Anyone's arenas gone to ticketless?

[lillygator]

They were talking on the radio this am that the Miley concert here will be ticketless and that you had to have the cc used to purchase the tix to enter....how does it work in your area?

 

[Cheshire Figment]

I think it is a great idea. It sounds as if it will stop scalping of tickets and make them available for sale at regular price to people who are actually going to attend, so all profits go to the people running the concert/areana and not excessve profits to the scalpers.

 

[Kathi OD]

I see big problems with this. DH and I routinely get tickets for all kinds of things (sporting events, concerts, shows) from our kids for our birthdays, Mother's & Father's Days, and Christmas. Now we'll need their credit card for admission? Last night I went to the Phillies game with a ticket I bought from a friend. It wasn't scalped. I paid the price printed on the ticket. Am I the only one who see this as a problem?

 

[Becky2005]

Am I the only one who see this as a problem?

Nope -- I was wondering how that worked if you paid cash for the tickets.

I know our Carson's are also Ticketmaster outlets, you can just go over there & pay cash for your tickets. No need to do it on-line with a CC, etc...

Unless the box office for the event only takes CC & then what happens if you don't have one? I know not that common anymore but it does happen.

 

[ChrizJen]

I do see the huge benefit to this in regards to ticket scalping, but I also see the disadvantage...People who buy the tickets as a gift to a friend or relative...they're not likely going to hand over their credit card for the night of the show so that the friend can get in the door...

 

[lovetoscrap]

Doesn't sound like the best option to me.

What if Grandma wants to buy tickets online for my kids to go to Miley's concert (she lives several states away)? What if I want to buy tix for DH to take a friend to see something he really wants and I don't or vice versa. And as PP said, what if I buy tix to something and get sick and can't go so I want to give them to a friend so they can go? I don't have any friends I would give my cc to!

I think they need to make the ticket/ticketless an option and you can choose which you want, or they need to come up with a better way to do it. Not to mention what are they going to do with my cc when I show up at the venue? Scan it into something? We have enough problems with CC information being stolen, the more options for collecting the info, when they aren't even charging anything the more security risk. And since tix are often purchased months in advance I would most likely forget which card I used. People behind me would be annoyed when I pulled out 3 cards and said, here try all these!

And then what happens if your card has to be cancelled between the time you bought the tickets and when the event was?

This idea stinks.

 

[lillygator]

that's what the radio station was discussing, all the gifted tickets, promotional ones, etc...

 

[Shyvioletisme]

none here are that way, luckily. I see it as a bad, bad idea....

 

[elgerber]

They were talking on the radio this am that the Miley concert here will be ticketless and that you had to have the cc used to purchase the tix to enter....how does it work in your area?

This is not an arena issue, it's actually the way the entire Miley Cyrus tour is being done. They did after they had such huge issues last time with scalpers and brokers buying up all the tickets.

 

[asta]

I think this is a fantastic idea. I vote for anything that gets tickets out of the hands of scalpers and into the hands of fans. I am sorry for those of you who are inconvenienced by not having a credit card or giving a gift but I am so fed up with ticket brokers who get their hands on many of the good tickets and then charge outrageous prices. I have used this type of ticket for two Bruce Springsteen concerts and it worked like a charm. I think that it speaks volumes that an artist cares enough about their fans to use this type of ticket. In Springsteen's case not all of the tickets are sold this way. Just sections of very good seats. A compromise might be for the arenas to set aside some seats that are sold as hard tickets.

 

[ajk912]

I think this is a fantastic idea. I vote for anything that gets tickets out of the hands of scalpers and into the hands of fans. I am sorry for those of you who are inconvenienced by not having a credit card or giving a gift but I am so fed up with ticket brokers who get their hands on many of the good tickets and then charge outrageous prices. I have used this type of ticket for two Bruce Springsteen concerts and it worked like a charm. I think that it speaks volumes that an artist cares enough about their fans to use this type of ticket. In Springsteen's case not all of the tickets are sold this way. Just sections of very good seats. A compromise might be for the arenas to set aside some seats that are sold as hard tickets.

Yup, thank you, I totally agree.

If grandma wants to buy tickets for the grandkids, just have grandma cut a check to mom or dad or whoever the chaperone is so they can just put it on their credit card.

For the people who don't have credit cards..well, I guess going to concerts will be like the other items you can't do now. Just like now, you really can't get a hotel room or rent a car without a credit card, just add going to a concert to that short list. Or, you can get a prepaid visa or debit card, I am sure that would work, as well.

The only thing that would stink is for the promotional tickets...maybe they can link those to a prepaid visa card with a value of a dollar or something.

I think it sounds like a GREAT system, just a few kinks to work out first!

 

[Kathi OD]

If grandma wants to buy tickets for the grandkids, just have grandma cut a check to mom or dad or whoever the chaperone is so they can just put it on their credit card.

Grandma or anyone else for that matter, shouldn't have to do a work around in order to give a gift. It's a poorly thought out plan for most events. When my kids want to suprise me with a ticket for my birthday, they shouldn't have to call me 3 months ahead of time and say, hey mom, go order yourself tickets to the ....., and I'll write you a check.

For something like a Miley Cyrus concert, I can see where it might be more palatable, since the majority of the crowd will be young kids accompanied by an adult.

 

[NotUrsula]

I've got news, folks -- it doesn't stop the scalpers. They are using corporate Visa purchasing cards and fake id's to buy the tickets, then meeting buyers at the venue to escort them to the gates. (The person on record as the buyer must have the CC *and* a photo ID -- all with the same name -- in their name for the CC's to be scanned at the gates, but that person does not have to actually be the person who uses the tickets.)

As for cash purchases, you're out of luck. They are not taking cash for these. Gift cards issued by Ticketmaster, Amex, Mastercard or Visa will not be accepted, either.

 

[SkyGirl]

This just happened here. We bought tickets to Springsteen in September (for my birthday) and it is ticketless. We saw Fleetwood Mac in April and had paper tickets for that event that we had to pay a five dollar fee to print!!

 

[merryweather20]

I've got news, folks -- it doesn't stop the scalpers. They are using corporate Visa purchasing cards and fake id's to buy the tickets, then meeting buyers at the venue to escort them to the gates. (The person on record as the buyer must have the CC *and* a photo ID -- all with the same name -- in their name for the CC's to be scanned at the gates, but that person does not have to actually be the person who uses the tickets.)

As for cash purchases, you're out of luck. They are not taking cash for these. Gift cards issued by Ticketmaster, Amex, Mastercard or Visa will not be accepted, either.

Absolutely! Scalpers have no problem dealing with these things, its regular fans who don't do this for a living that will have a hard time buying tickets.

Its very easy to say just write a cheque to Mom or Dad, but what if they have to work when the tickets go on sale, or they wanted to send an older sibbling or an aunt to supervise instead? By not allowing gift cards, you just priced out all the poor little kids who had been saving birthday and Christmas presents with Ticketmaster GC's or cash.

What about if my credit card gets stolen? or I get sick and want to give my tickets to friends or family?

If Miley sold a lot of tickets to scalpers at her last concert series she has only herself and her management team to blame. They blocked sales at some venues by zip code so people who lived just an hour out of the city couldn't buy tickets. This was supposed to prevent scalpers. Those that were in one of the unlucky postal code had to buy from scalpers, the scalpers of course had no problem getting a shipping address in the right zip code.

These hoops are no problem for a scalper who knows all the tricks, but its a little too much for Mom and Dad, who are only buying one set of tickets to take their little one.