The Ticket Trap

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sports, theater and concert fans are excited venues are opening up again. So are clever ticket sellers who’ve figured out ways to cash in on unsuspecting customers shopping online.

Reveal’s Byard Duncan starts with an examination of the tricks and traps that await fans who try to buy tickets online, at the hands of some of the largest companies in what’s known as the secondary ticket market.

Then Reveal’s Ike Sriskandarajah visits his favorite theater in Oakland, California, which went dark in March because of the pandemic. Like venues across the country, the Paramount Theatre plans to reopen its doors later this year, and we find out what it will look like.

We end with an essay from reporter Yoohyun Jung, who’s been a fan of K-pop music for most of her life. But when she went from being a fan to working in the business, she saw some disturbing things that gave her a new perspective on this international phenomenon.

This is an update of an episode that originally aired February 6, 2021.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Alan. I hope 2022 has been a good year for you. But to be honest, it's been a tough one for us.
0:08.0	This year, Reveal was struck by a financial crisis that jeopardized our very existence.
0:14.0	But we've rallied, and all the while that was happening, our staff forged ahead to produce ambitious investigations
0:22.0	that exposed corruption and abuses that the powerful interests did not want revealed.
0:27.0	Because that's what we do. If we're going to keep telling these kind of stories though, we're going to need support from you.
0:34.0	To support fearless investigative nonprofit journalism, please donate by December 31st.
0:41.0	Just visit revealnews.org slash 2023. Again, to donate to the show and to support our work into the future.
0:48.0	Please visit revealnews.org slash 2023. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
1:02.0	From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is reveal. I'm Alexan.
1:08.0	Do you remember the last live event you attended before the pandemic?
1:14.0	Was it a game, a concert, a theater performance? For me, it was a Britney Howard concert. So good.
1:23.0	The audience was in it, the band was amazing, and Britney put on a show.
1:28.0	Whenever I was feeling the disconnection of the pandemic, I'd go back to that moment when I was singing along badly in a crowd with Britney on stage.
1:40.0	Today, a few of us are trickling back into stadiums and arenas. Bruce Springsteen just kicked off a series of shows on Broadway with one new wrinkle.
1:51.0	You need proof of full vaccination to get in. But in one sense, this year will be a lot like years pass.
1:59.0	Getting your hands on tickets for your favorite shows and games might mean paying dearly for them.
2:06.0	This issue, how much tickets cost and who's actually making money off them, it caught the attention of Byard Duncan.
2:13.0	My buddy here at Reveal a couple years ago. He had an experience of buying NBA tickets that left him scratching his head.
2:21.0	Here's my best friend's birthday. He's a Philadelphia 76ers fan. And I decided I wanted to surprise him with sixers tickets.
2:30.0	They were playing the Sacramento Kings, which is not so far from Oakland here where I live.
2:35.0	This was January 2019. Byard Google's Kings Sixers Tickets. And eventually gets directed to a website called Ticket Network.
2:45.0	The tickets were pretty close to the floor. They were reasonably priced too since the Kings haven't been good in more than a decade.
	...

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