Add another name to the list of ticketing executives who are outing promoters as occasional scalpers.
In a recent conversation with bohemian.com writer Gabe Meline, which Meline blogged about, InTicketing.com founder and CEO Stephen Weisz apparently said the music promoters are directly involved in scalping, or reselling, tickets for the artists they represent.
InTicketing has a growing reputation in the industry as the “greenest” ticketing company for its recycled ticket stock, and one that charges convenience fees significantly lower than those levied by Ticketmaster. InTicketing is also the exclusive ticketing company for the annual Burning Man event.
When Meline allegedly asked Weisz about the company’s anti-scalping practices, Weisz said most promoters aren’t interested in such measures because they’re too busy reselling their own tickets on the secondary market. Artists such as Van Halen and Radiohead, among others, have been doing the same thing.
“We’ve incorporated some new practices for that. We haven’t really had the demand as much in the U.S., kind of because a lot of times the promoters, they know the secondary ticket market is going on. Sometimes they’re secretly involved in it as well,” Weisz told Meline. “So there’s not as much pressure to do that. It mostly comes from an artist, like Tom Waits. I applaud him for going to those lengths. We certainly have a whole host of measures to prevent scalping.”
Earlier in the year, Ticketmaster President and CEO Sean Moriarty told a group of disbelieving brokers that artists and promoters, and not Ticketmaster, were responsible for premium tickets that were not available to the public turning up on its TicketExchange and TicketsNow Web site.
