Also if they are staggering ticket drops to drive up demand - only bots or insiders would always be on hand to gobble up the new ticket drops - say days after the original sale.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investi...lars-less.html
From a Bruno Mars show in Toronto:
Quote:
The investigation, which analyzed the box office seven times in the first hour of sales, found fewer than half of the seats in the arena for sale. In eight sections, not a single ticket was put on sale. But 90 minutes later, these tickets trickled out in pairs and rows. These seats are known as “hold-backs” and effectively throttle the supply of tickets in the opening moments when demand is highest.
“They do this for most shows [not sure if they do it for sports]. It’s standard practice,” said Ervil DiGiusto, a professional ticket broker who closely monitors the sales on Ticketmaster’s website. “They have complete rows but they don’t put them up all at once,” he said. “If (a fan) only sees a few pairs for sale, they’re going to jump on them.”
Hold-backs don’t just occur in the opening hours. Months after the box office opened, more blocks of tickets were released for the Bruno Mars show. On June 14 — four months after tickets initially went on sale — 72 premium seats on the floor and in the lower bowl appeared on the Ticketmaster site. On Aug. 7, another 144 tickets were released. Had those tickets been released earlier, fans who purchased more expensive seats might have opted for cheaper tickets.
“They’re artificially driving the price up. They’re artificially giving the impression of high demand,” said class action lawyer Tony Merchant, who launched a lawsuit against Ticketmaster in January after Canada’s Competition Bureau accused the company of price-gouging.
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