By Alfred Branch, Jr.
Larry Melamed’s livelihood might be tickets, but you could say his life belongs to the dogs. The Dallas, TX-based broker, owner of Big Dog Tickets, has three dogs and volunteers for the animal rescue Tassie’s Hope, so when it came to thinking of a way to raise money for the group, he thought of something that could help solve two problems.
Tired of hearing all of the negative press swirling around brokers and Hannah Montana tickets, Melamed bought four tickets for the Nov. 14 show in Dallas, which he then donated to the charity to auction off under eBay’s “Giving Works” program. Melamed already makes a monthly donation to the group of at least $25, but he thought this would be able to fetch considerably more money for the group.
As of this afternoon, Nov. 9, bidding for the four tickets, which are located closest to the left side of the stage in the second level, had reached $910, but 100 percent of the proceeds raised will go to Tassie’s Hope. Bidding will end Monday, Nov. 12.
“They could use the money, certainly more than I need the profit,” Melamed said. He bought the four tickets for a total of $267 from Ticketmaster earlier this week when the primary ticketer and the venue announced it was releasing more tickets for sale.
“It seemed like everywhere I’d see stories about how brokers were greedy bastards, and that’s simply not true,” Melamed said, adding that in many cases prices were dropping for Hannah tickets. “I grew tired of reading about how bad we are.”
