Revenue / 05.09.19

Bots at the Ticket Office Pushing Event Ticket Prices Higher

Access Staff

NBC Bay Area (05/03/19) Chmura, Chris; Rojas, Joe; Jackson, James

Billions of software bots are scooping up concert tickets ahead of fans for inflated resale on the secondary market, with various factors to blame. "The moment that they go on sale, the bots are—in milliseconds—purchasing tickets," explains Distil Networks' Edward Roberts. "[Bots are] locking real fans out." According to Distil, bots currently make up nearly 40 percent of all Web traffic to online box offices, but they can capture even more seats thanks to their superior speed. Despite the outlawing of the practice, enforcement is lax, and StubHub's Jerry Poirier says curtailing bot activity is a massive undertaking, due to both the vast numbers of bots in operation, and the continuous arms race between scalpers and regulators. "Unless we know where they purchased those tickets, and how they purchased them—what they used to purchase them—we don't know where they've acquired those tickets, or how," he admits. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kans.) reportedly plans to query the Federal Trade Commission about its apparent inability to enforce the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which he sponsored.

Read the full article from NBC Bay Area.

Tags: Reselling , Bots , News , Secondary Ticketing