By Christine Paluf

Vernon, Conn. –July 27, 2006 — The world of the secondary ticket market takes some time to understand. For a newcomer to the industry, it can take up to several months to comprehend all of the ins and outs of ticket sales, exchange listings and software available.

To start with, ticket resellers are called brokers. They are usually licensed by their state, and either list tickets bought from a primary seller, or even another broker. They aim to resell or list these tickets somewhere that others can sell them instead. Simply put, those with tickets are holding brokers, and those that sell the tickets listed by the brokers are Internet marketing specialists.

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Tickets that are available are uploaded to an exchange, which is a collection of available tickets to events. It displays ticket inventory held by brokers listing on that exchange. Brokers that belong or subscribe to a particular exchange are able to view not only their own tickets, but those of all the other brokers that list on that exchange.

Uploading to the exchange can be done with a number of software programs. The largest exchange is held by TicketNetwork, and lists over $290 million worth of inventory to over 30,000 events around the country. The company also offers software to go along with the exchange, to help brokers buy and sell tickets, charge customers, etc.

The company that owns the exchange may or may not sell their own tickets, but they definitely serve as a marketing tool for the brokers that list there.

To upload the tickets on the exchange, a broker becomes a member of the network by paying a fee. They can then list the tickets they hold on the exchange, others can view

their inventory and try to sell it for them.

For example, if a holding broker in California is listing tickets to a Sacramento Kings game that he wants to unload, an Internet marketer in New Jersey may have a customer that wants these seats. The marketer has a site that shows the tickets available on the exchange.

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The Jersey marketer would mark up the tickets a percentage from what the original seller asked for. Internet marketers make money from the markup on the seller’s pricing. It’s a sort of commission-based system, rewarding them for marketing the tickets listed on the exchange. TicketNetwork, for example, creates Websites for people that want to sell tickets listed on their exchange.

The exchange also serves as a free market trading tool. Brokers that subscribe to the exchange are able to view at what price others have similar tickets listed. They can tell if their prices are too high or too low judging by the market, and price accordingly. So the customer almost always gets what the ticket is worth.

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