London Calling

T-minus 1 week and counting until the wife and I jet off to London. The destination was chosen because the NFL decided to hold a regular season game there to promote the League to a global audience. Interestingly, the announcement of the game being brought to the UK was followed by the announcement that the NFL Europa league would be closed. NFL Europa began in 1991 as the World League of American Football, with 10 teams competing in North America and Europe. After a two-year hiatus (1993-94) following the 1992 season, the league returned in 1995 as a six-team, all-European venture, with five teams in Germany since 2005, and has existed in that format through its final season in 2007. With 5 teams in Germany and the sixth being Amsterdam, I'm not sure "Europa" was the appropriate naming, perhaps NFL Rhine (as in Rhine Valley Region).
I think Ricky Williams' career could have really flourished if he were on the Amsterdam Admirals.

Anyway, back to NFL US... of course the game they chose to hold in London, was a Miami Dolphins home game vs. the New York football Giants. I'm a season ticket holder for the Dolphins and my wife is a Giants fan. Four years ago, we planned our wedding around our teams' schedules - it worked out perfect. They each had the same BYE week, so we scheduled our wedding for that weekend, with a honeymoon to St. Lucia for the following week. But it gets better because the next weekend, the 2 teams were playing each other. Miami Dolphins vs. New York Giants in New York, well technically, it's in New Jersey, but that's another story. So, after our week on the island of St. Lucia at the beautiful Sandals resort, we were off to New York. The Dolphins won that game 23-10.

Fast forward to this year, now the Dolphins are 0-6, and will face the 6-0 Patriots this weekend, so they could (probably will) be 0-7 when they head to London to face the 4-2 Giants. I just hope the Dolphins can at least make it an interesting game. The same way fútbol (READ: soccer) has struggled to capture the interest of US fans, the same holds true for the NFL in Europe and the rest of the world. Too many strict rules (they're used to VERY subjective yellow cards), too much game stoppage (normally the clock just runs for 45 mins. straight, plus any extra. Then a short break and do it again), wearing all this "gear" - pads, helmets, etc... who knows why each side can't accept the other's past-time. Probably just familiarity. And, yes, I said football is our past-time, with all of baseball's issues, it's been surpassed by the monsters of the gridiron.

So, London, here we come.
Go Dolphins! Let me extend my 4 years of bragging rights another round.

The Law of Supply & Demand

So, I spent the next 30 minutes surfing the broker sites - mostly out of disgust, cussing... Cussing them, cussing Jeb Bush for making scalping legal, wondering about the fuzzy logic that really thought this would be better. They were right in their assumption that this would create competition, but as to lowering prices... not even close!

Surprisingly, they didn't realize that with a finite supply of something, the laws of supply & demand don't apply. Why can a one-of-a-kind painting sold at auction in Christie's worth more than a mass-produced print sold at Wal-Mart? Besides the subjective qualities, it's supply. The masterpiece is worth more because there aren't anymore, while the print isn't unique and more can always be produced, so there's nothing to drive the price higher.

The same is true with concert tickets and the limited supply - most of the time. Sometimes an artist will throw a monkey wrench into the works by announcing additional shows (affecting the supply - which should lower the price) but that doesn't happen often - unless you're The Police or The Rolling Stones.

So, 30 mins. after the show is sold out, I'm watching demand slowly deplete the tickets that are showing on the broker's websites. My daughter's birthday approaching, knowing how much she wants to go to this concert, I jump. I find 2 tickets (Upper level, 4th row) for $150 each and I buy them. If I have to deal with snakes, I want to stick the ones with the least poison.

I chose StubHub (owned by eBay). They guarantee all of their tickets sales.


FanProtect for Buyers
* You will get your tickets in time for the event.
* Your tickets will be authentic and valid for entry.
* You will receive tickets comparable to or better than
the tickets you ordered, or your money back.
* You will be refunded if the event is canceled and
is not rescheduled.

So, at least I'm assured that I won't lose my money. But if I get to the show and the tickets do end up bogus, no amount of money will console my daughter if we have to stand outside that show, with all of her excited anticipation, unable to get it in. So far everything is looking aboveboard, I already received the tickets. They are the actual ticket machine printed ones, not the highly suspicious laser-printed PDF e-tickets.

While I don't condone their business, I can't fault their business practices. Trying to add customer service and piece of mind to a situation that often holds neither.

We'll see how it goes. I'll be filling you in on November 21st about my experience at the Hannah Montana show. Weeeeeee!

Anti-Scalping is Anti-Consumer

Tickets for the Hannah Montana concert went on sale the morning of Sept. 15. I set up 3 of my computers to be ready to at least secure 2 tickets to ensure that my 8 year old daughter (a huge Hannah fan) gets to go. Ticket prices ranged from $26 - $66.

The site dictates the following stipulations:
Ticket limit is 4 tickets per household.
Please Note: There is a strict ticket limit policy in effect, more than one order per person or household will result in cancellation without notification.
-- No problem... I only want 2.

REFRESH... REFRESH... REFRESH... it's up!
Full Price Tickets: 2 - Any Price
Section: Best Available
Location: Best Available
Click "Look For Tickets"

Input Verification Code
(BTW... "This step helps prevent unfair use of automated programs." - Good stick it to those scalpers and ticket brokers)
Click "Continue"
....searching...searching...

Then at 10:00:20 (Yes, that's 20 seconds past the start time of 10 am), I received the following message:
"There were no tickets available that matched your request"

What!!? How can that be?
Thousands of tickets gone in less than 20 seconds? And when purchasers were limited to a max of 4. Season ticket holders to the Florida Panthers were guaranteed tickets to any other show that comes to the Bank Atlantic Center - maybe they got all of the tickets? Doubt it - there aren't that many season ticket holders. Also, I have a friend who is a season ticket holder and he was told that because of this special show they couldn't honor that promise. Okay, so where did all of the tickets go?

The TicketMaster site displays the following helpful hint:
"Can't find tickets? You can still buy Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus tickets from other fans through TicketExchange!"
Their cheapest:
Sec. 403 (Upper deck), Row 8, Seat 19 - $275 (Yes, that's for only 1 seat!)
Most expensive:
Sec. 5 (Middle floor), Row F, Seat 12 - $785 (Again, for only 1 seat)

Then I found hundreds, no, thousands of tickets posted on every ticket broker site - Ticketliquidator, FrontRowKing, GotTickets, StubHub (owned by eBay), TicketsNow... all of them. Tons of tickets! Lowest price: $150 per ticket for upper deck seats. Up to $12,000 for a private box that holds 20 (what a deal at $600 each person?).

This isn't an isolated case either. My friend went through the same for the show in Kansas City. And now Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has gotten enough complaints from upset parents to start an investigation. CNN picked up the same story for the Nashville show. And it seems pretty much all of the shows have seen the same result.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed the anti-scalping legislation [House Combined Bill No. 6003] into law June 7, 2006, making Florida one of 35 states to legalize scalping. "When you have a monopoly, what happens?" asked John K. Stargel, R-Lakeland, who sponsored the bill in the House. "You pay more. I think you've seen what the high end of the prices will be. And now there'll be more people, more tickets available and consumers will have more choices, which I think is a good thing."

Government needs to evaluate how their plan to remove anti-scalping laws would increase competition and reduce prices. News Flash: It's not working!!

Next... I'll tell you how I sold my soul for the happiness of my daughter.