What Is a Ticket Scalper?
For the average person, thoughts of a ticket scalper conjure up thoughts of the group outside the concert hall or sports arena selling tickets for choice seats that cost a fraction of what the scalper wants to charge. On the other hand, many patrons come to the event planning to buy tickets there, only to find that they have been sold out — or so they are told at the venue. For these unfortunate attendees, they rely on the secondary market operated by the ticket scalper in order to be able to attend their favorite events.
To define a scalper, one can say it is a person who has been able to secure ticket at or slightly above the face value of the ticket and sells it on the secondary market to purchasers who are willing to pay the $20 or more above that price in order to attend the event. Is this practice immoral? I don’t see it being any more immoral than the price we pay for other articles we buy. After all, the very car we drive cost the dealership thousands of dollars less than what we paid for it, but we accept that as a part of economics. The food we put on our table for our families cost the grocery store in the area of 30% less than what they charged us, but we also accept that as a part of the economic structure of free enterprise. How then is the ticket scalper charging more for a ticket than he paid any different? Is it simply because that is not the price set by the venue?
Ticket scalping is a business just like any other except that there is no fancy storefront, and all transactions are in cash instead of credit cards. A ticket scalper is a salesman who is providing a service to those who have been unable to receive the service from other avenues that are known to him such as the venue or authorized ticket agents. As long as the venue controls the number of tickets sold at their prices, the market will be lucrative for the ticket scalper.