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:
“Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we’re selling this deadly stuff anyway?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”
—John Milius, U.S. screenwriter, Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939)
“I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)