“Psst! Over here. You looking for a ticket?”
Translation .. “I can see that you’re passionate and desperate to go to the game. I’m a low-life who grabs as many tickets as I can, as early as I can, and then on-sells them at much higher prices to unsuspecting, honest individuals like you, once all other tickets have been sold. Now, let’s start the bidding.”Native Americans were once known for scalping. It was part of their lifestyle. They would remove the scalp, with hair still attached, from the heads of defeated enemies and keep them as trophies. Apparently they looked great on the mantelpiece.
As brutal as this action is (the scalping I mean, not the mantelpiece), somehow it presents as more honourable and less offensive than the activities of our modern-day scalpers, those who loiter outside our stadiums in the shadows. Ok, perhaps I’m being extreme.
More than two weeks prior to the home leg of the ACL final between the Reds and Gamba Osaka the remaining 4,000 tickets to the game were all sold. People queued in the street at ticket venues on the morning of the final day, some even choosing to camp out the night before. Like the remnant of soggy chips amidst a flock of hungry seagulls, all of the available tickets were snapped up quickly. Those missing a leg stood no chance.
Reports by disappointed fans soon after, those who had missed out on a chip, noted that guys (have you ever seen a female scalper? maybe it’s part of male charm?) were standing near the ticket venues, bunches of tickets in hand, offloading them to desperate Reds fans at double their original price. A radio report even suggested that people were paying up to $750 for a ticket (they cost less than $50 each).
I’m all for free trade and everything but something here is not right. In fact it stinks. It brings to mind the actions of Cricket Australia back in late 2006 when Ashes tickets were the chip of choice. They went to the extraordinary length of employing online detectives and then cancelling more than 1,000 tickets that were purchased via eBay from scalpers. Bravo.
When listening to the plight of a passionate supporter, who has queued for hours at a ticket venue only to then miss out, one can’t help but feel aggrieved.
Somehow we need a system in place that stops the seedy activity that is scalping, dead in its tracks. The scalpers are truly the enemy of the honest fan who wants to support their team and pay a fair price to do so. We all know what the Native Americans did to their enemies .. ok, ok, again a tad extreme!
