... because of who controls lawmaking. The laws in New York allow the resale of tickets, and forbids denying entrance to a person who bought a ticket from a re-seller. Technically re-sellers have to be licensed and bonded. But the work around at Stub Hub et al is that you are not buying tickets from Stub Hub- they just charge you for being a platform for people who supposedly bought tickets for their own personal use, or those of their employees, families etc. Use of bots is illegal.
On can do, however, what NYTW did for two shows - which is limit the number that can be bought, and only allow the purchaser to pick up tickets with ID at the box office, and then enter the theatre. This makes it much harder for the secondary market.
Its also illegal (though it happens all the time) for a seller on Stub Hub, let say, to offer a ticket that they dont already own. When I was working on an only moderately successful Broadway show, selling at maybe 60%, I checked Stub Hub one day, and found they had more than 20 tickets on sale for the next days performance, at double or more than box office price.
This seemed perverse to me - our show was never going to be HAMILTON or BOOK OF MORMON - so no reason for speculators to have pre-bought tickets. I found that every ticket for sale on Stub Hub was still in the inventory you could purchase via Telecharge - or at the box office. This is a practice where you dont even have to invest in the ticket until you find a buyer. This IS illegal. |
