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Scalpers.
GermanCityGirl
Twitter AdministratorSeattleRegistered User regular
Twitter AdministratorSeattleRegistered User regular
Was it just me or were there more scalpers standing outside the convention centre this year? I counted at least five on Friday with a literal fistful of badges! And several more offering money for badges...
Anyone have any ideas on how to stem the tide of those vultures...?
Cheers,
- GCG
Anyone have any ideas on how to stem the tide of those vultures...?
Cheers,
- GCG
Next PAX: PAX East 2013
Previous PAX: PAX Prime 2012
"Money can't buy you love, but it can get you some really good chocolate ginger biscuits."
Previous PAX: PAX Prime 2012
"Money can't buy you love, but it can get you some really good chocolate ginger biscuits."
GermanCityGirl on
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There was a Caucasian man on Friday who had a Press badge, too, that he was scalping. Not sure where the fuck he got that...
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They would always be hounding for my pass.
{Fondly remembers the PAXTrain}
You're right though, the only thing we can do is ask people not to sell their passes to these annoying scalpers or to buy from them.
I guess if you can't beat them, troll them.
1) Scalpers approaching exiting PAX attendees, asking if they still wanted their badge
2) PAX badges being sold/bought to/from scalpers
3) PAX attendees with extra badges giving or selling them to PAX hopefuls for free, or below ticket price
4) Random tourists who were "in Seattle for the day" checking out a big convention buying passes from scalpers (I hope they had a good time at PAX too)
I asked one of the scalpers how much money he was actually making off of this practice. He said graduated from a university, and used to be a stock broker for 5 years, insinuating that he was making bank off of scalping. Meh, I call bs on that, but whatever.
I asked another one who had been out there all day why he was still out there, despite it be very late in the night, and he said he had a mortgage and bills to pay. It seemed like more effort than payout really. Making money, no receipts, fast money, blah blah.
The worst part was watching people get bullied by them. That really didn't happen that often, but was awkward to watch either way. Out of the 75,000 attendees, it was probably a small minority that were bought from the scalpers anyway. Doesn't make it okay to do, but as mcdermott said:
I think it was because he looked at my badge and went "OOoo, yours is yellow, can I have it?" like it had $$ attached to it.
My point is that even if this guy was legit there is now a huge enough scalper presence to make people suspect. Which makes me sad.
I know it would be difficult but perhaps a color scheme/more obvious design change every other year? I remember my high school used to do opposite colors on the ASB cards each year. One year top purple, bottom white then the next year would be flipped with the picture on the opposing side. So if there are too many badge types to alter colors, than maybe logos/stripes should be flipped each year. When I looked at my 2009 badge I considered how easy it would be to flash it at the green coats.
gotta hustle everyday. if you don't buy passes on-time, it's your fault.
don't hate 'cause someone is trying to get theirs.
The african american guy was selling exhibitor badges also, he told one guy $125 and another $100. Got to hear all sorts of interesting conversations out front walking from the main theater and pegasus too!
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If you find that you have an extra ticket, there should be a simple mechanism for "releasing" the ticket (before the badge gets sent out, obviously) so that people on a wait list can have one assigned. Once that is in place, anyone found to have scalped a ticket should simply be unable to purchase PAX tickets in the future. No exceptions. If you can easily release your ticket, there is no excuse for reselling it above the purchase price.
-1
The scalpers have no right to make money off PAX. It isn't their event. It's the same reason that I can't sell t-shirts with a PAX logo. I didn't do the work, I don't get to make the money.
So what's the difference between this and a used game sale? Someone already paid for that ticket anyway already, right? He's just selling used badges!
PAX 09's badge had a real nice hologram with "PAX 09" on it:
Was very surprised to see no similar sticker on this year's badge, I imagine that cut down significantly on counterfeits last year.
PSN: Quintonious
I absolutely agree with that part. That's why my first post had said that you should only be going after scalpers if there is also a quick and painless mechanism for "releasing" unneeded tickets to a wait list of people. (Basically, you should be able to just email the ticket folks with the ticket number you are cancelling, and then they issue a ticket to the next person in line)
Say your friend couldn't come because they ran out of passes. You could buy one off them for the regular price, call up your friend and get him to get over if he lived a reasonable distance away.
As weird as it sounds that was actually the case for a few of them.
S'why it's always better to buy first and question the schedule later - worst-case-scenario happens and you can't go, you can still sell your badge at face-value to a market willing to pay twice that. Win-win.
PSN: Quintonious
For people like that, missing PAX is a pretty harsh thing and making a little cash off of it might help dull the pain. I'm less annoyed by those auctions or craigslist postings because I don't have to see them: if I see them it's because I looked for them. I have to see/hear the guys shouting, and it's bothersome.
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And I'm sorry Mcdermott if you think of your time in life as a money machine. To everyone their own.
I'm a little upset that the event sells out actually, I remember the first time I went my buddy didn't have a ticket and ended up buying one just by walking up to the conference and putting his money down. I told all my friends how cool it was and they came up for the next day and did the same thing. Alas, there's nothing I can do about how amazing PAX is, so I guess its just a badge of honor that I get my ticket in advance and get to experience something so cool. It just sucks that all my lazy friends won't buy in advance and when the time comes that they want a ticket they are already sold out completely.
This year I bought a ticket from a nice guy on these forums so that my buddy would have a ticket, he just got diagnosed with cancer so I wanted to do something fun with him before any of the bad kemo side-effects set in. I'm really happy the PAX forums were able to pull through for me in that respect, and I didn't have to pay any more than the standard price.
First things first:
Enforcers are not employees of PA -- we are all volunteers, and as such Enforcers do not get free passes to hand out to our friends at all. I understand that there were scalpers claiming to be Enforcers, or actual Penny Arcade employees; this was absolutely not true.
As far as the general scalping issue goes - stand by. It was noted by both Enforcers and PA staff that scalping was something of a problem now compared to PAXes gone by. This issue is definitely on the radar.
But I think he got annoyed when I finally made eye contact, then proceeded to bust up laughing for thirty seconds straight. At least it got him out of my way.
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