The Real Coachella Scalpers

[betao]

The Coachellers vs The Corporation: live 2012.

[GeezrRckr]

Actually there is a reflective plate that the astronauts placed on the surface of the moon. Scientists/astronomers can shine a high powered lazer on the exact spot of the plate and due to its precise shape and design, the lazer will reflect back to the earth exactly where it came from.

[blitzerdog]

Guys, stop feeding the troll.

[chucky canuck]

The OP knows nothing.
Goldenvoice has done everything to dissuade scalpers. They put tickets up for sale months ago, and they were on sale for days. If you wanted a ticket, it was very, very easy to get one. If you chose not to buy one, blame yourself and yourself only.

By having such an advance sale (while not mailing out tix/wristbands until months later), it made scalpers think twice about forking out thousands of dollars in June and having to wait until the following March for payment.

Also, notice how Goldenvoice has restricted access to parking lots and surrounding area to people with wristbands -- another way to keep scalping activities away and clear the traffic mess of 2010.

Thirdly, notice how we have two weekends now? If an organizer wanted to get big scalping prices through some secondary market (which you have not linked them to, btw), they would keep the fest at one weekend and charge $$$$$ for tix.

Coachella's popularity has risen exponentially in recent years. Hats off to Goldenvoice for trying to deal with the growing crowds, scalpers and other hurdles, in order to keep the festival's vibe.

[Bumblebee]

Actually, week 1 has already sold 170 tickets on stubhub for a cost of anywhere between $550-700+. I didn't bother looking at week 2, but I assume its up there too. Since tickets sold out today, I'd say that "a shitload" more tickets will be sold on the Secondary market in places like Stubhub et al.

Also, if they made $50,000,000 today that would assume they sold over 175,000 tickets, which would be almost 90,000 people each day. This would be another Clusterfuckchella. They probably are only selling 150,000 tickets max for both weekends since last year it was supposedly maxed out at 75,000. Thats about $40 million.

If Goldenvoice can sell an extra 7,500 tickets (could easily be more) on the secondary market and claim that they sold out tickets for both weekends in 3 hours they are doing 2 things: 1] Making about $2.5 million more on the tickets (which is a 6% increase in revenue, and in the business world you don't meet your numbers, you find ways to exceed them. 6% gain is huge) AND 2]creating more demand for the following years with even shittier lineups because people are paying for the Coachella Brand that sells out quickly every year. Its all about the reputation.

Ask yourself this: If you could buy tickets on the Coachella website 3 days before the event, would it be so popular???? People want what is difficult to get.

Coachella should really be honest and have Something Corporate close out the festival each year.

Billboard published a figure of roughly $25mil strictly in ticket sales for 2011. This includes 8-9,000 VIP passes.

1 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Chemical Brothers, The Strokes, Animal Collective, Kings of Leon and others Empire Polo Field
Indio, Calif.
April 15-17, 2011
$24,993,698
75,000 /
75,000
3 /
3
$699, $269
Goldenvoice/AEG Live

Last year forum members could only track sales around 2-3,000 tickets changing hands on various craigslist, stubhub and ebay. They aren't really sold elsewhere in any notable quality. keep in mind that's counting ticket that sold for less that $100 over face value.

[Bumblebee]

Various camping & camping passes would have brought in a million more($3mil was my estimate). I've never seen hard numbers except I think last year there was a refernce to 8,000 tent camping spots written somewhere.

[Bumblebee]

Thirdly, notice how we have two weekends now? If an organizer wanted to get big scalping prices through some secondary market (which you have not linked them to, btw), they would keep the fest at one weekend and charge $$$$$ for tix.

Even if they do $1-2millin scalper sales(huge over estimate, BTW)it's a drop in the bucket compared to the $25-30 mil they get in various tickets GV sell. Not to mention the probably $10mil+ they do in booze/food/non-band merch

[foaminjectedaxlrose]

Here is a really well-written article that came out after the LCD Soundsystem last show fiasco. If 'The Corporation' is fucking us, this is how and why they're doing it.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/0...etting-burned/

More likely than not, Coachella is just a popular festival. Have you ever told someone about Coachella? Yes, yes you have. When you did so, did you tell them it was okay, or did you tell them that it was the best fucking weekend ever, and that you're never going to miss it again? You told them the latter. Word of mouth travels fast, and influences people strongly. That is what happened.

[babies on parade]

this isn't about "math" and "facts," it's about "the corporation" trying to steal our dollars and our brains for their robot sex machine. duh.

[Sensuality]

OP stirs up troubles and bounces. Troll thread? Or just beaten by logic and embarrassed? You decide.

[still_lurking]

The real villain is all of the people who knew they wanted to go to Coachella last June, and decided to pay the reasonable price of monthly payments every month to go to the festival. Said evil Corporation gave these people the opportunity to do so! Truly atrocious (and well planned) people, aren't many of us.

Monthly payments are in the interest of corporations. Car companies aren't being generous to their customers when they work with finance companies to set up monthly payments. Instead, just like Coachella, they are finding innovative ways to sell their product. Its called making money.

I'm glad you broke all of this down...I've just been to lazy to type it all up.

Seriously guys - he's right. I mean, it's still Coachella, and it's still gonna be hella fun - but if Goldenvoice (a subsidiary of AEG) can make 2 - 4 millions dollars more by selling to Stubhub...they will. Plain and simple. That's what they do - they make money. This isn't fuckin' Lighting In A Bottle, this isn't some fun little hippie fest...this is where the big boys come play.

I wonder where Paul Tollett ate dinner tonight?

Paul T celebrated big time

Billboard published a figure of roughly $25mil strictly in ticket sales for 2011. This includes 8-9,000 VIP passes.

1 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Chemical Brothers, The Strokes, Animal Collective, Kings of Leon and others Empire Polo Field
Indio, Calif.
April 15-17, 2011
$24,993,698
75,000 /
75,000
3 /
3
$699, $269
Goldenvoice/AEG Live

Last year forum members could only track sales around 2-3,000 tickets changing hands on various craigslist, stubhub and ebay. They aren't really sold elsewhere in any notable quality. keep in mind that's counting ticket that sold for less that $100 over face value.

If ticket sales made $25M in 2011, and forum members were able track up to 3,000 tickets changing hands on the various secondary markets at well above ticket prices then we are looking at the following:

Tracking ticket sales on the secondary market is not an easy task, so its safe to assume that forum members were only able to track half of the tickets changing hands. If half of the secondary market tickets were sold by Goldenvoice and the other half were sold by your usual scalpers then --

3,000 secondary market tickets x $300 average markup = $900,000 additional revenue

$900,000 additional revenue is roughly a 4% increase in revenue for ticket prices. A 4% increase in revenue is a big deal.

If forum members were only able to track less than half the tickets sold on the secondary market, then Goldenvoice most likely made more than a 4% increase in revenue.

Good find on the numbers btw.

Even if they do $1-2millin scalper sales(huge over estimate, BTW)it's a drop in the bucket compared to the $25-30 mil they get in various tickets GV sell. Not to mention the probably $10mil+ they do in booze/food/non-band merch

Please tell me you don't believe that a large corporation does not care about making an extra $1-2 million dollars on ticket sales, which would be a 4-8% increase in revenue on ticket sales.

Here is a really well-written article that came out after the LCD Soundsystem last show fiasco. If 'The Corporation' is fucking us, this is how and why they're doing it.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/0...etting-burned/

More likely than not, Coachella is just a popular festival. Have you ever told someone about Coachella? Yes, yes you have. When you did so, did you tell them it was okay, or did you tell them that it was the best fucking weekend ever, and that you're never going to miss it again? You told them the latter. Word of mouth travels fast, and influences people strongly. That is what happened.

Interesting article; seems similar to what happened at Coachella this year. Coachella is able to sell their tickets on the secondary market for a large markup.

Lefsetz purports, in a step by step process, that the mastermind behind the shortage of tickets is the promoter LCD Soundsystem chose for the final concert, The Bowery Presents. In sum, Lefsetz suggests that, instead of scalpers snatching up thousands of tickets in mere seconds, The Bowery Presents withheld tickets and disseminated them to aftermarket ticketing outlets... Scalpers, in this new economic model, are fast becoming useful tools for this one promoter trying to account for the increased capital needed to fund an event marred by increased guarantees and a sagging music industry... Increased scalping activity for a show increases the perception that the concert might be more successful than it actually is.

OP stirs up troubles and bounces. Troll thread? Or just beaten by logic and embarrassed? You decide.

The troll is you logging in at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon. It was a nice day, and I had better things to do than sit on the Coachellers message board.

And, Lulz@your idea of logic

[PrettyToneBK]

Kudos. You came back strong @still_lurking. Scalpers help sell out events and in tough economic times like this big festivals MAY HAVE trouble selling out. Not saying this one would have but consider this...

Let's assume hypothetically that the every person who bought tickets were not going to resell them. Maybe.. just maybe... shit wouldn't sell out in 2 hours.

For a scalper, having tickets like this is gold and for the promoter it's a guaranteed sell-out. I can easily sell my ticket for double tomorrow on my stellar e-bay account BUT I happen to love music and want to truly attend. Maybe if they were really serious, they would attach a name and birth date to the ticket. Do it airline style. What do you think the %age is of people who buy a ticket and then can't go for whatever reason? I'd say very small. It's a win for the promoter because all sales are still final. They can set-up a system where you change the info. BAM. Scalpers gone. Unless there is a hole you guys can find in my evil master plan to banish the scalpers from the planet.. onto the moon... to reflect light.. and shit...?

Sad part is events NEED scalpers and scalpers need events... and if you're late, unlucky or broke go fuck yourself. lol

[Bumblebee]

Monthly payments are in the interest of corporations. Car companies aren't being generous to their customers when they work with finance companies to set up monthly payments. Instead, just like Coachella, they are finding innovative ways to sell their product. Its called making money.

If ticket sales made $25M in 2011, and forum members were able track up to 3,000 tickets changing hands on the various secondary markets at well above ticket prices then we are looking at the following:

Tracking ticket sales on the secondary market is not an easy task, so its safe to assume that forum members were only able to track half of the tickets changing hands. If half of the secondary market tickets were sold by Goldenvoice and the other half were sold by your usual scalpers then --

3,000 secondary market tickets x $300 average markup = $900,000 additional revenue

$900,000 additional revenue is roughly a 4% increase in revenue for ticket prices. A 4% increase in revenue is a big deal.

If forum members were only able to track less than half the tickets sold on the secondary market, then Goldenvoice most likely made more than a 4% increase in revenue.

Please tell me you don't believe that a large corporation does not care about making an extra $1-2 million dollars on ticket sales, which would be a 4-8% increase in revenue on ticket sales.

Interesting article; seems similar to what happened at Coachella this year. Coachella is able to sell their tickets on the secondary market for a large markup.

Apparently, US banks only acknowledge interest for the 3 months prior to concert events for the money held in escrow. This is true for single concert events and may not apply to festival events. Some rules were changed a couple years ago when Live Nation sized companies were selling shows a 9-12 months in advance and making too much on the side - Live Nation lost something like 200 major shows due to cancellations in 2009.

many of the Coachella passes that were tracked last year went for mid $400 range. The numbers simply aren't as high as some think.

GV/Coachella would be horrified to be "smeared" with a scalping story. Katy Perry got some VERY negative feedback from fans when Smoking Gun published her touring rider(live nation) that more of less spelled out her siphoning tickets. Spoke with a local scalper who said business on her shows bottomed out when that went public.

Comparing LCD@MSG vs. Coachella is a bit apples and oranges. Coachella still took the better part of a week to sell out in both 2011 and 2012 editions. Unlike seated tickets, one GA has as much "street" value as another. BTW, ticket for that show on the afternoon were available under $150 on the street, meaning scalpers must have got greedy and got burned(they had to pay a premium to get the ticket in the first place.

[Sensuality]

I'm so glad you had a nice day, mr. Lurking, what did you do? Play some croquet and eat fondue?

[chucky canuck]

All the OP's statements are based on what could be happening, not anything specific that GV has done. Actions speak louder than words, and GV has taken many steps to make scalping less profitable (summer pre-sale, ticket limit, second weekend).
Coachella is where Glstonbury was circa 1999...popularity growing exponentially and scalping/gate-crashing/crowd crush problems getting worse. Glasto ended up erecting a super-fence and making ticket-buying very hard. GV is trying to preserve the festival's vibe...not sure how long the'll be able to do that.

and most importantly, tickets were on sale last summer for DAYS. You had every chance to buy them.

[TomAz]

I'm glad you broke all of this down...I've just been to lazy to type it all up.

Seriously guys - he's right. I mean, it's still Coachella, and it's still gonna be hella fun - but if Goldenvoice (a subsidiary of AEG) can make 2 - 4 millions dollars more by selling to Stubhub...they will. Plain and simple. That's what they do - they make money. This isn't fuckin' Lighting In A Bottle, this isn't some fun little hippie fest...this is where the big boys come play.

I wonder where Paul Tollett ate dinner tonight?

God damn there are some seriously stupid motherfuckers on the board this time of year. Were you dropped on your head as a child?

[TomServo]

What's insane is that nobody since freakin' Pearl Jam has complained significantly about the fees added to every ticket - does anybody think it really costs $40 per ticket to service and process tickets? That's $2.6 million to process the tickets for one weekend of 65k attendees.

I understand they have to produce the wristbands and technology to keep them scalper-free, but somehow other festivals do it fee-free or for significantly less (the Voodoo Experience, with a similar number of attendees, sold $75-100 3-day tickets with $8 per ticket service fees). And if you think fence-jumping is a purely Coachella thing, you haven't been to any other festivals.

Coachella is one of the most expensive music festivals in this country, even without the fees. You'd think for the highest service fees you'd get the tickets without issue and quickly, instead of waiting till the last minute like some of our members last year to receive partial orders. Hopefully the problems will all be ironed out this year, of course.

[faxman75]

Servo serving up an awful post.

[Premium Roast]

you gonna get served like that, servo?

[Mugwog]

I heard Coachella makes the most out of selling fake drugs to attendees and then they do this hypnosis music that makes you think youre on the drugs, they make this shit out of windex bro, so like they get it from kmart and leave it in the sun for a few days, then drive around with it in bags to make it legit, i know this is true because my friends older cousins nephew from uganda told his sister this story and his sister nevers lies about her brothers stories that have the do with golden voice being fake drug peddlers, its a srs crime

[Premium Roast]

heard it was off lemonade sales

[TomServo]

Servo serving up an awful post.

Nothing I said was inaccurate. Not a word.

Austin City Limits - No Fees.
Sasquatch - No Fees. Free camping for a 4-day festival.
Lollapalooza - No Fees.
Voodoo Experience - $8 per ticket fee.

That's all that were easy to find (most festivals are in the in-between time where they haven't published this year's info), but if you can find another American festival with higher ticketing service fees, I'd love to know what it is. Also, if you can find another more expensive American music festival, provide that. And for that, we got threads like this one:

WTF? Where are my tickets?

Not to mention hundreds of posts in similar threads. The most expensive fees in the industry should include the best service. Goldenvoice has built this festival into the Mercedes-Benz of the American festival world in many ways, but the service is not.

[Bumblebee]

Does GV resell all the drugs left in the "amnesty" mailbox thing on the festival grounds as well?

[faxman75]

Lolla I've paid service fees at both Sasquatch and Lolla I have no idea what your talking about. Lolla uses frontgate and Saquatch uses ticketmaster. Also the voodoo 3 day pass price is a presale special. Yes what you said was inaccurate. With Lolla, maybe you don't see the service fee but trust me, Front Gate isn't volunteering their services. Also, we've debated the cost of Coachella extensively and most of think the price is fine because field isn't littered with corporate sponsorship and water is still $2. Go to Lolla its a shit show when compared to Coachella.

[JustSteve]

Coachella is one of the most expensive music festivals in this country, even without the fees.

remember that many other festivals are in major cities or at venues already established. coachella is in the middle of the desert where every item must be shipped in and set up from scratch.

[PlayaDelWes]

remember that many other festivals are in major cities or at venues already established. coachella is in the middle of the desert where every item must be shipped in and set up from scratch.

So that's why weekend two is considerably cheaper....

[Goatchella]

Plus all the magic...cost a lot to make all that magic.

[TomAz]

The biggest Coachella scalper of them all is Goldenvoice.

Yes...I said it. Goldenvoice.

Its a scheme for The Corporation all you little Coachellers bow down to every year.

They sold many of their tickets through ticketmaster; however, the rest of the tickets that The Corporation will be selling their tickets is the secondary market -- Stubhub.com. This is a way for The Corporation to make more money off the Coachellers. They can sell tickets they usually sell for $285 on the secondary market for $285++++. Its a good market scheme and allows The Corporation to sell at different price points on your Coachellers demand curves.

Awesome strategy by The Corporation. So when you Coachellers cry about scalpers, just remember that the biggest scalper of them all is the person (remember, Corporations are people too) putting on your event :-)

So, it would appear you have the business sense of a lab rat. Let's explore this further. You say GV has chosen to purchase many of its own tickets so that it can resell them at a higher price. You offer no evidence that this is happening, it is simply a hypothesis you have thought up and have convinced yourself is true.

The thing is, though, your hypothesis doesn't make a lick of sense. Not one bit. Zero. If GV wanted to generate additional revenue WHY WOULDN'T THEY JUST CHARGE MORE FOR COACHELLA TICKETS TO START WITH?

you can return to hitting yourself on the head with a mallet now.

[HandBanana]

with all the pain in the world and Urban Outfitters sadding the navajo yall should not use the word "scalpers" please increase the peace.

[Somewhat Damaged]

So that's why weekend two is considerably cheaper....

Because that wouldn't elicit bitching from weekend 1 attendees from paying more for the same lineup and/or lead to a flood of people opting for weekend 2 instead.