 ticket brokers. You love them or you hate them? That is all there are no in-betweens. With that being said, it brings up the question, what is a ticket broker and why does everybody hate them? Let's discuss. What's up guys? Welcome back. My name is Shreds. Here are thumbs up from what we talk all about buying tickets, selling tickets, and making sure that you have all the fun with your tickets. If you haven't hit that subscribe button yet, be sure to do so right now because a lot of great content is always coming up every single week. With that being said, we want to discuss the issue at hand here, ticket brokers, what are they, what do they do, and why does everybody hate them? I just... I don't know. It's an interesting question. So let's talk about that right now. So before we actually talk about what a ticket broker is, we need to go over some jargon. What are some common names that are used for ticket brokers? So there's ticket brokers, ticket scalpers, ticket flippers, anybody who's basically trying to buy and resell a ticket, these are your ticket brokers. This is kind of the generic what everyone understands a ticket broker to be. With that being said, there are a few little things I want to clarify. Number one, a ticket broker is not necessarily the same as a ticket scalper. Ticket scalpers, from my definition, I usually refer to those people as the ones who are actually outside venues on the days of the game trying to actually go ahead, sell those tickets to you last minute. You know, they got the tickets in their hand, they're just trying to hawk them, you know, buy, sell, trade. They're trying to get rid of their tickets, they're trying to add some tickets, they're trying to sell their tickets. They're the ones who are actually on the floor at the game, trying to make sure that tickets get out of their hands, into your hands for the most amount of money. Ticket scalper. Now, ticket broker, ticket flipper, ticket reseller, this is kind of the generic terms that I hear a lot more often and this is kind of what I would associate with a ticket broker. They are someone who is actually actively trying to buy tickets with the intent of then reselling those tickets for a markup, markup, profit, money, basically in the business of making money. They're not in the business of losing money, although it can happen, but they're trying to make money, money, money on those tickets. But now, that's not all they do, they also help people find tickets. So whether the ticket broker owns the inventory themselves or knows a contact on where to get them or is able to scour the internet and find all those great deals, there's someone you can actually reach out to, they can go ahead, find those perfect tickets that you're actually looking for, get them to do all the legwork, find you the perfect tickets and then just go ahead, pay them that money tickets show up in your head, all is well, everyone's birthdays are saved. Fantastic, amazing, wonderful. So ticket brokers, they do all these amazing things for people, they help them, you know, they bring smiles to faces, they bring people happy, they bring people experiences, they get them in the building, they get them in the amazing seats in the building. So what is the problem with ticket brokers? Well, one of the most common issues I hear about is that people say ticket brokers, they are the reason that people pay too much money to go to events. I mean, yes and no, I disagree. You know, it's not that they are the ones who are setting the prices for these different events, they're just the ones who are following what the market is willing to bear. For example, Taylor Swift, she came to Ottawa a few years ago, she started ticket prices at $49 Canadian. Think about that. We're in a small-ish city, she plays in all these other big places, Toronto, Montreal, New York, LA, Chicago, other massive markets, but then she also decided, hey, I'm going to come to Ottawa because why not? And then not only that, I'm going to start ticket prices at $49 so that people can actually come and watch my event. Fantastic. I'm so great. I'm making my fans have the ability to access my events at a good price. Fantastic. Face values were set, tickets went on sale, entire world crashing down. Ticket prices obviously could not hold at those levels because people want to go see Taylor Swift and if she never comes to Ottawa, when are they ever going to see them again? So obviously what happened? Tickets were all bought up, ticket prices were up, up, up, up, up on the resale market. Next thing you know, they're going for $200 plus just to get into the building, you know, great seats going for well over $500, $700,000 to get those great seats. Who'd we blame? The ticket brokers, of course. Saving half of the tragically hip, they announced their final tour. Madness ensued, people could not get their hands on tickets fast enough, ticket prices were insanely high, and then even the province of Ontario started getting involved, people started writing in, they actually ended up getting some legislation passed just because of all the things that happened. But again, are ticket brokers the reason for all this madness? And the answer is no. Ticket broker, they are in the business of buying and selling tickets at whatever the market is willing to bear for those tickets. So if someone says to them, hey, I want to go see this event and I'm willing to pay $150 to get into the building and the ticket prices were actually only $50 at the beginning when they went on sale, then obviously there's a reason to say yes, I'm going to sell the ticket to that person. Now think about this way, what if you were a fan who bought a ticket to that event, they bought it for $50 and they could no longer go? I'll just sell them on StubHub or SeatGeek or wherever. And then next thing you know, you go onto StubHub, you put your tickets up for sale and you realize, oh my gosh, ticket prices are selling for $150. This is wild. I'm going to make a ton of money. Awesome. Does that mean you're a ticket broker? Someone who's a season seat holder with MLB, are they going to 81 home games every single year? I doubt it. Who has the time for that? That's crazy. So obviously there are a bunch of tickets that they need to get rid of, whether that's giving them away to friends, selling them to people, throw them off a bridge, who knows what they're going to do with them. Some of the people will just get season seats so they can go to the big game, sell the rest, subsidize their costs, have some fun that way. Same time, does that make them a ticket broker? That's the question, right? You want to go to an event and a friend could no longer go and you had it stuck with an extra ticket and you want to sell it, does that make you a ticket broker? Does that make you a ticket reseller? Does that make you a ticket flipper? Does that make you someone who's actually trying to actively participate in this market? You know, the second you actually put a ticket up for sale, there's no way of knowing if that ticket is being listed by a ticket broker or by a random fan or just someone who just won them in a contest. Who knows? There's no way of knowing or being able to differentiate between one ticket or the other. So you just lump everyone together saying, hey, they're all ticket brokers. They're all terrible people. I hate them all. I don't want anything to do with them. I refuse to buy tickets from them. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. I don't know. It's two things. One, I think there is value that a ticket broker provides, but two, the way they're getting their tickets is not any different than the average fan. One, let's talk value. So what value does a ticket broker provide? Well, one, they help buyers who want to go to an event, get the seats they're looking for. Yes, a fan could actually say, okay, I want to get some great seats. What am I going to do? I'm going to plan my whole day around this Ticketmaster on sale event. I'm going to go. I'm going to show up. I'm going to try and get them great seats. I'm going to do myself. I'm going to do all of myself. I'm going to pay them money. I'm going to be fantastic. Life is fantastically amazing. Great. A lot of times, not every time, but there are certain people who just don't have the time for that or they don't realize it's happening or they didn't, you know, or they weren't part of the pre-sale or they didn't have the fan club code or they just, they just didn't care. They were like, I don't want to go to this event, but I'm going to deal with it later. So then they show up and say, okay, I want to find some tickets now. Well, there's nothing left from Ticketmaster anymore. You know, there's nothing left from face value. They're all sold out. I wanted to go see this event. Can't go anymore. Can't get from face value. Fine. So what are you going to do? You only have one option and that's basically to buy some tickets yourself from another avenue, some resell market. So when you go through there, then having a ticket broker on hand, someone you can actually go ahead, contact, say, hey, help me find some great seats. And you know, they're going to do all the legwork for you. They're going to go in, they're going to go look around. They may have some contacts with the different season seat holders. They may have, you know, their own kind of discounts that they have access to, whole bunch of different things that they can do to go ahead, find those tickets. They might be able to, you know, get some discounts from other brokers potentially. They're, what they're trying to do is make sure that you get the tickets you want at the price you're looking to pay. Whether that price is the face value price or that price is whatever you're willing to spend. It doesn't really matter. They're going to make sure that they find something that meets your criteria. Because for a ticket broker, if they can get the ticket into your hand, it means they made a little bit of money. That's fantastic. Everybody wins. You get to go to the event. The ticket broker makes a little bit of money. Win, win, win. All winnings all around all the time. Fantastic. So that's value number one. But number two, they're not actually getting tickets any different than the average fan themselves. When ticket master says, Hey, I'm going to go put some tickets up for sale. The only difference is that the ticket broker, they're not just saying, okay, I'm going to plan my day around making sure I have time to go ahead buy these tickets. No, no, no, they're not just saying that they're actually actively practicing and preparing and getting ready to make sure that they have the best ability possible to go ahead and secure those seats. One, if you don't have a pre-sale code, you're not going to get those great seats. If you're not paying attention to what time things go on sale, you're not going to get those seats. If you didn't sign up for the verified fan pre-sale in advance, you're not going to get those seats. All these things and more. I talked about this in a video actually up here. You can go ahead, take a look at it. It just goes into the basic saying why ticket brokers are able to get tickets and you can't because they spent all their time trying to get seats all the time. Okay. Now you might ask, oh, but a ticket broker, they're using bots to get these seats. And I mean, we'll discuss bots in another video. Be sure to let me know in the comments below if you actually are interested in that. But bots in general are not the reason you're not getting tickets. The actual reason is that sometimes events just have too many people all trying to buy tickets at the same time. There just aren't enough seats available. Yes, there are multiple ticket brokers all going in trying to buy tickets to very hot events, very popular events. But at the same time, there's also thousands of fans who are also trying to buy seats at the same exact event. Every person who wants to go on an event cannot go see that event. It's just the way it is. You cannot change that unless you're Garth Brooks and play a million nights every single city you go to. Then obviously that allows a lot more people to attend. But at the same time, it's still not practical for every single person who's a fan of that artist to go ahead and actually see them perform because it just can't be done. Not enough supply. Therefore, the only way to differentiate people who can go in or not is one, speed at which they can buy tickets and two, the amount of money they're willing to spend. All I'm trying to say is that ticket broker doesn't necessarily have to be someone evil and mean and terrible and, you know, curmudgeon. They're just someone who has potentially identified a way to make a bit of extra money because they realize that there are too many people trying to go to an event. So they are able to buy some tickets. They can go ahead sell them, make a little bit of money. I personally believe that a ticket broker can be basically anyone who is trying to buy and sell some tickets, whether they're doing it as a business, whether they're doing it as a one-off because of a certain situation that came up, whether they're a seasoned seat holder, it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, once inventory is there, you follow what's there. You can go ahead. If you decide, I don't want to be a ticket broker, I just want to sell my ticket for face value, fantastic. Great for you. Good on you. There will be many times people will be begging you to sell that ticket at face value to them. There are tons and tons of stories about people all begging each other, trying to sell tickets to each other at face value. There are websites that do this, CashorTrade.org. There's a whole bunch of other ones that do it. There's all these places. They're all trying to sell tickets at face value. Fantastic. Good for them. Help the fans get the tickets that they want. Fantastic. But at the end of the day, we are living in a capitalist market and it just doesn't make sense. If someone is willing to spend $150 for a ticket that only costs 50 bucks, who are you to say no to that person? No. I refuse. I will not allow this to happen. All I'm trying to say is that ticket broker doesn't mean they are someone evil. Some evil little man or woman sitting behind a screen trying to make, you know, gougie of all the dollars that you've ever earned in your life just so you can go to that event. That's not what a ticket broker is. Ticket broker is someone who is actually trying to facilitate the ability for someone to get a ticket from one place to the other. That's it. No different than any other broker. They just happen to own some inventory. Now, with all that being said, is there a bit of that, you know, gougie type activity that's going on here? Yes, I won't deny that. There's definitely a bit of that because people are still trying to make some money. But at the same time, anybody could be a ticket broker. Anybody could be someone who's trying to resell some tickets. And in fact, I'm sure it's happened to a bunch of you as well, where you've just been in a situation where you got your rid of those seeds, you don't know what to do, you sell them. Magic. Rather get something than nothing. So great. All is well. With that being said, do ticket brokers make money on every single ticket that they sell? Absolutely not. Not every single event's going to be amazing, super massive, awesome, huge event where everybody wants to go clamoring for tickets? No, it definitely doesn't happen. The example I love to use is Auto Center versus Buffalo Sabers. This is a matchup that is just not a high in-demand game in Ottawa ever. Maybe in the playoffs, maybe, maybe. But other than that, I cannot see a situation where people will be clamoring to go see the Sabers in Ottawa. It just doesn't happen. With Toronto coming to town, obviously it's a completely different story. You see ticket prices going up, up, up. Everyone is all excited. But in Buffalo, not so much. So if you're someone who now says, okay, I want to sell some tickets to see Buffalo in Ottawa, does that make you a ticket broker? I don't know, sure. I think I'm ranting a bit. But basically, a ticket broker, they're not necessarily bad. Yes, there is some element of, you know, trying to make some money in there. Obviously, they're trying to go ahead, you know, make a little bit of cash. Fantastic, fine, great. I'm not there to deny anyone that ability. And if someone's willing to pay, then why would anybody stop them? Yes, you may complain that ticket prices are too high. I can't get seats. I can't get tickets. It's just impossible. But think about it this way. The seats were there available, and then they were all gone. Somehow seats got into hands of different people. Yes, some got into ticket broker's hand, but a bunch of them also got into hands of actual fans. You know, a whole bunch of companies are working on making sure that fans get as many tickets as possible. They use the verified fan presales. They use different presocals, these are from fan clubs, all these different things, contests, blah, blah, blah, all these different ways. But at the end of the day, tickets can only get into so many people's hands. And that's just because there's only so many tickets available. Ticket broker, whether they have the tickets or not, they're just trying to get tickets from the hands of people who have them into the hands of people who want them. And if there's going to be a bit of a fee charge for that, so be it. In fact, I have a bit of a secret to tell you, and I don't even know if it is a secret anymore. I myself am a ticket broker. Surprised? Let me know in the comments below. Are you curious about how much ticket broker can actually make? Well, be sure to subscribe because I have a video coming up that talks about how much they make using my own real life data. Stay tuned because it's going to be amazing. That's all about for today. And see you guys next time.