GETTING EVENT TICKETS IN SEATTLE IS A FIXED GAME. MONOPOLIES, BOTS AND LACK OF TRANSPARENCY KEEPS THE FANS LOCKED OUT AND IN THE DARK.

Buying tickets to your favorite artist or team maybe a frustrating task to you but for scalpers selling tickets on the second market (scalping or brokers) it's extremely profitable - a 8 billion dollar a year industry in fact. Today, secondary ticketing services have progressed from scalpers standing outside a venue before a show to sophisticated online marketplaces, the largest of which are StubHub and Ticketmaster’s own TicketExchange / TicketsNow / TM+ / Verified Tickets platforms That skyrocketing cost is felt most by consumers with fee increases, illegal means of ticket acquisition and lack of transparency forcing fans to buy tickets from a inflated second market for prices as high as 1000 times the face value.

• 29 states have laws regarding reselling tickets offering protections to the consumer. Washington state and the city of Seattle has no laws other than the illegal use of bots but the law has not been enforced.
• A example of bots being used recently occurred in December when Adele tickets to two show went on sale and both shows were sold out with 39 minutes according to Seattle Center staff. There are still thousands of tickets available on the second market starting at $300 for the least desirable seats (face value: $35.50) and $7500 dollars at the high end.
• Ticketmaster the nations primary ticket seller has introduced more fees yet has proven they can not keep bots from grabbing all available tickets and the current system does not stop a buyer from logging back in and buying more tickets even when the artist requests a limit on tickets to any one buyer.

Ticketmaster is part of a larger conglomerate that includes promotions from Live Nation and a resale division. Some even consider the company a monopoly with it's 80% market share. In fact multiple lawsuits are currently pending against Ticketmaster by competitors i for abuse of market power The latest includes a company named Songkick and was filed after Adele tickets went on sale. They claim Ticketmaster wants control over who gets artist pre-sale tickets and threatened an artist by pulling services if they didn't get the pre-sale business.

The 2 main hurdles keep consumers from buying face-value tickets; hold backs and bots.

HOLD-BACKS: Hold backs as they are called in the industry are the percentage of tickets not available for general purchase. They are the tickets held back for promotions, management, the artist and band. Generally 30% to 90% of all tickets are not (not) available when tickets go on sale. Misleading the public who think more inventory is available than there actually is.

Also alarming is the city of Seattle' answer when asked for documentation re: availability of tickets (in a public disclosure request) for the general public when they went on sale for the Adele shows. The city responded "no responsive documents exist". So the city doesn't even know the inventory level or lack there of. Allowing the ticket sellers and/or event promotion company to operate unchecked at a taxpayer funded arena is not in our best interest. While no documentation existed staff at Key Arena said 85% of the tickets were available to the general public but that number would be the lowest nationally among the most popular shows and without documentation seems highly suspect.

BOTS: The second way the public can't compete is the use of bot systems which can be elaborate systems that bypass verification or imitate mobile service that has less requirements for authentication. In New York, a single vendor was able to buy 1,012 tickets to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden just one minute after they went on sale, even though the venue supposedly limited sales to four tickets per customer.

REMEDY: This is a informal request of Washington State Attorney General to investigate and prosecute those that use bots as the general public can not compete.

This is also a informal request to the city of Seattle (Mayor and City Council) to evaluate the current system for tickets, the cities role in accounting for tickets available and all vendors involved in hopes of offering fans some protection from a industry that doesn't have a strong track record in customer satisfaction --rather collects thousands of complaints a year.

It is within Seattle's power to set limits and demand transparency from businesses using public supported stadiums and venues. Ethically the city should ensure citizens are not becoming victims to a unregulated industry using public facilities to gain more profit.

The New York State Attorney General has investigated ticket buying at length and shared the industry's shameful findings here: http://www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/Ticket_Sales_Report.pdf The AG calls the whole ticket buying process "a fixed game"

For more information on this local effort for consumer fairness go to www.ChasingTickets.com