Source:
http://www.app.com/story/enter...er-factor/608139001/
Bruce Springsteen on Broadway: The Ticketmaster factor
Stop the bots.
That’s the goal of Ticketmaster’s new Verified Fan system, which will be used to sell tickets for the upcoming “Springsteen on Broadway,” starting Oct. 3 at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City.
“Verified Fan is about creating an invitation only experience around the on-sale,” said David Marcus, executive vice president, head of music, for Ticketmaster. “We’re trying to ensure the number of people who are acutely invited to participate in the on-sale is such that those people who are invited are likely to get tickets.”
“We want to humanize the ticket buying experience.”
By keeping the software used by scalpers out of the equation. How’s it done? Fan were instructed to sign up at springsteen.tmverifiedfan.com before Aug. 27. On Wednesday, Aug. 30, hours before tickets go on sale, Verified Fans may or may not receive a code via text (you must have a cell phone) that will allow you to purchase tickets, which range from $75 to $850. .
You will only be allowed two tickets to a single show. Who’s going to get the code?
“You give your basic information, your name, email address, mobile phone number to Ticketmaster, and Ticketmaster applies a bunch of algorithms to that limited data set and it can determine if you’re likely to go to the show, or if you’re likely going to sell your ticket,” Marcus said. “Verified Fan is not intended to prevent or eliminate resale. What it’s intended to do is made the first distribution of tickets fairer.”
“What would typically happen in this situation is you would go to buy tickets at 10 a.m. on Aug 30 and you would race not just against just your fellow fans but you would race against software that scalpers are using to acquire tickets faster than you can get into our system.”
The algorithm will favor those who have purchased Springsteen tickets through Ticketmaster in the past.
“We don’t have any information on who brought from Ticketron, or any other ticket company, Stub Hub or Vivid or the secondary market, we don’t have that data,” Marcus said. “If you are a past Ticketmaster customer who bought Bruce Springsteen tickets, that will be taken into account.”
“We are acutely aware of the unique history that Bruce has with his fans, the depth of passion his fans have for him and the commitment to him through ticket buying over the last 40 years, we very sensitive to that,” Marcus said. “There are only 30,000 to 40,000 tickets for sale and we are going to try our best to identify people who are likely going to use these tickets and not resale them. I can’t guarantee that every single passionate tickets buyer from the last 40 years is going to be rewarded with a ticket because the supplies are limited. That’s the reality of it.”
“Verified Fan is not an access control program, it’s separate from the mechanism of getting into the theaters,” Marcus said. “We’re still working out what the access mechanism will be.”
Also being discussed is whether or not secondary market tickets for “Springsteen on Broadway” will be available on Ticketmaster.com after the Wednesday on-sale.
“I don’t believe it’s our plan is at this time to offer resale tickets, but that is an ongoing conversation with Bruce’s team and the theater,” Marcus said.
On Dec. 11, 2015, the River Tour 2016 on-sale sold out in minutes, but perhaps even more frustrating, seats were available on secondary ticket market websites, such as StubHub.com, but at vastly inflated prices. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began an investigation into why the secondary ticket sites StubHub, TicketNetwork and Vivid Seats had “speculative” tickets to River shows on sale the week prior to the on-sale and Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting a federal investigation.
When Springsteen fans are upset, people take notice.
“They’re paying attention to how they get access to that sacred three-hour window and it’s incumbent on us, the enablers of that, to make that experience as tolerable for the fan as possible,” Marcus said. “You want the buying of a ticket to be as anxiety free as it can be and as frustration free as it can be. If you’re competing with software for that, (software) that’s seeking to profit off of this thing you want to so badly, that’s no fun. If we can take the software out of it, we can take one more step toward bringing the sacred closer to the fan. That’s what we aspire to.”
An anti-scalping measure, the BOTS Act, which prohibits “the circumvention of control measures used by Internet ticket sellers to ensure equitable consumer access to tickets for certain events,” was signed into law by President Barack Obama in December. The bill was similar to the BOSS Act, an acronym for “Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing,” which was inspired by Springsteen ticket snafus and introduced in 2009 by Pascrell.
The Verified Fan system was created independently of the BOTS Act, Marcus said. Having Springsteen employ it is “a real validation because Bruce is known for putting his fans first,” Marcus said.