Here’s a Sad Story of Some Concert Tickets. Does Any of This Sound Familiar to You?

This was today’s RantNRave, the preface at Redef, the daily collection of carefully curated stories from around the Internet. Any of this griping about concert tickets sound familiar?

The story of a particular floor seat for a popular classic rock act. Fifteenth-row seat, face value $200, originally sold on TICKETMASTER for $218, including fees. Resold on STUBHUB for $1,000. Stubhub added $150 in fees, so the buyer ended up paying $1,150. Of that $1,150, about $250 went directly to Stubhub: $150 in fees from the buyer, and we’ll estimate $100 commission from the seller (that commission can vary depending who the seller is). The other $900 went directly to the seller, who — after paying $218 originally, presumably walked away with a net profit of $682.

For a single ticket. What happened to the original $218? The $18 Ticketmaster service charge would have been split three ways: roughly $7 to the credit card company, $6 to the venue and $5 to Ticketmaster. That leaves $200 to be accounted for—the original face value.

So, in short: $682 to scalper, $50 to band. Does anyone think that’s right? Or fair? Or that it makes any sense? Is there an alternative? One route is to keep the ticket out of the scalper’s hand in the first place?

Read the whole rant here.