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I Sold Both My Lungs for Taylor Swift Tickets! · Armstrong & Getty One More Thing

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Sold both my lungs for Taylor Swift tickets. It's one
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: more thing.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know that was. I don't know if that
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: was good long term thinking you're gonna need those lungs.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Now, all I've got is a ziplock bag. I in Hell,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I got a ziploc bag attached my trichia.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what era I'm in, the post lung era.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: So I thought this was so interesting from the folks
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: at the National Review. Such a great example of policies
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  Speaker 1: that sound good but don't make sense if you think
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  Speaker 1: about them. That's point number one. Point number two, how
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  Speaker 1: a lot of common sense regulations to ensure the safety
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  Speaker 1: of the American people are actually the super giant corporations
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  Speaker 1: knowing we can crush all of our small or innovative
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: competitors because we'll saddle them with compliance costs they can't handle.
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  Speaker 1: So time honored strategy. Actually, Tim Sanderfer of the Goldwater Institute,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: old time friend of the Armstrong and Getty Show, has
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  Speaker 1: written brilliantly about this. All sorts of different scams and
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  Speaker 1: schemes where regulation looks like it's to protect the consumer,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not at all anyway. So Trump signed an
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  Speaker 1: executive order earlier this year directing federal agencies to fix
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  Speaker 1: the seemingly broken live entertainment market, and according to the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: National Review, he was standing up for ordinary Americans who've
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: been priced out of concerts and sporting events by, as
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  Speaker 1: they write, a system riddled with opaque pricing, aggressive automated
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  Speaker 1: bots that buy up and resell tickets, and large quantities
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  Speaker 1: even though that's illegal, and limited options. And so the
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  Speaker 1: order gave the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and
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  Speaker 1: the Treasury Department until let's see, the twenty seventh of
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  Speaker 1: September would come right up as we record this to
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  Speaker 1: propose reforms. And let's see. This is written by Vance
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  Speaker 1: gin Or Gain, who was.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: The Has concert tickets always been this way? I didn't.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't live in a part of the country where
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  Speaker 2: you could go to concerts, so it was never on
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  Speaker 2: my radar. You did when when you were young, like
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  Speaker 2: in the seventies, could you jump on the phone the
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  Speaker 2: day tickets came out and get really good seats?
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 2: No, so it's not you.
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  Speaker 1: Had to buy them in person? One thing?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, the.
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  Speaker 1: Only way to buy a ticket was in person for
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  Speaker 1: the concerts I went to as a teenager.
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  Speaker 2: Could you show up in person and stand in line
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  Speaker 2: and get a really good seater or has it always
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  Speaker 2: been kind of mobbed up to where all the good
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  Speaker 2: seats were already gone.
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  Speaker 1: Sort of in that the record companies and the big
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  Speaker 1: radio stations and maybe the promoter who ran the hall
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  Speaker 1: would get a bunch of good tickets. Like once I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: stayed out overnight, slept in line air supply.
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  Speaker 2: It was air supply.
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  Speaker 1: It was air supply for their worsier than ever tour.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Uh No, several buddies and I slept out waiting all
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: night for rush tickets, and we were I think we
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: got there like the previous day.
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  Speaker 2: I think during your school year or in the summer.
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  Speaker 2: I don't remember, you slept for tickets. Yeah, oh yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that was the only way to get really good tickets
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  Speaker 2: and so uh and it was. It was quite the party,
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  Speaker 2: as I recall, though we were very tired.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: In the morning.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I was wondering where did you urinate?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I don't remember how that worked exactly. It was one
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of those situations where Jesus, what what is wrong with you? So,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: as I recall, since you get to know everybody anywhere
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  Speaker 1: near you, because you're there for hours and hours and
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: hours with remember kids, no screams, right, we're just chatting.
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  Speaker 2: Right, It's not like, now are you wait in line?
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  Speaker 2: You got all the world's entertainment sitting there in your hand.
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  Speaker 2: Of course you always do.
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  Speaker 1: You would have explain, hey, I got to take a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: pie or whatever, and and you'd go and you'd come back,
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  Speaker 1: and the people you've been with for the last eighteen hours,
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  Speaker 1: we're not gonna say lo, no, you just get back
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  Speaker 1: in line. And everybody kind of policed it. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: so we were, as I recall, sixth in line, and
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  Speaker 1: it was a maximum of four tickets per person, and
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  Speaker 1: we ended up in I think the eighth row.
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  Speaker 2: That's a pretty good ticket.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty good tickets, but that's like three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty tickets away from the front of the stage. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: because you know, the powers that be got the tickets.
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  Speaker 1: But it was a lot better than it is today,
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  Speaker 1: when the only way to buy tickets on resale was
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to know somebody who knows a scalper or something like that. Anyway,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: so back to the story, So they're supposed to crank
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  Speaker 1: out these proposals to protect consumers, enforce the law and
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  Speaker 1: expand competition, and as gin here rights not reward powerful
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  Speaker 1: incumbents with a regulatory mote. Unfortunately, Ticketmaster is now lobbying
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  Speaker 1: the administration to impose a resale price cap, limiting ticket
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  Speaker 1: resales to just twenty percent above face value, which sounds
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  Speaker 1: like a win for fans.
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  Speaker 2: How would you enforce that?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, that would be hard. I mean, it's such
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  Speaker 1: an enormous market and so spread out. Anyway, the writer writes,
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  Speaker 1: it's not a win for fans. It's a clever attempt
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  Speaker 1: to crush rivals under the guise of reform, and it
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  Speaker 1: will only make this system worse. It's fashionable to call
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  Speaker 1: Ticketmaster a monopoly, but the reality is more complex. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it's dominant in primary ticketing, but there are many resale platforms,
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  Speaker 1: seat geek, stub Hub, vivid Seats, and competition is growing
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  Speaker 1: from direct to fan platforms and decentralized systems. The only
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  Speaker 1: reason Ticketmaster still holds so much power despite the number
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  Speaker 1: of competing options is that government helped it entrench the company.
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  Speaker 1: There are some state laws that mandate consumers can only
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  Speaker 1: resell their tickets on the same website they bought them from,
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  Speaker 1: and this benefits Ticketmaster as the company controls more than
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  Speaker 1: eighty percent of the primary ticketing market place.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't realize that I used stub hub and seat
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  Speaker 2: geek pretty often. I didn't know Ticketmaster was that big.
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  Speaker 1: So obviously Ticketmaster earns twice, once on the original sale
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  Speaker 1: and again on the resale. The added business Ticketmaster is
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  Speaker 1: received because of government regulations like these have given its
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: parent company, Live Nation more capital to spend on a
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  Speaker 1: massing controlling interest in more event venues, with the tally
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  Speaker 1: now being nearly four hundred venues worldwide, and these venues,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: many of which receive public subsidies, then lock in exclusive
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: deals with one ticketing vendor more often than not, its Ticketmaster. Now,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: instead of advocating that the Trump administration removed these government
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  Speaker 1: created barriers which, by limited competition, limiting competition raised prices
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  Speaker 1: on fans, Live Nation is proposing that Washington had more
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: gumment red tape on the ticket industry through resale price controls,
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  Speaker 1: which would push up prices by further reducing overall industry
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  Speaker 1: competition and innovation.
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  Speaker 2: Does scalping at the site still exist and if so,
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  Speaker 2: why I haven't scalped in the smartphone era. I used
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: to scalp a lot, like all the time, sporting events mostly,
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  Speaker 2: But why would it exist in the smartphone era where
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  Speaker 2: you can leave your ticket up there for sale, lower
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the price as it gets closer to gain time or
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  Speaker 2: first note of the concert, and then sell it that way.
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  Speaker 1: Go ahead, Kittie, Well noo.
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  Speaker 3: There was a guy that used to hang out outside
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  Speaker 3: of an AT and T park in San Francisco that
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  Speaker 3: was scalping tickets and they ended up being fake. So
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  Speaker 3: I got totally deterred from that.
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  Speaker 2: Oh really, I never got burned on scalping somehow, it
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: never happened to me. But like so, when I took
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Henry to his first concert, the Eagles at the Sphere,
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  Speaker 2: pretty and I wanted really good seats, so pretty hard
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  Speaker 2: to get ticket, But I waited until an hour before
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: the show started before I bought tickets as a little
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  Speaker 2: nerve wracking. As we had flown there stayed in a hotel.
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  Speaker 2: I had promised him a concert for his birthday and
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  Speaker 2: I hadn't bought tickets yet. I didn't tell him that,
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  Speaker 2: but I just watching the price for the really good
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  Speaker 2: seats go down down down. They weren't standing outside the
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  Speaker 2: sphere selling them. They had them on. I think it
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  Speaker 2: was a stub hub and the price was just going
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  Speaker 2: down as it got closer because they didn't want to
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  Speaker 2: get stuck with their tickets. And I tickets that started
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  Speaker 2: at like fifteen hundred dollars. I think I bought for
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  Speaker 2: one to eighty wow.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. And because those sites are so sensitive to anybody
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  Speaker 1: getting ripped off, they've got great so.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I have no worry on those those
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  Speaker 2: big platforms.
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  Speaker 1: No, yeah, I've never been burned, Michael.
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  Speaker 4: I remember when I was younger going to buying tickets
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  Speaker 4: from a gas station. I would meet this guy at
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  Speaker 4: the gas station who was a ticket scalper and pay
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  Speaker 4: extravagant prices for the tickets. Looking back, that was pretty foolish.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Do you get them too?
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  Speaker 4: No? No, but I didn't get ripped off, but I
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  Speaker 4: easily could have.
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  Speaker 1: So. Back to the threat of the article, because I
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  Speaker 1: find this interesting anyway. While independent platforms would collapse if
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  Speaker 1: they had that twenty percent above face value rule, Live
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  Speaker 1: Nation Ticketmaster would survive just fine. Unlike many of its competitors,
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  Speaker 1: its business is not based on resale profits. They make
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  Speaker 1: their money from managing the vast majority of the primary
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  Speaker 1: ticketing marketplace Venu fees, artist management and its exclusive partnerships.
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  Speaker 1: That's why it can call for a cap, because it
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  Speaker 1: knows its rivals can't afford that. Other governments have tried this.
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  Speaker 1: In Ireland, a twenty twenty one resale cap led to
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  Speaker 1: a surgeon ticket fraud by twenty twenty four as criminal
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  Speaker 1: networks filled the void.
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  Speaker 2: Ahead of the Paris.
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  Speaker 1: Olympics, France saw hundreds of scam resale sites pop up
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  Speaker 1: due to restricted legitimate options. Twenty top twenty twenty five
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  Speaker 1: UK government study found on fraud rates and regulated resale
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  Speaker 1: markets were four times higher than in open ones. In
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  Speaker 1: other words, price caps don't stop on fair ticket resale practices,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: they just limit legitimate competition. Well, you said, you asked
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  Speaker 1: the question, it's a good one. How do you enforce
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  Speaker 1: this over zillions of you know, computers, and you know
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  Speaker 1: everywhere in America people can click and buy tickets. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the answer on stub hub would be, well, we have
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  Speaker 1: to or we would go in a business. So we
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  Speaker 1: use algorithms and security and blah blah blah. I Pea
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: addresses blah blah blah. Nobody is allowed to use a
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  Speaker 1: VPN and sell tickets, et cetera, et cetera. We make
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: sure nobody ever gets ripped off. So you're gonna trust them,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: or are you gonna trust the Federal Trade Commission to
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: make sure there's no ticket fraud. The experience of all
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: these European countries is the government can't hope to regulate
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it successfully, and so the criminals move in and say, yes,
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  Speaker 1: snow's the time, and it drives all the legit resellers
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  Speaker 1: out of business. Well, I'm not saying I love the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: situation where like t swizzle tickets, for instance, gets snatched up,
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  Speaker 1: and like, what percentage do you suppose of people who
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: attended the shows bought them from ticket resellers.
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  Speaker 2: I have only purchased from ticket resellers for quite some
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: time now, so I don't know. For most people.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know either. I'm you know, super high profile,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: super sought after stuff. I tend to go to weirder
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  Speaker 1: shows that only weirdos go to.
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  Speaker 2: But I've done some pretty big sporting events and concerts,
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  Speaker 2: and yeah it's expensive, but I'm a free market guy,
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  Speaker 2: so that doesn't bother me really, But I love man
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the modern like seat geek, where you go on there
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  Speaker 2: and it shows you what your view is going to
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  Speaker 2: be like at the football field from that seat. That's awesome.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, final note from this guy writing, fans deserve a
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  Speaker 1: fair shot at tickets and entrepreneurs deserve a fair shot
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  Speaker 1: at competing. That's what a truly free market provides. But
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  Speaker 1: we won't get there by handing Ticketmaster a government enforced
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  Speaker 1: price shield.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. My biggest complaint with the way the modern thing
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  Speaker 2: works is the artist doesn't get the money. You know,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: don't use Taylor Swift because she has so much money.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But even with all her money, why is some ticket
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: broker getting five hundred dollars for your eighty dollars ticket
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  Speaker 2: instead of you? You're the demand, you know.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I wish we had Alnonymous, the ticket broker who's a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: friend of mine, with us right now, because one interesting
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: thing about the whole ticket broker's thing is they have
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: contracts to buy X number of tickets. They're like in
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: how do I explain this? It's like buying futures in commodities,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and so they will buy tickets at face value, lots
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of them. That end up not being profitable at all.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: They lose money on them because there's less demand than
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: they thought they would be for whatever tour or what
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: have you. And so the actual artists and promoters like
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: them because they limit the opportunity for loss.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So they buy futures when air supplies on there, what'sier
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: than ever nostalgia tour? Right, they're happy that Ticketmaster's buying
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: up all those tickets.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, in general, And you know, you also
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: have to get back to the idea that if you know,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I'm Judy and I are going to see Elvis Costello
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: before too long, longtime musical hero of mine.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: How old is Elvis Costello? Now?
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Oh golly g h he's got to be seven.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: And I don't bash musicians based on their age because
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I've seen some old musicians and they are play and
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: sound fantastic.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Right he just turned seventy one.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be fine. I've seen I saw eighty year
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: old Eagles play like crazy.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I've seen the recent shows and he and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: his band sound fantastic. But anyway, if I went on
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and saw that, I could not see ec for less
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: than four hundred and twenty five dollars. If I don't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: want to spend that much, I don't go. And if
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I do want to spend that much.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: I do.
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  Speaker 1: It's called supply, and it's delightful. Companion demand, It's fine.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Would I prefer some fantasy land where it was always
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: face value? And if we had more time and I
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: had more expertise, I would explain why face value tickets
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: are often underpriced. But that has to do with a
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: number of people, including the artists, have every interest in
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a sellout or as close to a sellout as they
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: can get, and they get murdered if they have half
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: empty arenas. That's the one thing they must avoid.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Billy Joel famously, when he was setting his record at
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden with sold out shows, he'd buy the
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: first I forget how many rows, six rows or whatever,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and then give those to people that had the upper
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: tickets when the concert started, because he wanted real fans
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: in the front. He said, he did debt for him
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: because he wanted real fans who are really excited to
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: be there, not people who are always in the front
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: row and bored with the thing. I mean, I had
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: that experience at the Eagles. I was in the front
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: row with my son. We were seat he was seat one,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: a row one, seat one, and but uh, he was
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: very excited his first concert ever. But there were a
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: lot of rich people around me who showed up late,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: barely paid attention, looking at their phones. I mean, this
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: is just annoying.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's got to be just a downer for the performance.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: USS. That's what Billy Jonas says. He didn't want to
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: look out there and see people who have seen it
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: all and are bored to death. People are screaming and yelling,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: and this is the night of their life they're going
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: to tell people about forever.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I love that. That's so smart. Yeah, and that does happen.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I'm yeah, one of the first concerts I've ever went to.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It might have been the first concert I ever went to.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: But I had snosebleed seats. I was thrilled to be
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: up there in those bleeds just because I was seeing
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: somebody live. I wouldn't do it now sitting up there
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: having been I'm jaded from being in the radio business.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: You get to sit in a lot of cool seats.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: But I couldn't get excited about it now. But I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: did once in retrospect.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I should have sold like one lung in one kidney,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: but the guy was paying good for lungs, and I thought,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you know, why not double my money.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: I could have given up a toe or two. You
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: can get by on three or four toes.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Nobody has any use for a tow though people need
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: lungs livers.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Well, I guess that's it.