The laws on this will vary city by city. In San Diego, it is perfectly legal to sell tickets for whatever somebody will pay as long as you don't do it on the stadium grounds. That's why ticket brokers exist in SD.
I happened to be up by the Stadium yesterday and the traffic was locked up because of the Charger game and both sides of the streets had lots of people holding signs 'tickets for sale', etc. and my partner said that was illegal to do that. Do what?
Sell the tickets..scalping. Why? Why would it be illegal to do that?
If you bought a ticket for your friend and then he/she couldn't go, it would be illegal to ask somebody at work if they wanted to buy it off of you???
Or, is it illegal if you try to profit from it by padding the price a little? Even then, why is that illegal?
It doesn't make any sense..
Anyway, then I got to thinking that since there were so many people lining the streets selling tickets, doing something illegal, then why weren't there cop cars busting them the same way they would if it were streetwalkers lining the streets?
'Splain it to me, Lucy..???
The laws on this will vary city by city. In San Diego, it is perfectly legal to sell tickets for whatever somebody will pay as long as you don't do it on the stadium grounds. That's why ticket brokers exist in SD.
One of the initial concerns regarding this was whether a person might run into legal problems regarding ticket scalping. In California, it is not against the law to sell tickets above their initial price if you didn't purchase the tickets for the purpose of reselling them and, most importantly, if you are not selling them on the grounds of the venue where the event is taking place. Penal Code § 346. See also, Food & Ag. Code § 4301. Therefore, an on-line swap site shouldn't be a problem in California.
The exceptions in California are boxing, wrestling and martial arts exhibitions; for those events, no one is permitted to sell a ticket for more than the price stamped on the ticket, regardless of where the transaction takes place. Business and Professions Code § 18703. There are also some very strict California Regulations regarding how tickets for boxing, wrestling and martial arts events can be printed. 4 Cal. Code of Regs. §§ 260, et seq. This would affect the third phase of the plan, if we were to implement a way to actually print tickets for events. Given the foregoing, we simply might not want to deal in these types of events.
Scalping isn't out and out illegal. Scalping laws vary by state and, in some cases, municipality. In my neck of the woods the laws differ in the city and surrounding counties. It is not illegal to sell any ticket at face value in the city, but if you want to sell more than four tickets to the same game you have to be at least a mile from the stadium. It is illegal to sell the ticket for an amount above face value in the city. However, in surrounding counties you can sell the ticket for whatever you can get for it.
So, a person in an office building less than a mile from a stadium would be breaking the law if they sold the ticket to an office-mate for above face value. So would a person hawking tickets within the one-mile perimeter. Care to guess which one gets busted more?
Bottom line - it's ok for colleges and pro teams to do it, just not anyone else.
The sale to a friend is one thing but some of these ticket brokers are flat out thieves...UNSCRUPULOUS!
I remember reading a great article on it cause I felt the same way you did...so I enjoyed reading it at the time.
I was able to locate it.Here's the link below.
Cheers!
Event ticketing is a heavily regulated industry. There are all kinds of rules that vary by state, county, if the buyer/seller live in the same state as the event, etc.. I can't explain why they have all the rules, probably because without rules there is chaos! eBay has some info regarding the laws of each state. They used to delist auctions that would go over the face value of the tickets but I haven't seem them do that in a while.
In a nutshell, you can sell at face value and nobody will give it a second thought. But the scalpers are trying to sell at several times face value. This is where you could get 20 lashes with a wet noodle from LE.
"This is where you could get 20 lashes with a wet noodle from LE."
Ah, I remember the "good ole days" when your wet noodle could still get 20 lashes from Sedona.
As everyone has said, the laws, as well as enforcement, vary greatly. Here in New England, where purity is a long-standing tradition- a couple of years ago, a long time [ie thru all the bad years] Patriots season ticket holder [2], who even went to a few away games each season, knew he would be unable to attend a particular Sunday game so went on eBay to sell his tiks for that game only. At this point the Pats were winning so the bids were considerable. The Pats saw the eBay ad and immediately revoked both tickets, dropped him from the season ticket holder list and sent a cheack for the remainder of the games. There was litigation in Federal Court and the Pats won. Escorting is also illegal and season tickets are difficult to come by. Enforcement is also selective, with particular attention paid to SWs and MPs.
It is illegal for bicyclists for ignore traffic laws (i.e. ride through stop signs and red lights), but they do it in front of cops all the time. Selective law enforcement - all cities do it, but The Machine really is obvious about it. When I lived in San Francisco, the vice squad arrested street walkers once a year as a token gesture to the law. Must be a nice job to work a couple days out of the year and get paid for the whole year. Personally I'm happy knowing the donut shops of America are safe.
Say middleman A buys up whole blocks of tickets to a popular event. He marks up the ticket prices when the venue is sold out. But, instead of selling them on the street, he sells them to middleman B, who marks them up, then you have middleman C....
Now, say middleman C misjudges what the market will bear. He can't unload the tickets at a profitable price.
Or say he doesn't. But by the time the tickets actually filter down to the public, they've paid so many middlemen who added no value that they are angry with it.
So, what you really end up having is a sold out venue of mostly empty seats, and a very angry, disgruntled public, who will probably give up on such venues.
/Zin