In recent years, the concert economy has continued to boom. Take the upcoming concert in Nanjing recently announced by a celebrity on a social platform as an example. Public information shows that the venue can accommodate about 20,000 spectators, but the number of people who have marked on the ticketing platform as wanting to see the concert has exceeded 3 million. The highest ticket price announced by the platform is 1,960 yuan for an infield ticket, and it is reported online that a "scalper" has sold the first row of infield tickets to 250,000 yuan and marked them as "sold." When "tickets are sold within seconds" became the norm for popular concerts, businesses such as proxy shooting and "ticket entry" subsequently appeared in "hidden corners."
After the news of the concert was announced, screenshots of "scalpers" selling high-priced tickets quickly spread on the Internet. The first three rows of the infield were sold for as high as 230,000, 200,000, and 190,000 respectively. Among them, the first row of tickets, which was sold at the highest price of 250,000, was sold out.
The reporter searched on second-hand trading platforms and social platforms and found that a large number of ticketing practitioners issued "proxy bidding" and "snatching bidding" services for this concert, but the quotes were confusing and the premiums were extremely high. The price increase for grandstand tickets ranges from 1,800 yuan to 5,000 yuan, and the price increase for infield tickets with better locations is as high as 5,000 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. At the same time, a second-hand ticketing platform has also resumed the listing of "merchant grabs" on October 14. The lowest price of 390 yuan for stand tickets is 5,690 yuan, and all price tags soon show "temporary shortage of tickets."
The reporter consulted on the grounds of purchasing tickets. A ticket agent revealed that the premium for the auction follows "market principles." Judging from the current popularity of the concert, there is a high probability that even if the auction is increased, there is a high probability that the ticket will not be available.
An industry insider told reporters that scalpers usually take two paths:
One is to post fans' personal information in various "ticket grabbing groups" and hire online part-timers for a fee to "robbing people";
The other is to rely on technical means to develop ticket-grabbing plug-ins. A "scalper" consulted by the reporter made it clear that he would "go directly to the machine" when releasing tickets.
Many sellers, while reminding that "it is very likely that they will not be able to get it on behalf of the auctioneers," will also recommend fans to buy "entry tickets" that are 100% guaranteed to allow them to enter the venue and see the concert. They also only need to provide their ID card information to purchase. The reporter consulted many scalpers and learned that the price of an infield "entry ticket" for 1,960 yuan was as high as 11,500 yuan to 32,000 yuan. The sellers all said that "tickets are guaranteed," but the seat location could not be determined.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Standardized Management of Large-scale Commercial Performance Activities to Promote the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Performance Market" in September 2023, requiring:
The number of tickets sold by the performance organizer to the market shall not be less than 85% of the approved audience;
For the remaining 15% of tickets, personal information should be bound 24 hours before the performance to achieve "real-name binding and real-name admission."
Chen, the head of a performance brokerage company, confirmed to reporters that the so-called "recorded tickets" come from within 15% of the ticket sources, that is, non-public "internal tickets", which usually include cooperation tickets for sponsors and media, as well as some tickets for local distribution.
According to a "scalper", since the "entry tickets" are ordered from the "organizer", even if the public ticket sales period has ended, you only need to provide identity information. 3-7 days before the concert, the electronic ticket with personal information entered will appear in the ticket folder of the public ticket sales platform. The tickets purchased thus naturally meet the conditions of "matching the person, ID, and ticket information for admission." It is not only real-name ticket purchase and real-name admission, but also "one ticket corresponds to one ID, and the ticket purchaser and the attendee are the same person."
Regarding the "pain point" of the infield "entry tickets" with a premium of more than ten times being randomly located in the specified area, the "scalpers" came up with another purchase plan - to continue to increase the price to purchase a relatively certain front row position. Among the quotations given by scalpers, the first three rows of the infield are usually around 50,000 yuan, and the first ten rows of the infield generally exceed 30,000 yuan. If you want to sit in a more middle position, you need to pay more.
Another "scalper" revealed that if fans want to sit in the first row, they can wait until the organizer issues an "invitation letter" 1-3 days before the show. The ticket agent will then buy it and sell it to fans, but the quotation is often higher, and the specific price cannot be determined yet. As for the online rumors that "the first row of infield tickets are priced at 250,000 yuan", many "scalpers" believe that this is speculation, and the actual price should be around 50,000 yuan.
Why are “scalper tickets” so expensive? A "scalper" admitted that these premiums flowed into the reselling network formed by multiple layers of "scalper" agents.
When "permitted by rules" forms a new gray area, the performance ticketing market finally enters the dilemma of "consumers tacitly agree to purchase, and scalpers continue to ban tickets". Li Rong, a professor at the Zhejiang Cultural Industry Innovation and Development Research Institute, said that the concert economy is becoming a new engine to drive urban consumption, and requires coordinated efforts from multiple parties to build a fair and orderly performance market environment that reassures consumers.
