What is Digg?53 Comments
- rootstyle, on 10/16/2007, -0/+20Because they buy out all the tickets, often on credit, to sell at a higher price. Kinda like ticketmaster but non exclusive.
- Crossmenjeff, on 10/16/2007, -0/+12because i could buy all the tickets the moment the window opened for 50 bucks and sell each one for 2000 dollars knowing full well you'd pay it. plus you have no guarantee i sold you an actual ticket and not a forgery seeing as i own all of them.
- Harbinger67, on 10/14/2007, -3/+15Because it can't be taxed.
- xOKxWhy, on 10/15/2007, -1/+12I can see it now.
Audience member: Do Lord of the Rings! - Koushiro, on 10/14/2007, -0/+8Because it's an unfair practice for everyone. Say you want to get tickets to see a sporting event or a play, but some guy hires someone to sit in line for him all the time. You show up at the time tickets go on sale, but this smelly guy who has been there for weeks is first in line and buys out all the tickets. That's not very fair to you a fan, especially when that guy then goes back and starts selling them on his own for for 2-300% profit most of the time just because he decided to sit in line instead of getting a real job. The theater doesn't get any of that extra money, usually the government collects no tax on those sales (hence the illegality of it more then likely) and you get screwed unless your willing to pay $800 for a $60 show ticket.
- daizaru, on 10/14/2007, -0/+6They didn't. The article states that they sold tickets for as high as $90.
Stubhub, a major online ticket marketplace... is listing them that high. They are reselling them for that much, and none have sold for as high as $1706. - consonance, on 10/15/2007, -0/+5I agree. Who the hell is the submitter, saying that King Lear was ever uncool?
- lemur, on 10/13/2007, -0/+5King Lear was always my favorite Shakespeare play.
- meatmcguffin, on 10/14/2007, -1/+6Nobody here likes Extras? tut tut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43sbtkQM6zc - rald84, on 10/14/2007, -0/+4because there's a limited number of available tickets. suppose bill gates used his tens of billions to buy all the iphones available and sell them for $10,000. thats not feasible because there's so many available. thats not the case for venue tickets that only number in the tens of thousands at most, so a hundred scalpers could buy a hundred tickets each and be none left for people who actually want to see it.
- offput, on 10/14/2007, -1/+5Shakespeare's awesome. If you don't think so watch the TV series Slings & Arrows. That show brought all my high school Shakespeare love right back to the forefront.
- interrelate, on 10/13/2007, -1/+5I thought it was Hannah Montana.
- imdwalrus, on 10/14/2007, -0/+3Patrick Stewart was with the RSC at the University of Michigan last year, and while tickets didn't go to that price (that I know of), there was definitely demand. I waited in the rain on a Saturday morning for four hours before tickets were supposed to go on sale, only to lose out because I didn't sleep outside in a tent the night before. I did get lucky and got in on a second, extremely limited batch of tickets, but this isn't a new thing.
If you've got the best Shakespeare company in the world performing with a major star in one of Shakespeare's marquee plays, OF COURSE there's going to be demand, and even more so if you stage the play on a major college campus.
On another note entirely, I have no idea how Ian McKellan will be as Lear, but Patrick Stewart made a pretty darn good Prospero. :¬) - DefaultGen, on 10/14/2007, -1/+4You... shall not... pass! Without lots of money.
- daizaru, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3Hmm, $2000 has been the highest price for a PAIR. Nobody is paying $1700 for a single, adjust the title.
- crapmatic, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2Thanks, with UCLA I really wasn't sure.
- Puppetfunk, on 10/14/2007, -7/+9I never understood this but: Why is Scalping Illegal?
- fishbert, on 10/14/2007, -0/+2A related item... CNN's leading story yesterday was about Hannah Montana ticket scalpers charging thousands.
http://www.digg.com/world_news/The_most_important_ ...
I mean, say what you will about ticket scalper prices... but leading with this worthless news story?! - counterplex, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1MarcelLionheart, out of curiosity, what did you pay for your tickets in England?
- xister, on 10/16/2007, -0/+1Ian McKellan SCANDALOUS VIDEO!?!?!?!? Not only are you a *****, but you're an idiot too. While the man is a great talent, he's ***** ancient! Who would want to watch?
- Mudger, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1Is there a scalper forum?
- aviazn, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1Actually here in Minnesota (where the RSC's currently playing the Guthrie) we just passed a law a few weeks ago that makes scalping perfectly legal. I guess since we couldn't enforce it we figured it wasn't worth keeping on the books...
- comas, on 10/14/2007, -1/+2In Minneapolis...
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/search/sss?query ... - VickyB, on 10/14/2007, -1/+2Sir Ian is always amazing whilst performing Shakespeare but I'd rather watch Avery Brooks (the baddest mofo in the Alpha Quadrant) in the leading role of Tamburlaine.
http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/details.as ...
At least I could afford a ticket!! - ddcrandall, on 10/13/2007, -1/+2Duh...because Ian McKellen is pretty much a bad-ass.
P.S.: Next time, spell his name right. - daizaru, on 10/13/2007, -0/+1Exactly, scalping is the same as going around, buying every xbox in the world you can and then reselling them for 5 times as much because you got them all first.
It's a very fine line, but a lot of people buy tickets with the direct intent to resell and people who would buy them directly don't get access. Especially when seasons tickets are involved. There's a lot of underhanded stuff that goes on with ticket sales, especially when they sell out so fast. (I always joke where I am that the sclapers are unionized, but they are at least organized and working together where I live. How someone supplies them all with that many tickets is suspicious to me)
Imagine a world where companies went around purposely buying up competitors stock so they could justify selling it for more in their store. It might work out for you in an mmorpg but there are real life business practices that exist to make sure this kind of thing can't happen. - Ravenlock, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1It's a really, really good short video interview with him embedded on the linked page, btw. Well worth watching.
- JLecker, on 10/13/2007, -0/+1Normally you'd be mistaken, but this time, you're absolutely wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_influen ... - counterplex, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1You know, I hadn't given it much thought before but Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek Deep Space Nine for those who can't quite place the actor) would have tremendous presence on stage. It seems he's been heavily involved with stage including playing Othello in the Shakespearean play of the same name.
After Patrick Stewart I think I now know who is #2 on my list to watch in a Shakespearean play :) Thanks VickyB! - secretivecoward, on 10/13/2007, -0/+1Hannah Montana tickets sell for more...
- acex23, on 10/13/2007, -0/+1McKellan as Richard III was brilliant.
- geomon, on 10/15/2007, -1/+2"Thanks to Ian McKellan, "Lear" is cool again for the first time in centuries."
Centuries?
WTF? Have you people never heard of Laurence Olivier?
Ian McKellan may have made "Lear" cool again for the first time in "decades", but let's make sure that Sir Olivier gets his due.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vJuMcJlf7tM - slipdisc2, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1$17 for your mother is a better deal. uh?
- MarcelLionheart, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1I'm so glad there are more showings in London; I've got a ticket for this in November as well as Patrick Stewart as Macbeth. If Shakespeare were more popular in America, the prices probably wouldn't be so high because there would be more performances and, thus, more tickets.
- NecroSexy, on 10/13/2007, -1/+1Never, never, never, never, never...
- RealmDown, on 10/13/2007, -1/+1'Lo what manner of men are these who wear their balls in parenthesis?
- Ravenlock, on 10/14/2007, -1/+1If I had enough money that spending $1700 on a theatre ticket was even remotely feasible... seeing McKellan in Lear might just be the show I'd do it for. ;-)
- DutchGuilder, on 10/13/2007, -0/+0You are exactly right. And do we really need to have junior-high/high school students read "Romeo and Juliet" which romanticizes gangs, killing rivals for "streert cred", and 14-year olds committing suicide over a puppy-love? Aren't there more positive books to read? Biographies of successful people perhaps?
- SeaOverflowing, on 10/17/2007, -0/+0Quite high price for most of people!!
- philz, on 10/25/2007, -1/+0Where is Towne?
- ddcrandall, on 10/14/2007, -2/+1I'd tend to agree with you, and it is a little more expensive than necessary, but Ian McKellen isn't exactly cheap. I'm sure there are other productions of Lear at UCLA that are free/cheap.
- DutchGuilder, on 10/14/2007, -2/+1But this is exactly how oil, gas, and food commodities are sold. Scalpers are exactly the same as futures traders. All of the oil in the world is purchased by traders months in advance of its actual production with the hope that the price will rise by the time it is delivered to refineries, producing a profit for the trader (scalper).
- kerry11, on 10/16/2007, -1/+0It's normal. Some people often have to pay unnecessary ticket, but the others on wealthymen.zu5.net just huger for paying for it more and more. It's for they have enough money to waste on such parts
- kick, on 10/14/2007, -3/+1I'll never understand why people have a problem paying market value for a ticket. It's simple economics.
- crapmatic, on 10/14/2007, -4/+2The scalper angle is a red herring. What I'm wondering is why the hell UCLA is charging $936 to $1,706 for an art performance. Which should be a more honorable goal: a learning institution trying to leverage its facilities for enormous profits, or working to diffuse art to as wide a cross-section of the population as possible?
- RealmDown, on 10/25/2007, -6/+2Rogaine is not guaranteed
- ianzu, on 10/14/2007, -8/+1Unpopular view, but I've always felt that Shakespeare was a hack. I'm sure his plays were good for their time, but they don't come close to the standards placed on ***** entertainment now.
But, but...without Shakespeare's genius, we wouldn't HAVE the quality of writing in today's entertainment! Right? Bollocks. Writing would have evolved without Shakespeare. It might have even evolved quicker, without generations of schoolchildren being taught that this stuff is 'good'.
The way I see it, Shakespeare only exists for two reasons:
1. It's traditional. Theatre, especially British theatre, has hung most of its identity on the Bard. Shame, that.
2. If anyone can make that drek at all watchable, that person would be a fine actor indeed. It takes a remarkable talent to deliver hacky lines written in Ye Olde English(tm) and keep an audience in their seats.
So props to Sir Ian. After wading through the sewer of parts like MacBeth or Hamlet, playing Magneto or Gandalf should be a cakewalk. - insinuate, on 10/15/2007, -13/+2LOTRfag
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