Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Pennsylvania Ticket Resale Law Changes

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed a bill on 7/16/2007 that has removed price restrictions for the sale of event tickets online. The previous law capped the resale price of tickets to 25% over the face value. The law applied to resellers in the state.

The new law completely removes the cap and requires that the reseller guarantee a full refund if the event is cancelled or the ticket is not valid upon entry. The law also states

“A reseller that uses [an] Internet website shall not be required to obtain a license to resell through the Internet website if the operator of the Internet website: Has a business presence and physical street address in this Commonwealth and clearly and conspicuously posts that address on the Internet website, or has a business presence in this Commonwealth and one of the following: a registered agent, a foreign business license or a certificate of authority issued by the Department of State.”

The means that StubHub, eBay, Ticketmaster and every other resellers need to rent office space in Pennsylvania. Something most already do.

The house bill, which was passed on 3/28/2007, was unanimously approved. The governor was quoted as saying “Pennsylvania must make a change that a number of other states have already made”.
Pennsylvania becomes another in a line of states to repeal or ease ticket resale laws over the last few years.


To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

NFL Time

NFL ticket sales have started. Some teams have already gone on sale. Many are going on right now or about to. The Texans, Bears, Cardinals, Browns and Dolphins go on sale this week. Pick the teams you want to target and see if you can get some good seats. Remember these few pointers:

Avoid packages that include preseason games. These cost just as much but do not have the demand. Where we live, there are always people handing out the preseason game tickets.

Avoid club seats – Club seats are great to see a game. More elbow room. Better food. Wait staff. But you pay for all this. For the person wanting to go to the big game - Field level sells the best and commands the highest prices.

Treat them like concert tickets – go into a sale knowing what the good sections are and only buy what if offered for those sections. If you are only offered upper level seats, walk away and try another team. Do not buy tickets just because you want to. Good seats sell. Bad ones don’t.

To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Girl Power

The Spice Girls have announced a World Tour. This will be one of the biggest connect events of the year. The current tour dates include:

December 07, 2007 Los Angeles Staples Center
December 08, 2007 Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena
December 11, 2007 New York Madison Square Garden
December 15, 2007 London The O2 Arena
December 20, 2007 Cologne Kölnarena
December 23, 2007 Madrid
January 10, 2008 Beijing
January 12, 2008 Hong Kong
January 17, 2008 Sydney
January 20, 2008 Cape Town
January 24, 2008 Buenos Aires

This is all still very formative, since many venues have not even been selected. It appears to buy tickets, you need to go to their websites and state a show you wish to attend. (www.thespicegirls.com). Eveyone should go ahead and sign up. They claim there have been 5 million request so far. Good luck.

To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Chasing Records

As of this writing Barry Bonds has hit home run #749 (the last being June 22 against the Yankees) and Craig Biggio is sitting on 2997 hits (3 shy of being the 27th player to surpass the 3000 hit barrier).

For Bonds the week of July 23rd through the 30th seems a likely target to tie and pass Hank Aarons record of 755 home runs. For Biggio the weekend of June 28 – 30 seems a good target for the barrier to be crossed. Both of these are home stands.

Sammy Sosa hit home run number 600 last week on June 20th.

Hooray for everyone. But how does this mean money for us?

Chasing records like this makes it challenging to synchronize our maximum profits with the chase.

For example – Before the season started, it was proposed that Craig Biggio would get number 3000 in early to mid June. This was based on what he did last year. Biggio is not having his best season. His batting average is waddling around .238. It is taking a while.

When people know the exact game, the ticket value will go way up. But it is impossible to know the exact game. Holding onto tickets hoping to sell them for the exact game goes against the system of selling early.

When Barry Bonds was trying to surpass Babe Ruth’s home run mark last year, it took three weeks. This is not like Cal Ripken’s iron man mark of contiguous games where we can pinpoint the exact day.

Now what to do next time milestones roll around. Let the fans decide the market. I probably sold more Astros tickets for June at a little more money than I have in previous years. Ditto for the Giants and Rangers. I will not try to time the market. Someone is making 200 on Biggio’s 3000 hit game. I already made $40 on that game (whenever it is) and $40 on every game around it.

This is a big year for milestones. There are usually not that many passed in a single year, but it will happen again.

To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.

The Play Tax

While we are going to try and stay out of politics, we cannot pass this up.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has proposed a 6% "luxury tax" to be levied upon sports, concert, and movie tickets, as well as golfing, bowling, and health club memberships. The Legislature is expected to introduce a bill in the near future. This could bring in over $100 million per year to the state.

Every state, county and city is trying to provide more services with less money every year. While budgets grow every year, so do the number of services that are needed to be performed. Many of these same entities are forced to spend money on items or risk losing money in other areas. These unfunded mandates talk a toll on local budgets. The Federal level passes these onto the state. The state passes them onto the county and city.

The governing bodies at each level are always trying to find new avenues to collect tax revenue. Lotteries are a great source. Taxes on cigarettes or other “sin taxes” are also easy targets for any law-passing body. But these sources have already been hit up several times. New taxes sources have to be targeted. The search for new tax revenues crosses party lines.

It is easy to say cut service, but the political reality is that it is very hard to do and still get re-elected.

Given all this it looks like Michigan have found a tax candidate – Play.

The professional sports teams are already campaigning how this hurts working families and that this is a right to go. These arguments are weak. Most sports and concerts have already out priced most working families anyway. Maybe they should focus their appeal on the movie price increase. This is a bit closer to home for most.

This means for us that our cost of inventory may rise. I would expect other legislating bodies over the next few years to see how it goes in Michigan.

For more information – see the following

http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20070615&content_id=2028136&vkey=pr_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det

http://www.notickettax.com/

To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Input from another Broker

We received the following message this past week

“I got the program at the beginning of the year. The first few tickets I bought were all concerts – ROCK AND ROLL! I did some Police, some Genesis, some Lynard Skynard. A couple of tickets per show on a few show each. Most all of those early ones sold. Some sold real quick. I started with a couple of hundred dollars. I tried to get some good NBA playoff tickets but couldn’t get anything. Concert ticket “for sales” slowed down in May.

When I got some more sales, I put in a few hundred more dollars and bought some Indians season tickets for the rest of the season. I am from Cleveland and everyone hear is pretty jacked about how they are doing.

Everyone wants to go to an Indians Game. 21-7 at Home! I had a lot of quick sales. Some were more than double the face value. Thank you Yankees and Red Sox. I have already recovered all the money I put into it.”


To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

I Need a New Example

We have spoken with hundreds of people over the last few years about making money in the secondary ticket market. Inevitably the question comes up – “Is it Legal?” If you have read the material in our book – you know the answer is “Yes, but some states have restrictions.”

New York has forever been my example of the most restrictive state. They had a cap on what a ticket could sell for if the stadium was over 6,000 seats. This law applied only to residents of New York.

Well now it does not even apply to them. Over the last week the New York State Assembly repealed the law. There are now no caps on what ticket can legally be sold for. The bill went further than originally expected. It also prohibits any team or venue from cancelling ticket subscriptions.

The Yankees had attempted to revoke the licenses of some season ticket holder sin the past. This is what prompted the additional language in the bill.

This is a big win for ticket brokers. The opportunities have just become available and less big brother looking over us.

Below are a few of our favorite excerpts from the bill:

“Controlling the price of tickets on the secondary market has been cited as a method of consumer protection. However, the primary sale price of tickets has increased to a point that many tickets are already unaffordable for consumers. Therefore, controlling the prices on the secondary market is not an effective consumer protection.

This legislation would prohibit the venues from revoking season tickets or the contractually agreed upon right of first refusal to purchase future tickets when such revocation is based solely on the basis of resale.

Eliminates the prohibition on selling tickets to places of entertainment at more than the maximum premium price; extends from June 1, 2007 to June 1, 2009, the expiration of the provisions of the arts and cultural affairs law relating to tickets to places of entertainment.”


For more information about the bill, please go to the following site.

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A07526

To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.