Summer is almost here, signifying the days ahead will only get busier for him. Today will be another frantic one for Dexter, his alarm waking him earlier than usual. For the second time that morning, his wife would enjoy the warm sheets to herself. She is familiar with this routine, and her husbands' morning activities no longer disturb her. He doesn't even bother turning to check she is still sleeping while he leaves. In the next room, Dexter is greeted by a cold chair and a cluttered desk. If he could look away from his computer for a moment, he would see the nursery across the hall where his son sleeps. There is work to be done though, and family duties for the moment will need to be placed on hold. This is a once a year opportunity for him, and in a few short mouse clicks it will all be over. For most people, fast money doesn't come often enough; for Dexter, fast money is a hobby.

 

A decade ago, people like Dexter would never have bothered to venture into the seedy world of ticket scalping. Waiting in line ups trying to buy tickets to a show they'll never see, only to stand around later in venue shadows hoping to offload them for profit. It takes a special kind of person who can complete the unsavory transaction face-to-face with a stranger.  

 

 

The 21^st century has removed the nasty side of ticket scalping; trench coats have been retired to the wardrobes and replaced with pocket protectors and calculators. Sure, any semi-interweb-savvy opportunist can buy and sell goods online, but it's the nerds who have elevated scalping to an art form. While the rest of us are herded into laneways and shop fronts, or left helpless by crashing websites that can't handle the demand from the left clicking masses, Dexter is making coffee and getting ready for work. If you have ever been in a situation where you simply could not purchase tickets to an upcoming show, and I'm sure most of us have, you know how frustrating it can be when those tickets which could have been yours are already for up for grabs to the highest bidder on eBay.

 

People like Dexter don't miss out on those hard to get tickets, and I'm pretty certain that when he posts those tickets on eBay just minutes after buying them, he hasn't just accidentally made plans for the same night. He patiently researches upcoming events, signs up for mailing lists and writes his own computer scripts that make the purchases for him. Without even loading a webpage, Dexter's relentless little scripts merely pound the vendor's servers until he has maxed out his credit cards with purchases for gigs across Australia. All of those angry feelings that surge through your body while you fall into a state of despair knowing that you will now need to pay an inflated scalpers cost.  

 

 

When Dexter opened his desk drawer to show me the $5000 worth of tickets he was currently scalping, my whole body was enveloped with betrayal.

 

 

I had been good friends with this man for nearly a decade and thought we shared a similar philosophy for a greater good. Sadly, that was no longer the case. Dexter had never been secretive about his odd foray into scalping, and the idea that he was only occasionally committing such a vile deed was intolerable enough. Looking inside that desk drawer changed me, I had never liked scalpers before, but now I hated them.

 

 

Just the idea that a dirty scalper could be lurking in my circle of friends angered me, and when I was unable to convince Dexter of his wicked ways, it angered me even more. Any attempt to corner him in social situations by drawing his dirty habit into a discussion was futile. He relinquishes the opportunity to defend himself, robotically launching into a rehearsed spiel on free markets and illusions about providing a service. Calling him a scalper will occasionally hit a nerve. Those that dabble in this trade prefer to be called resellers; much like the Bush administration renaming torture to ‘enhanced interrogation’. How Dexter has become morally blinded by money astonishes me. Is it really that easy to screw money from strangers when the physical interaction of the process takes place anonymously? His actions are carefully planned and he knows exactly what he is doing. Three years involved with this filthy profession, Dexter is a seasoned pro. Organized like Nazi Germany, ten steps ahead of the regular ticket consuming public, morally and ethically cleansed by his own misguided rhetoric.

 

 

 

 

It was nearly a year ago now that I had first approached Dexter about this story. Despite our different opinions on the subject, we are still good mates, and he was happy to share his sordid little secrets and techniques about the trade. When I arrived at his house, Dexter was just putting his son down for a nap and finishing up a few things around the house. The day was almost sunny, so armed with a laptop and a few beers we sat outside and talked on his front step. First things first, find out what had influenced this thirty something IT professional to carve out a niche in such a loathed industry. Ironically, it was Triple J of all places that first inspired the idea. “It was in 2006; the breakfast show hosts were making this big fuss about Splendour in the Grass. Stacks of tickets had appeared on eBay shortly after it had sold out. It was fantastic publicity for scalping on eBay, previous to that I had never even considered it.” Things would clearly have been different if Dexter listened to talkback radio, nevertheless, the seed had been planted.  Now he just had to decide on which festival to cut his teeth.

 

 

“I decided on that year’s Falls Festival. I started small and bought only four tickets, but I made $600. After that I just went crazy!” Apparently ticket scalping is kind of seasonal, although he would sell tickets all year round; it was summer that brought in the hard work and revenue. Dexter confessed that in the summer months, he would buy up around $1500 worth of tickets a week, while that drawer load he had showed me earlier was probably the most he had ever bought at any one time.

 

 

As the sun persisted to rise above us, Dexter continued to reveal details on all the best venues and festivals to target. I sat there sipping my beer, attempting to get all the information down with my one finger typing technique and was astounded by just how easy he made ticket scalping sound. In front of me was Dexter’s years of hard work, all researched with advice, his ‘code’ if you will. While despite knowing that all good little Merge readers would never succumb to the darkside, (insert halo here *bing*), there is no way we could possibly publish such information. I requested that he ‘vague’ it up for the magazine. “To be blunt, anything with a young female demographic is a winner. Buy as many tickets as you can”. So what kind of shows would you avoid? “Well, you don’t want to get stuck with sixteen tickets to Rod Stewart or Elton John.” I agreed, and wondered who on Earth would, but those shows sell out too, so why not scalp those? “I don’t think older generations really understand eBay, or perhaps they purely refuse to support resellers. Like hippies, they have certain morals, but that’s their morals, not mine, not everyone’s”.

 

 

That’s the kicker for me, morals. While defending his right to be a scalper, Dexter argues “It has nothing to do with morals and ethics. I’m providing a service, the ticket buying public should thank me. If people blame me for missing out on tickets for something, they are completely uninformed.” This is always his staple defense. The very small percentage of tickets that are actually snapped up by scalpers, indicate that there’s every chance it’s not their fault that you missed out.

 

 

However, the moral argument here isn’t whether or not Dexter is responsible for the passionate, music lovers in our community missing out on tickets. Rather it’s the ethics surrounding the purchase of goods you realise someone else will dearly want, purely to profit from them because you have the means to. Dexter will sometimes acknowledge that there are morals involved with ticket scalping, signifying that he understands my argument, and I sense on some level he agrees, but definitely would never admit it.

 

 

Putting that un-winnable dispute behind me, I chose to twist open another beer for Dexter and move on with my fact finding duties. Now that fatherhood consumes most of his time, I was curious to know if he was keeping up with his online pillaging. “This year has been a bad year for me”, grinning smugly I sparked a cigarette. You could sense some overdue karma coming home to roost. Dexter continued, “So far I’d estimate I’ve lost around $1400 in the last six months”, but he didn’t appear too upset, clearly confident that this misfortune was only short term. “I did some travelling this year and forgot to post some tickets on time. Chuck that in with the buyers that claim they never received the tickets, plus the winning bidders that don’t end up paying, this year hasn’t been as good as it could have been”.  This is one of the drawbacks from scalping on eBay. The seller doesn’t have the opportunity to leave negative feedback for non-paying bidders. The auction system assumes that the buyer retains the goods and no one loses, but when the goods are concert tickets to a show that took place the night before, Dexter foots the bill.

 

 

Dexter doesn’t seem to be bothered when things don’t always work out okay, after all, this business is one of financial risk. The profits reaped from the previous years of dedicated scalping, clearly negate the minor losses of this year’s failed endeavors. If you thought the laughter of little children was a sound to behold, wait until you hear the girlish giggle of a hairy male scalper. Echoing the sounds of a school girl whilst donning a partly evil grin, Dexter recalls some of his favourite scalping fairytales.

 

 

“The recent U2 tour could not have gone better. After the shows had all sold out and I had made some good margin on my original purchases, the vendors began releasing a stream of extra tickets for the same shows. For some reason though they weren’t advertised, so everyone just assumed the shows were still sold out. While consumers were scouring eBay for the best deals, I just kept buying tickets legitimately and moving them to the right market. I sold at least forty extra tickets because of people’s ignorance”.

 

 

Dexter is confident in his belief that scalpers do indeed provide a valuable service to concert goers. In this case he was clearly providing a required service to idiot U2 fans who simply weren’t paying attention, and without Dexter, would probably never have made it to the show. However, as his story suggests, our generation is looking at eBay primarily as their ticket source, and it’s the online scalpers that have caused this shift. Dexter may not be responsible for it, but there is clearly a community of scalpers among us that have pioneered it, and are continuing to nurture it. This brings us to another story that Dexter gets a kick out of telling. Still with his cold beverage in hand, he giggles and remembers Bloc party’s first tour. “I bought eight tickets to both Sydney and Melbourne, sold them for a hundred dollars profit each. It was beautiful. No problems, no hassles and no complaints. All the buyers paid straight away and I collected $1600 for my two hours of trouble.” Which is fine, he is a scalper, but this is the part that troubles me, “Other scalpers on eBay were actually emailing me to grumble about bringing down the market with such a low profit margin”.

 

 

What? How organized are these guys? Is there a club with a secret handshake? Do they meet twice a year to bathe in baby blood? Or…. do they just play World of Warcraft? Either way, it is rather concerning knowing that there is indeed a community of scalpers operating covertly online, targeting the passionate music fan. Ticket scalping has become big business, and it's proof that capitalism lends opportunity for a decline in morals and ethics within our community.

 

 

Saying goodbye to Dexter and promising him a coveted Merge t-shirt for his troubles, I realized there  was one question that still needed to be asked. Is there any show he wouldn't scalp tickets to? "The Wiggles", he responded without a second thought. "those show are super hot property and are guaranteed to sell out. Parents will pay anything to keep the little ones happy". Jackpot! I thought. Dexter who claimed that scalping was devoid of moral and ethical complications had seemingly slipped. "So Dexter, are you going to admit then that ticket scalping is morally wrong?" I couldn't wait to watch him squirm out of this one. "What?" he answered looking confused, "No, I would love to scalp tickets to the Wiggles, I'd make a fortune. It's just that my wife won't let me."