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In a dispute over tactics, TicketsNow removes broker sites from its exchange
Wed, Jul 8th 2009 3:20 pm EST
By Alfred Branch Jr.
TicketsNow, the controversial secondary ticket exchange owned by Ticketmaster, recently booted off of its exchange the broker Web sites AnyTickets.com and TicketAttractions.com for allegedly using "bot software" to obtain tickets, a charge the owners of the two Web sites vehemently deny.
The two broker Web sites are owned by Texas-based business partners Marcus Stern and Jim Barr, who a year before being kicked off of TicketsNow, settled an unrelated lawsuit with Ticketmaster that centered on similar allegations of utilizing unfair means to obtain tickets. Terms of that settlement were not disclosed.
Stern and Barr have been a part of TicketsNow's exchange for nearly a decade, and their combined sites were generating an estimated $5 million in sales per year, making the sites among TicketsNow's larger broker/clients.
Yet, since TicketsNow was acquired by Ticketmaster in early 2008, the company's direction and mission has changed, and in recent months TicketsNow has come under intense scrutiny for its relationship with Ticketmaster.
In an effort to court the favor of fans and politicians who have criticized some of it business practices, TicketsNow has launched an aggressive transparency initiative that could have indirectly resulted in its alleged dispute with AnyTickets/TicketAttractions because it questioned how Stern and Barr were acquiring tickets. Bot software, which the two men deny using, has been outlawed in several states over the past year because it unfairly allows users to circumvent Ticketmaster online security measures to quickly snap up blocks of tickets.
In a prepared statement, the two men said that they offered to allow an independent third-party investigator review how the company obtains tickets, but Ticketmaster refused. Instead, the company asked Stern and Barr for information on their ticket sources, which the two would not disclose.
Like many brokers, the partners have built up a group of reliable sources for tickets, and they do not want to jeopardize those relationships.
"Brokers and suppliers to the secondary market are now under assault by these types of tactics [by Ticketmaster]," the two said in a statement.
When contacted by TicketNews, Stern and Barr declined to comment, referring questions to their attorney John Case of California.
TicketsNow did not respond to questions about its decision to remove the company from its exchange.
"I'm not sure what TicketsNow's grounds are to terminate this relationship," Case said. "My clients did not have any dispute with TicketsNow, and yet their rights were terminated."
(This story was edited at 3:15pm EST on July 9, 2009, to remove an incorrect logo, and to use the right titles and links for AnyTickets.com and TicketAttractions.com.)
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Comments represent the opinions of users and do not necessarily reflect the views of TicketNews.You are all equally responsible for the horror that is ticketsnow. Your wheeling and dealing and poor business practices are also to blame. Look ticketsnow is a piece of shit company at this point, but that is because ticketmaster doesnt have a clue how to run a business. Idiots instruct idiots, and the blind lead the blind. Don't do business with them anymore. You can whine and complain all you want but when push comes to shove you are the only one at fault for loss of business. Make all the excuses you want for staying on and paying their fees, but you will NOT make money. The service is bad. They fired 2 of their 4 best people, and another one quit so do you really think they have any commitment to you if they refuse to take care of their own? Go ahead and take your chances, but isn't the point to make money? Get out while you still can! PS the math equation at the bottom of this page is insulting. I'm not an idiot I can do addition.
All brokers should take all there inventory off ticketsnow and go to TicketTechnology they are now live with the edelivery feature on stubhub give them a call at 866-543-3331 ask for Mike. Brokers that have a lot of e tickets I think this just means more sales on stubhub if you are using TicketTechnology's POS. Plus there POS is better than TicketNetwork EI etc and much cheaper and very easy to use
not only are they not allowing preselling (which is fine), half of the events that have already gone on sale are not listed or enabled at ticketsnow. this site is now worthless
Anytickets.com is one of the few brokers you can actually have on AR and dont have to worry about getting paid. If EI is going to start kicking brokers off it should be the 20 or so deadbeats that screw brokers then open up under a new name the next day.
In rsponse from how they get 8 or 6 tickets on a on sale it is old time stand in line and popingthebest seats on the first and second pulls.You cannot pull those kind of seats on the actual onsale thru the internet I have several fiber optic lines wide open with 10-15 people banging the onsale and always the outlets on the onsale are better.
Now with that said on a presale we do pretty good but no better than others with the same type bandwidth and fast pcs.So before you go and start saying lots of BS understand that most of you are lazy unlike myself.I am from texas and compete with them but with less outlets that are slower and its obvious it does make a difference who is trying to punch the tickets out.
Lota of time at a outlet it will be 10:00 and the people working behind the counter are talking about their fridaynight and so on.they could care less that they should be banging the keys so just because they have been in the biz 15-25 years dont you think they have legit outlets who pull those tix from louissiana and were ever is allowed by ticketbastard.Ticket Master does not want any brokers from getting good seats as that would compromise their own agenda as to sell the best seats on their Platinum seats from the artist which is scalping plain and simple holding back the best seats and so on.
Now lets not even talk about the artist and promoters who place tickets on stubhub and ticketsnow who complain as to why should they even sell any good seats so that their is any good seats to compete with. In other words they hold back all the good seats and scalp them themselves on ticketsnow and stubhub ebay whatever.
Well I am giving myself heartburn I hope I have opened up lots of yours eyes as their are hardly any good seats on a onsale or presale and only bad seats for loyal fans to buy,
Only at the end when they cannot scalp their seats do they release any good seats and their is not much time to sell these overly priced seats.
So for the last time I bid you good night and have told you your worst nightmares I am a broker of 15 years been their done that and already made all the money I need so ticketb**** choke on it you the promoters and artist!
Barr and Stern's company is honorable and ethical. Stand up from day one. They have offered to allow an independant invesigator to corroborate their "innocence". Why won't TM/T-Now go along with that? TM should re-think it. They are looking ridiculous.
Sounds like a lynching to me. I hope that T-Now/TM get their lunch handed to them on this one. Greed. Undue influence. Extortion. Bullying. Unfairness. Distortion. Propaganda. TM is all about that. They are no one's friend but their own.
I am glad to see anyone take a stand against TM. They have bullied us Brokers, and told us what commissions they are going to let us make from them trading our tickets. I for one appreciate that a company big enough, one that has no skeletons to hide, took them on. I noticed most are doing the same as me and are NOT putting our names in here as we do fear "Big Brother" a bit.
The FBI has a huge ongoing case going against spinner brokers in many parts of the US maybe that is why ticketmaster had to step away, from a 5 million dollar supplier, time will tell what happens to these people. I heard one group of spinners hired a high priced criminal attorney to defend the group
Why is the FBI involved is this situation??
Does Don V know and can he come to the rescue???
Save us Donnie
good luck to them
These guys have always been stand up brokers and the ticket community should put up with Ticketsnow and TM doing this. All NATB brokers should remove their listings on EI and once and for all stand united against them. The same amount of tickets will be sold and Ticketnetwork and Stubhub will pick up the slack.
Enough is Enough and I hope people finally realize that TM and Tnow have become the enemy.
Go take a look at Anyticket.com, they are still using the EI plugin themselves.
Its a mistake. Its Anytickets.com, not anyticket.com
however, they probably bought inventory from someone who did, and never asked how the tickets were acquired so that they have deniability.
Why are we debating if they have the right to do this? If the website generated 5 million dollars in yearly sales, wouldnt that make it more difficult of a choice?
I would say that despite what people think of Ticketsnow/EI (and I am NOT a fan) they are pretty transparent on their choices and direction. One thing you can not slight them on is picking a side and sticking with it (despite the popularity) . Kind of a George W for the ticket business
Anyways I am not sure why anyone uses them anymore. I dont think this will help. On another front though I am not sure about the bots but I am sure by taking a stance like this they must have some idea. I would love to hear their side before we all decide they are wrong. Usually they do make sense in the end
The 5 million dollars in sales were sales these 2 companies did with just ticketsnow.com, not internet sales. TNOW does approximently 5 million a year in sales with them, and they toss them off the board. Now none of us can sell their tickets through Event Inventory of Ticketsnow. Its just plain wrong. Ticketsnow.com did not even think about the other brokers out there when they tossed them off the board. They only thought about themselves. Now, the broker in Seattle or New York who uses EI plug ins for their internet sales will not be able to sell Anytickets or Ticket Attractions inventory
But to accuse with no proof is just plain Un American. We brokers should not allow that to happen to us. I agree that those that use software to purchase tickets, tax purchasing systems while causing the entire process to frustrate customers should be banned. Brokers need to continue to work together and support the best brokers like Anytickets as they have always helped us out. They are one of the largest inventory buyers and take the risks so sellers call them 1st with good seats as they pay fast and are very easy to work with.
and i do believe they should be given an opportunity to prove to TM that they're not using bots. If TM believes they're using bots TM can produce the IP logs or something to prove their case - just like what they did against RMG technologies.
that said i do believe there are a number of brokers still using bots. TM should do something to eliminate those, like asking a question "who's the current president of the usa" or something like that instead of that captcha that can be beat by a program
good point. this MAY be the first step? Only they really know who is using bots and without them commenting (probably a good idea) I think they have some insight on this
Ticketmaster/Tnow should look into those that consistently get row 1 of every show - someone tell me he's not using a bot to obtain 4 pax, 8 pax of front row seats where others get nothing
Just Because Anytickets is showing groups of 4 and 8 tickets on the front row for a few events here and there does not mean they are using bots. I am sure Anytickets buys their tickets from numerous sources, wholesalers, group sales, box offices, ticketmaster outlets, pre sales, season ticket holders, ebay, craigslist. Yes, anyone who is using bots and exploiting Ticketmaster's web site should not be able to list tickets on TNOW, or the other boards, but don't be so quick to judge Anytickets and say they are using bots.
Did you ever look outside your market to see all the front rows they carried for shows. Probably not. You could guarantee that for every event in my town, they had the best seats and they were not located in my state. We saw them screw our market on outrageous prices, higher than what the market would bear in my city, but observed and suspected spinners over a year ago even after they were busted. Hard to feel any sympathy for them, despise ticket&^%$#@%/EI/Tnow, but I must be one of the only ones happy to see karma got these two brokers.
the only ways to acquire 4-pax, 8-pax to a large number of shows are:
1. bots -> if so they should be banned
2. paid off ticketmaster employees -> if so they should be banned
3. paid off the promoters or even the bands themselves -> this is ok.
That is a great point. Very funny. Oh the Irony of it all
Why would someone post that these guys use software. It's 50 years of combined know how and connections that threaten the complete control of ticket inventory for TM ... I think that the fact that TM did not want to get to the truth proves these guys are first class while not causing unjust worry and cost for everyone they have bought from. Thanks Jim and Marcus our business needs more operators like you.
You sound like a shill
If all the brokers could get together and pull everything down from ticketsnow for 1 week we could dictate our terms for listing. Ticket brokers union !!!
Ticket Attractions was one of the first brokers in Texas. If I had to guess I would say they opened up in the early-mid 80's. Jim is a stand up guy and always has been. He is one of the only brokers I would sell to on AR.
EI/TM has us all by the balls. What next? Will they want to know where I get all my tickets?
They can kick me off before I tell them anything !!!
Who is running TNOW these days? Apparently someone who has no idea what they are doing. These are good guys and very easy to work with. I can't believe TNOW would kick them off. I sell a lot of their tickets, and it just shows that TM will do what it wants when they want, without worrying about it's other members. Sad Sad.
I seriously cannot believe the tactics that ticketmaster is pulling at the moment. When TM bought TNOW we all were worried about what would happen, and we were sworn too, that business would be as usual and without a hitch. Ticketmaster has taken another nasty swing by using its Power to choose and do what it pleases, thus effecting all brokers. I do not forsee good things for Ticketsnow, Ever since the Bruce incedent, I have yet to hear or see any positive news from them. Not to mention sales have declined enormously from them, and brokers are dropping like flies. $400 a month? Are you guys seriously on crack? Stubhub is free and sells 10x More.
They do get a lot of tickets also their website still has the ei plug in so I am not sure what s going on?
They are using a ticket bolt. It is an unfair tactic.
Sorry, I mean they are not using a ticket bolt. It is an unfair tactic. Brokers don't use tickets bolts!
I think it is called ticket colt.
I use my little brother. He's a ticket dolt.
i think ticketmaster's bot that pulls the tickets and puts it on the ticketmaster exchange should be banned. not only is this bot destructive it's only 3 lines of code