mr.x
May 11, 2008, 6:02 AM
Vanoc vows to crack down on those selling tickets to scalpers
'Secret shoppers' to buy scalped tickets, which can be traced to original buyers
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, May 10, 2008
Vancouver's 2010 Games organizers will use a list of suspected offenders from previous Games to catch members of the Olympic family who misuse their access to tickets by selling them to scalpers at inflated prices.
And scalpers, beware: Vanoc says it will use "secret shoppers" to buy scalped tickets from them, which they will then trace back to their original buyers through each ticket's unique barcode.
"If we trace it back to a national Olympic committee or sponsor or sport federation, we have the ability and the right to cancel every one of the tickets they have been allocated," Dave Cobb, Vanoc's executive vice-president of marketing, said Friday. "And we will."
The harsh promise comes as Vanoc tries to head off the start of a growing market in scalped tickets, even before a single one has even been printed.
Tickets to the public won't go on sale until Oct. 11. But Vanoc has been witnessing a market emerge among resellers who have crafted packages they are expecting to sell that include tickets to in-demand events such as the gold-medal men's hockey final.
Cobb said scalpers are expecting they will continue to get access to tickets that they have traditionally bought from some national Olympic committees.
Vanoc has set aside 30 per cent of its 1.6 million tickets for so-called "Olympic family" groups, including the IOC, international sport federations, major sponsors, rights-holding broadcasters and national Olympic committees. All of those have the privilege of buying Vanoc's tickets in advance of the October sale to the public. The Olympic family has a deadline of May 31.
The NOCs are allowed to buy tickets for athletes and family members and their sponsors, and also for sale to the public in their own countries.
But Cobb said some NOCs have abused that right at past Olympics, ordering more tickets than they need or tickets to special events just for the purpose of supplying scalpers and ticket brokers.
Cobb said Vanoc is determined not to let that happen. It will track every single ticket through its barcode. By occasionally buying from scalpers it will be able to trace the origin of the tickets.
"We're hoping to have as many tickets to put on sale to the general public this fall, so we want to make sure these Olympic family groups are only using the tickets for legitimate purposes," he said.
"Every ticket that gets passed through to a ticket broker or a scalper is a ticket that in our opinion could have been available to the general public this fall. And just as importantly, at the face value of the ticket."
When Cobb came home last week from a ticketing seminar at the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, he brought with him a list of countries and companies that had in the past abused ticketing procedures.
"Previous organizing committees have a list with all the historical offenders who have basically been doing that in the past," he said. "We will have that list with us when we get the applications in from all these different groups. We won't be using it to convict anybody but we will be using it as a red flag against the orders we will get."
Cobb said Vanoc has also scrapped normal public ticket-buying mechanisms that in the past have allowed scalpers to dominate the online buying process.
Tickets will go on sale this fall over a five-week period. Any events that are over-subscribed will automatically go to a lottery system. Ticket resellers have bragged in the past that they have access to the best concert and entertainment tickets because they use computer programs that can clog up a ticket dispenser's system. But Cobb said Vanoc has been working with its ticket retailer, Tickets.com, to develop a new system. He wouldn't talk about the new security features. But he pointed out that under the lottery system, the order in which people call in won't matter.
"These hackers have figured out ways to get their orders in first. Some of these systems have been able to clog up the lines so the hackers get there first. But for our system, getting there first doesn't matter," he said. "The major way they have right now of cracking these systems won't be available to them because it is not first-come, first-served."
Cobb said he will be unhappy if Vanoc has to cancel tickets at the door because it suspects they have been scalped from an NOC. "When somebody goes to a ticket scalper, there will be no way to identify whether that is a ticket that has been invalidated because they got it from an NOC who broke the rules, or somebody that legitimately sold them a ticket. That's the big risk that consumers will be taking."
jefflee@png.canwest.com
Sounds good to me, scalping is a serious issue and it looks like they've got a good plan against it.
'Secret shoppers' to buy scalped tickets, which can be traced to original buyers
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, May 10, 2008
Vancouver's 2010 Games organizers will use a list of suspected offenders from previous Games to catch members of the Olympic family who misuse their access to tickets by selling them to scalpers at inflated prices.
And scalpers, beware: Vanoc says it will use "secret shoppers" to buy scalped tickets from them, which they will then trace back to their original buyers through each ticket's unique barcode.
"If we trace it back to a national Olympic committee or sponsor or sport federation, we have the ability and the right to cancel every one of the tickets they have been allocated," Dave Cobb, Vanoc's executive vice-president of marketing, said Friday. "And we will."
The harsh promise comes as Vanoc tries to head off the start of a growing market in scalped tickets, even before a single one has even been printed.
Tickets to the public won't go on sale until Oct. 11. But Vanoc has been witnessing a market emerge among resellers who have crafted packages they are expecting to sell that include tickets to in-demand events such as the gold-medal men's hockey final.
Cobb said scalpers are expecting they will continue to get access to tickets that they have traditionally bought from some national Olympic committees.
Vanoc has set aside 30 per cent of its 1.6 million tickets for so-called "Olympic family" groups, including the IOC, international sport federations, major sponsors, rights-holding broadcasters and national Olympic committees. All of those have the privilege of buying Vanoc's tickets in advance of the October sale to the public. The Olympic family has a deadline of May 31.
The NOCs are allowed to buy tickets for athletes and family members and their sponsors, and also for sale to the public in their own countries.
But Cobb said some NOCs have abused that right at past Olympics, ordering more tickets than they need or tickets to special events just for the purpose of supplying scalpers and ticket brokers.
Cobb said Vanoc is determined not to let that happen. It will track every single ticket through its barcode. By occasionally buying from scalpers it will be able to trace the origin of the tickets.
"We're hoping to have as many tickets to put on sale to the general public this fall, so we want to make sure these Olympic family groups are only using the tickets for legitimate purposes," he said.
"Every ticket that gets passed through to a ticket broker or a scalper is a ticket that in our opinion could have been available to the general public this fall. And just as importantly, at the face value of the ticket."
When Cobb came home last week from a ticketing seminar at the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, he brought with him a list of countries and companies that had in the past abused ticketing procedures.
"Previous organizing committees have a list with all the historical offenders who have basically been doing that in the past," he said. "We will have that list with us when we get the applications in from all these different groups. We won't be using it to convict anybody but we will be using it as a red flag against the orders we will get."
Cobb said Vanoc has also scrapped normal public ticket-buying mechanisms that in the past have allowed scalpers to dominate the online buying process.
Tickets will go on sale this fall over a five-week period. Any events that are over-subscribed will automatically go to a lottery system. Ticket resellers have bragged in the past that they have access to the best concert and entertainment tickets because they use computer programs that can clog up a ticket dispenser's system. But Cobb said Vanoc has been working with its ticket retailer, Tickets.com, to develop a new system. He wouldn't talk about the new security features. But he pointed out that under the lottery system, the order in which people call in won't matter.
"These hackers have figured out ways to get their orders in first. Some of these systems have been able to clog up the lines so the hackers get there first. But for our system, getting there first doesn't matter," he said. "The major way they have right now of cracking these systems won't be available to them because it is not first-come, first-served."
Cobb said he will be unhappy if Vanoc has to cancel tickets at the door because it suspects they have been scalped from an NOC. "When somebody goes to a ticket scalper, there will be no way to identify whether that is a ticket that has been invalidated because they got it from an NOC who broke the rules, or somebody that legitimately sold them a ticket. That's the big risk that consumers will be taking."
jefflee@png.canwest.com
Sounds good to me, scalping is a serious issue and it looks like they've got a good plan against it.