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It's opening day for the Red Sox here tomorrow, which means one annual right of passage returns: getting gouged on ticket prices. I interviewed a former long time scalper turned filmmaker (same thing basically) in the Globe today about how it's hard out there for a pimp.
And you thought the music and publishing industries were the only ones being affected by the Internet. Online ticketing services and sites like Craigslist have had a huge impact on scalpers’ ability to make a living, too. It’s not like the good old days, says Jay Giannone. A South Boston native and filmmaker, Giannone turned his many years working as a scalper around Fenway Park into a 2009 film called “Scalpers.’’
If anything, scalping is a far seedier business than it used to be. Now what can sometimes happen, Giannone says, is that a bad apple can buy a ticket online, get a paper ticket e-mailed, print that ticket up 10 or 15 times, run it down to Fenway, and sell the same bogus ticket to 10 or 15 different people.
Sometimes that means selling them to scalpers who then go on to sell the phony tickets to other fans.
“Who ends up looking bad?’’ Giannone asks. “Scalpers, they don’t do that. You don’t [expletive] in your own backyard. If you’re making a living at it, you’re not gonna risk one day ripping people off to not be able to come out for the next 85 days. Do you want $300 today or $30,000 a year?’’
Giannone admits he’s biased, having worked around scalpers since he was a kid.
“A lot of them are honest, hard-working guys,’’ he says. “They’ll get a ticket for $10 or $15 and sell it for $30 or $40 to feed their mother in the projects. It’s not all junkies and [bad guys] — although there’s that also, I’m not gonna lie — but the majority of guys down in Boston are good, hard-working guys.’’
Post-Internet, the old hustle of heading down to the park three or four hours before the game to score a ticket just doesn’t make sense anymore, he says. “The Red Sox, they sold out six months ago. Run down as early as you want, you won’t get anything out of the box office. But I’m telling you right now, nobody is walking down to Fenway or the Garden blind. They’re going to [ticket agencies] or Craigslist.’’
It’s a far cry from the Boston of his film “Scalpers’’ (www.scalpersmovie.com). Guys had to fight for position in the ’80s and ’90s — sometimes literally. “It was territorial, and pretty ugly,’’ he says.
That doesn’t mean the handful of scalpers working the game don’t get hassled, but it’s often difficult to prove that someone is reselling a ticket at a profit. Besides, in Giannone’s opinion, the team is playing that role now. “Look at the price of tickets,’’ he says. “It’s $100 for the grandstand. It was 20 bucks four years ago. Who are the scalpers really?’’
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4 comments:
i'm leaning on the side of this guy going and fucking himself. how about you?
He does bring up a good point about the team and it's official scalpers I think.
Kind of relates to the whole legal speed by prescription versus street side coke dealers thing.
People hating scalpers is (one of) my pet hate(s). If you can't afford the ticket, don't fucking buy it! They're not scalping tickets to cancer surgery for your mother (yet? Probably will be if Baraqi Obamavitch gets his way). It's an entertainment event. You don't need to go. You just want to. Unless there's some kind of secret terrorist hostage scenario at the entertainment venue and you need to gain access to foil the ragheads and can't tell the police (in which case thanks again Obama).
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