My 11 year old daughter wants to go see the Jonas Brothers (i know, who?) in the worst way. So I pony up $40 to join the Fan club so I can get tix during the pre-sale this morning. There is a limit of 4 tix per login as well, so I figure I have a decent shot at good seats. I paid about $140 each for tickets to see Hannah Montana back in December, so I don't want to get burned again.
10:00 AM rolls around and the website is overloaded. Server is giving a timeout message. After frantically hitting refresh for 12 minutes, I get my password and am re-directed to TicketMaster. The first set of tix is in the 400's! Yuck. I cancel and go back. I'm getting section 306 at Darien Lake. Cancel . . . refresh . . . 3 more time, still section 306 . . . Not the worst seats, but not what you would expect 12 minutes into a pre-sale. So I buy them. She gets to go with her little friends, but I would like to have scored better seats . . .
Stubhub and e-bay already have tickets in the 100 and 200 levels selling for $200 - $400 per seat . . .
I am all for free enterprise and really do not want to see government intervention into this, but the software used by brokers to override the ticket limits and bypass the login process at ticketmaster and other sites ought to be illegal. If you want to buy tix and sell 'em after market, go ahead . . . but put me on a level playing field with the brokers so I don't have to pony up $200 for tickets to what will be a kids event.