Selling Tickets By Ballot
Some promoters have ceased selling tickets in the traditional first-come-first-served manner, and require prospective ticket holders to enter a "ballot" — a competition with random winners — with the prize being the opportunity to purchase a small number of tickets. The ballots are intended to discourage re-selling by making it harder to purchase large numbers of tickets because being at the front of the queue does not guarantee the holder a ticket.
Events that have sold tickets by ballot include the Big Day Out in 2007, the Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert - Led Zeppelin reunion concert at The O2 Arena in 2007 - and the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
A similar practice used among ticket resellers is to list an item as an online auction (such as eBay) - most commonly an innocuous item such as a collector’s card - and give the tickets as a bonus to the winning bidder; thereby not actually selling tickets in order to circumvent ticket laws. This does not actually get around eBay's selling rules, as they effectively state that the goods that the buyer receives are what the seller is selling, including any free bonuses.
Read more about this topic: Ticket Resale
Famous quotes containing the words selling, tickets and/or ballot:
“The only person really soiled with trade
I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire
Was someone who had just come back ashamed
From selling things in California.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Sickness comes to us all, Mr. Dillon.... We never know when, we never know why, we never know how. The only blessed thing we know is it’ll come at the most inconvenient, unexpected time. Just when you’ve got tickets to the World Series. And that’s the way the permanent waves.”
—Donald E. Westlake (b. 1933)
“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)