"Everybody hates scalpers.  Just the word reminds us of our frustration at missing out on a sellout show and our distaste at those slimy bastards making money off our desparation. It's normal to feel those emotions. Irrational, but normal.

 

The frustration is justified - it's just misdirected. It should often be aimed at the artists and promoters who would rather one sellout show than two shows that might be at less than capacity. Most frustration however is the fault of the ticketing agencies who refuse to provide facilities that can cope with peak demand. The distaste is not really justified. The capitalist system may or may not be evil, but you can't direct that hatred solely towards scalpers - think 100% retail markup. Accepting for a moment that someone who provides a service of value is allowed to make a profit, I'd like to convince you that scalpers do provide a valuable service.

 

The main fallacy is that genuine fans miss out on tickets. Pages of ebay auctions leads to the thought: "Because of scalpers I did not get a ticket". The reality is that a small proportion of tickets will end up being re-sold. Take the Sydney Big Day Out, which sells out in less than an hour every year, and has about 45,000 tickets. It turns out that only about 1,000 of these tickets will be re-sold - around 2%. Now the thought becomes: "Because of scalpers, I stood a 2% lower chance of getting a ticket". Sure it's not great, but 2% is hardly worth condemnation. There's more to the story though: you had 2% less chance of getting a ticket on release, but gained the ability to buy a ticket at market price at your leisure. Two months later tickets are going for $160-$180, which is $20 to $40 more than the orginal price. How much is your time worth? 

 

It's true that without scalpers there will be more chance of getting a ticket on release. However if an event takes 60 minutes to sell out, with an extra 2% it will now sell out in 61.2 minutes. The fundamental point that many people fail to realise is that without scalpers you would not have a choice at all - you either have to buy early or you miss out.

 

You have 61.2 minutes to buy a ticket, relying on poorly designed websites or lining up for several hours. If you don't have the money, the time, or the luck on the day of sale you miss out completely - you simply can't go.

 

You have 60 minutes to buy normally if that suits you, or you can wait a few months, waste virtually none of your time and buy for a little more.

 

Do scalpers really deserve your hatred for giving you so much more flexibility at such a small price?

 

One final thought: Just because you find the way that someone makes a living distasteful does not mean it's not worthwhile - merely that you should let someone else do it. I personally would hate to have a job cleaning public toilets - but imagine the world if nobody did it?"