At 10:16 AM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote:

>>Popular opinion seems to be against the scalpers, but they're in line like
>>everyone else. They're not getting an unfair advantage. So why are
>> some so upset at what appears to be a beautiful example of capitalism
>> and the free market system?

When Riverdance first came here to DC, I waited in line for 3 hours in the
cold to get tickets one Sunday morning.  Scalpers or people sent by ticket
resale organizations gobbled up a couple hundred seats before anyone else
got to them.  Because of that, after the first *hour* of ticket sales, all
the front orchestra seats were gone.  Granted, Wolf Trap is a relatively
small house and there are really no bad seats there but I was rather erked
that they allowed someone to buy a couple thousand dollars worth of tickets
right off the bat, especially for a show that popular, with the intent to
jack up the price and resell them.  Tickets were already $50 or so to begin
with.  After a couple of times waiting in line for hours to get tickets for
a show and not being able to have an equal chance at the best seats because
of scalpers, I'd be less likely to even try and get tickets in the first
place.

I don't mind individuals selling an extra ticket or two because someone
couldn't go but people who make profits on reselling large amounts tickets
just makes it harder for everyone to get tickets to begin with and hurts
the arts as a whole.  Sure there are plenty of people willing to pay $40
for Van Gogh or $150 for Riverdance, but do we want art, theater, music and
dance to be available just to the elite few who can afford it?  Tickets are
expensive as is and if people start paying scalpers exorbetent prices,
venues will catch on and start raising their prices because they know there
are plenty of people willing to pay it.  I know from doing theater that
productions are expensive to put on these days to begin with and that is a
big reason why tickets are so costly, but we don't want to jack them up
even more just because people are willing to pay for it. (We'll leave that
to the gift shops and refreshment stands. ;) Yes I want to make a decent
living and I certainly want artists to make a decent living as well.  But I
also want the arts to be accessible to everyone and not just at the
community theater or small museum level.

It's a pain to stand in line for hours to get tickets for anything but I
think that Van Gogh shows the US, primarily the yokles on Capital Hill who
want to cut NEA, NEH and other cultural funding, that there is a huge
demand for the arts and that people are willing to go out of their way to
experience it.  In a way, scalpers are helping this because it shows that
there is a good number of people who want to see it so badly that they are
willing to pay for tickets they could get for free.  (Now if they would
only put that money towards funding their local museums instead.)  But in
any case, scalpers help support the elitism of art, not making it
accessible to everyone.

Just my $.02 worth.  :)

Deb

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