THE NIN HOTLINE

Sunday March 15, 2009

Reznor spills details about scalpers and efforts made to avoid them

One of the things that has always been a mystery to me as a fan has been the workings of the Ticketmaster and the like. Ticketing operations seem very clandestine, and surely you've wondered how scalpers have been able to get such good seats to shows, when you've camped out for tickets, or kept five browser windows open while calling from a landline and two cell phones, only to get seated at the back of the arena where you might as well have brought binoculars along.

For the record, I've been approached by StubHub and TicketsNow several times in the past, each seeking to advertise on this site and give me a commission on tickets sold through links we would theoretically post, and every time they approach, I've taken unusual glee in sending them somewhat wordy "go fuck yourself" emails.

This issue has apparently come up in conversation a lot recently at the NIN camp, as Trent has posted a very nice summary of how the ticketing industry does its thing, and steps he's taken to avoid the worst of it when utilizing established promoters.

I assure you nobody in the NIN camp supplies or supports the practice of supplying tickets to these re-sellers because it's not something we morally feel is the right thing to do. We are leaving money on the table here but it's not always about money.
Being completely honest, it IS something I've had to consider. If people are willing to pay a lot of money to sit up front AND ARE GOING TO ANYWAY thanks to the rigged system, why let that money go into the hands of the scalpers? I'm the one busting my ass up there every night. The conclusion really came down to it not feeling like the right thing to do - simple as that.

It's an illuminating read, check it out when you've got a few minutes to spare.