Over the Festival of Faith and Music weekend, Sufjan Stevens will be playing two shows. The earlier show will be for festivalgoers only, while the second is a general public show and has sold out.
In fact, it sold out so quickly that tickets can now be found on ebay. It’s somewhat amusing to see tickets for a show you’re involved with (and an artist you’ve watched come up from playing to much smaller audiences) being sold in this way, but also frustrating as it’s certainly not fair to those who become priced out of seeing their favourite artists.
But what is definitely amusing is the claim that:
These are FULL PRICED TICKETS with no limitations or restrictions, unlike the Student tickets or expensive festival passes.
At the time of posting, these tickets are listed for $86. Festival passes are $100 (or $50 for students). For that $100 you not only get to see Sufjan and Anathallo, but you also get to hear talks by both of them (and a whole range of others), and get performances Emmylou Harris, Neko Case, Sarah Masen and Liz Janes.
Perhaps the person listing the tickets wasn’t expecting them to go for this much, but given the buzz around Sufjan right now, I doubt it. We will of course be making use of ebay’s relevant policies.
(you can also find the tickets over on stubhub).
Tags: Sufjan Stevents, FFM2007, Ticket scalping, Touting, Ebay
I’m glad to see that this was about the tickets selling out and not about Sufjan giving up his soul to corporate America. Much relieved.
Now for my question: how is a place like Stubhub not considered scalping? Or do they only allow sales at face value?
Stubhub claim that because they’re not in Michigan they don’t have to abide by Michigan scalping laws.
I’m pretty sure there’s case law that would disagree with that, but I’m not a lawyer…
They’ve been bought by ebay who are a _little_ more careful about these things (face value + postage only) so maybe their policies will gradually change?