster.com accounts directly in the store and syncs his tickets every day. When asked how many brokers use multiple accounts, which would be a violation of the general terms and conditions of the company, the representative said, "I am damn close to each of them," adding, "I can not think of any of my clients who do not use multiples. I mean (you) if you want to get a good show and the ticket limit is six or eight – you will not make a living with eight tickets.

A high-level official from Live Nation, owner of Ticketmaster, acknowledged Display panel that the company does not regularly monitor TradeDesk or its secondary sites for scalpers that use multiple accounts to purchase tickets. Display panel also learned that TradeDesk allows resellers to transparently link their primary account to the resale account, so that tickets purchased from the main site are synchronized at the touch of a button and listed for resale on TM +. The software allows brokers to manage tickets from multiple primary accounts, which is not necessarily a violation of Ticketmaster terms and services. An independent ticket broker can have 30 employees, each with their own credit card account and credit card, which allows them to buy 200 to 300 tickets per presentation without breaking the rules. TradeDesk then takes all these separate accounts and synchronizes them with a single resale account.

"What's remarkable about this report is not that Ticketmaster offers an autoloader to brokers," said Dean Budnick, co-author of the 2011 book Tic.ket Masters: The rise of the concert industry. Budnick notes that the company acquired the EventInventory download program when buying tickets from the secondary market site in 2008.

"What is striking, though, is the cavalier attitude of the TradeDesk representative at this year's Ticket Summit," says Budnick, who also contributes to Display panel. What is shocking is that the individual seems to be giving "tacit approval to brokers operating hundreds of Ticketmaster accounts, which runs counter to Ticketmaster's terms of use."

Patrick Ryan with the eventellect ticket distribution company said he was a bit surprised by the reaction to the story, Display panel "People know that Ticketmaster has a resale platform – how do people think the tickets got there? It's a billion dollar affair.

Ryan stated that the TM representative who was filmed in secret was "a bit cavalier" and offered a "non-standard comment" Display panel "No market has ever told our company to disregard the terms and conditions."

"If someone flagrantly violates Ticketmaster's terms, this could lead to the cancellation of the tickets without the buyer knowing it," he said. "This buyer could then sell his ticket to an unsuspecting consumer who would show up for an event with a ticket that is no longer valid," creating a negative experience that poorly reflects the artist, the venue and the ticketing company.

"That's the kind of result that Ticketmaster wants to avoid the most," says Ryan.

The video also seems to highlight the differences of interest that Ticketmaster faces in the secondary market, while opposing the secondary market and using tools like the Verified Fan. In private, Ticketmaster and Live Nation officials say the company must sell secondary tickets on Ticketmaster because they do not want fans to visit the site for tickets and they are not available because main tickets are exhausted. sends more fans to Stubhub and other secondary sites.

In addition to competing with consumers, Ticketmaster also competes with other secondary sites for broker inventory. In general, StubHub does not monitor how its vendors get tickets, and Ticketmaster officials know they are strict in enforcing the rules of their primary site on their secondary platform. A source tells Display panel that many independent brokers refuse to list with Ticketmaster or TradeDesk because of the paranoia that Ticketmaster will cancel their tickets and subscriptions.

There are, however, limited rules in the secondary MT market – brokers are not allowed to speculatively list notes they do not have or sell short notes, a practice condemned by advocacy groups consumer rights.

Ticketmaster has already initiated an internal review of its professional reseller accounts and employee practices to ensure that our policies are being followed by all stakeholders, according to the press release provided to Display panel. "By going forward, we will put in place additional measures to proactively monitor this type of inappropriate activity"

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