Couldn't resist the urge to rub it in that I'm going to see Paul McCartney at Consol Arena in Pittsburgh on Thursday. Saw him a year ago in DC and it was first class show. I expect the same here. I'd be a Maccahead and follow him around if it didn't cost $250 a ticket.

$250 a ticket = Extortion

I agree that ticket prices are high, and I remember when the Eagles broke the sacred $100 per ticket level in the mid-90s. But extortion, no. Extortion is when you have no alternative but to buy, like if you're starving and someone wants $100 for bread. I didn't have to buy these. What sucks is the way they're sold. I bought these tickets supposedly because they were the "best available." 10 hours later, tickets in the front row showed up online for the same price. Mine are 3/4 of the way back the arena, yet close to the floor. I would gladly pay $250 to see McCartney any day but he means a lot to me. $100 is about all I'd pay for anyone else.

`

Extortion ?

Market forces. No venue has infinite seating.
Finite supply, nearly infinite demand, result
is high prices. If the public would pay more,
they would charge more.

It's not like health care, or clean water ... if
you don't go to the concert, you'll be alright.

I was eating at a small venue when the big
arena nearby disgorged its $250-per-seat
Rolling Stones crowd, which naturally spilled
into my hang. I didn't know ANY of them !
And since I've played over 1000 gigs in that
area, I can *usually* hardly hang-and-chill
without running into peeps I know ... or I'm
spozed to know, cuz they know me. It was
like an alien occupation force. And as I sat
and checked them out, I didn't *want* to
know any of them anyway. The sooner they
spent some credits and boarded their ships
the happier I'd be.


`

Claiming no verified knowledge, but it has
been my impression that peeps do that at
way under $250, by buying a small batch
of tickets and scalping the extras so as to
approximately break even.

One detail that might matter [or not]:

I spoze you'd not buy the whole batch in
one tight grouping ... else you'd wind up
sitting with your scalping victims ?


`

The funniest part about scalping is that 10 feet from a guy looking for two is a guy selling two. How cum they never hook up?

`

Lack of standardized "plumage".

Now, if all of the scalpers dressed like Bootsy
and all the victims dressed like they stepped
off the cover of the J.C. Penny's catalog, then
things would be mucho bueno copo ...

Oopszes, little snaggy there, cuz some of the
J.C. Penny's cover models may have already
been pre-scalped by TicketMaster ....


OK: If you're buying, you gotta do the Penny's
look *AND* wear a live red parrot on your left
shoulder ... and if you dress like Bootsy, when
you're all sold out you gotta hide under a goth
trench coat.

And if you've already been satifactorily scalped
you gotta move the bird to your right shoulder.

Now *THAT* is a workable reliable system.


`

You could start an online scalping service, golem.