I hate the practice of scalping, and loathe those that try to take advantage of fans who genuinely want to attend an artist’s concert. The feeling of trying to purchase tickets for a show to find that the only ones available are resale and extremely overpriced is agonizing. Although Ticketmaster has taken steps to weed out scalpers, it doesn’t stop them entirely. The loophole scalpers often take advantage of is in the form of presale tickets from presale codes that fan clubs and corporate partners offer.
The idea of scalping is in itself a smart way in which to make easy money but that doesn’t make the fan getting taken advantage of feel any better. There have been artists who have shown their fan savviness by buying overpriced tickets from scalpers and selling them directly to fans, such as Chance the Rapper, but those instances are few and far between. Exterminating the scum known as scalpers would be great, but there’s a risk in adding more policies and hurdles to ticket buying: they would be so restrictive, becoming an inconvenience to the very fans that need help. The unfortunate reality is that scalpers will still remain and fans will still complain.