Why You Can't Get Tickets

Is it a conspiracy? You against the insiders

You can always get tickets to a hot concert or a big game—this is America, after all—but it likely won't be easy or cheap. No matter how badly you want that $75 Bruce Springsteen ticket, there are thousands of middlemen who want it more. To them it's a $275 Springsteen ticket because that's what they can get for it on the "secondary market." So they hammer Ticketmaster.com with computer orders the minute a show goes on sale, they bribe box office personnel to release seats set aside by promoters, they horde season tickets for hot teams and they give homeless people fistfuls of cash to stand in line for handfuls of tickets. Many ticket brokers—not the guys on the street but the ones who operate out of hotel rooms near the event—earn six figures. They have employees and 401K plans. When it comes to motivation, your devotion to Bruce can't compete.

The Masters

The $125 badges for the four-day event are distributed only to Augusta National members (an elite group of about 300 men) and to thousands of residents in surrounding communities who are on a patrons list established after the tournament began in 1934. The ticket is so tough to get that you can't even add your name to a waiting list (it opened in 1972, closed in 1978, then opened briefly again in 2000). Because they don't have names or photos, the estimated 25,000 patron badges fuel the resale market, selling for at least $3500 each. Or ask about the daily special—$500 for a badge you pass back over the fence as many times as you get caught without it.

The super bowl

The Super Bowl is a tough ticket not because brokers scoop them up but because the NFL's 32 team owners do. Only 1000 of the 71,000 fans who filled the Super Dome in New Orleans last year bought their $400 seats from the league, and they had to win a lottery for the privilege. About 25 percent of the remaining tickets went to the players and coaches, the host city and team and other insiders; 75 percent were divvied up among the 32 team owners, who gave them to stadium advertisers in lucrative sponsorship deals or traded them with tour companies for free team bus and charter services. Many of these tickets are converted to cash using scalpers, who put them on the street for $1500 to $7000 each. Meanwhile, the owners crack down on fans who resell tickets. Last year the Patriots rescinded the season tickets of a fan because he listed his three 50-yard-line seats on eBay for a game against Green Bay. He had missed two games in the previous 18 seasons.

Concerts

Before every major show, the promoter and band set aside the best seats in the house for friends, family, media and VIP requests ("Mick needs eight"). But if the day arrives and any of these set-asides remain unclaimed, an insider will often unload them to a scalper and pocket anything over the face value. "Every ticket office has one of those guys," says a broker. "You just have to be the person he calls." If you aren't, you'll have to battle on the front lines—and that means going online. Ticketmaster takes 43 percent of its orders over the Internet. Many of these sales are to scalpers who hammer the site using credit card data that they've collected from relatives, friends and friends of friends who earn a fee if the order goes through (one broker co-op has a database with 5000 numbers). A Springsteen show in Denver sold out in 46 minutes, but that was enough time for a co-op in Chicago to score some (concluded on page 145)Tickets(continued from page 85) 600 seats. Multiply that by the scalpers hammering from every metropolis, and a significant percentage of the 18,500 seats end up with people who didn't plan to sit in them.

Bleacher seats

An outfield bleacher seat at a weekend Cubs game is one of the hottest tickets in Chicago. To buy it at face ($24), you will have to stand in line on the third or fourth Friday in February, when tickets for the upcoming season go on sale. It's likely the people ahead of and behind you are scalpers, friends of a scalper, employees of a scalper or a homeless guy bused in and paid with a hot meal and pocket money to carry the scalper's cash to the window and purchase the maximum of four tickets per game for 10 games—then get in line again. The best nonbleacher seats belong to season ticket holders, who account for about half of any game's attendance and who often quietly resell their extras, which officially is forbidden. To undercut brokers, the Cubs and other sports franchises have launched websites where season ticket holders can resell their seats—if they give the teams a cut.

Mansion parties

The biggest event of the year is Midsummer Night's Dream lingerie party, held in August and attended by Hef and 1000 of his closest friends. B-list celebrities who want to attend are asked to submit a head shot and résumé; Hef sorts through the pile to add names to the list, while always keeping the female-to-male ratio at three to one. Security is tight; guards once caught Fabio sneaking in two friends in the trunk of his car. The only way to purchase tickets is online through Playboy Auctions, where the winning bids have been around $20,000. The good news? That's for a pair.

How to score tickets—maybe

(1) Don't call the local Ticketmaster. Instead, dial a distant city. The ticket giant has several regional call centers, and it's unlikely fans in LA are ordering tickets for a Boston gig. (2) Join presale registries offered by Sam Goody and on the official websites of many bands. (3) When a lottery is held, such as for practice rounds at Augusta, tell friends and family you'll pay anyone who scores tickets. Make it easy for them by filling out the applications. (4) Browse resale sites such as StubHub.com and eBay. You may find last-minute bargains. Ticket-master also has plans for a sports and concert resale site. (5) Ask at the box office on the day of the event if any seats have been released. You never know.