Ticket Scalping in Pittsburgh

Ticket Scalping in Pittsburgh
By Vaughn Wallace

For any baseball fan hit hard by the recession, a scalper is his ticket to the game.

Most everyone at a professional sporting event has seen a ticket scalper. Standing on the street with a sign, calling to a crowd, the ticket reseller is one of many iconic-if barely legal-symbols that are part of America’s favorite pastime.

The entertainment industry refers to them as “authorized ticketing resellers.” In Pittsburgh, these self-described “ticket brokers” are required to apply for a license to legally resell tickets on the street. Ticket resellers must apply for an annual license from the city’s Bureau of Building Inspection.

With this in hand, scalpers can resell tickets in a location of their choice. They sport an official badge with their name and photo.

For $561 a year, scalpers receive a permit immediately, provided they bring along the fee, in cash, and have current tax information on file with the city.

The Slave Box

A veteran scalper named Keith, who wouldn’t provide his last name, has sold tickets outside of sporting events and concerts in Pittsburgh for the past 20 years. He sells without a license.

Pittsburgh City Ordinance Chapter 726 states that Keith can be fined $500 if he were to be caught by police while selling outside of a designated reselling zone. If he’s caught a second time, he could face charges of public nuisance, a second-degree misdemeanor in Pennsylvania.

Non-licensed ticket resellers are given a designated area near the stadiums to legally sell tickets. The area, located under the I-279 overpass, is 23 feet wide by 30 feet long. It was created as a market area, a type of duty-free zone in a sea of parking lots.

On most Pirate game days, officials from PNC Park stand near this reselling zone with electronic ticket readers—a feature of the reselling code that works to ensure that ticket resellers aren’t vending fraudulent tickets. Rules and regulations are posted nearby that remind sellers that reselling tickets above face value is illegal.

This is known as the slave box.

“Everyone knows why they call it the slave box. It’s miserable there,” said Keith.

Around an hour-and-a-half before the start of the Pitt football game against Connecticut on October 10th, ticket vendors began taking up prime positions around Heinz Field and the surrounding parking lots. Keith, along with six other scalpers, chose to stand along North Shore Drive, near the Carnegie Science Center. They avoid the reselling zone because it’s inconveniently located away from pedestrian traffic.

All six are standing on the sidewalk across from the field, rather than closer to the field. Their location appears to be a decision made to stay away from police trouble, but it’s a deliberate marketing strategy. By standing on the far sidewalk, Keith and others can solicit customers waiting in their cars as they enter the parking lot.

It appears that the secret to success is remaining friendly and looking presentable.

“Gotta be in the spirit,” Keith says with a huge grin. He has a “I need tickets” sign flapping in the wind around his neck.

Each potential customer approaches Keith in a different manner. Some roll down their windows only slightly, just enough for Keith to read the section and price on the seller’s tickets. Others approach on foot and engage Keith like a regular friend.

“I do have some regulars, here and there. It’s tough with the Internet, but I manage,” he claims.

With the advent of the Internet, scalpers must find other sources for their tickets and price their inventory more competitively. In the three days leading up to the Pitt-UConn football game, more than 130 tickets were offered for sale on Craigslist; offers ranged from $5 cheap seats to $150 combos.

Keith explains that the market is incredibly impulsive; games like this one are “a buyer’s market. I’ll get stuck with tons of uppers and mids (upper-level stadium seating, typically cheap or undesirable seats). In a couple weeks, when Pitt plays Notre Dame, it’ll be a seller’s market. I’ll have a great time selling [there],” he said.

Although hundreds of students pass Keith per hour on their way to the game, none of them give him a second glance. Keith claims that he has never sold a student ticket because they require a student ID to use and are priced cheaply by the school at $5 a head.

Keith is interrupted as a beige sedan pulls up, a large balding man in a black jacket hanging out the window.

“I got seven, you want?” the man yells to Keith.

With only a millisecond of hesitation, Keith says “yeah,” walks over to the car, and hands the man a wad of cash. He grabs the tickets, and retreats back to his original spot, where he thumbs through his purchase. He looks up with a frown, and recounts the tickets. There’s only six.

“He shorted me. Oh well, that’s life.”

Keith’s nonchalance about losing money reflects his experience in the business. He’s a rare sight, a seasoned veteran among a sea of younger scalpers. He isn’t worried about losing money on one ticket—he knows he’ll make it up sometime, whether it’s the next transaction or at the next game.

Another car rolls up and asks if Keith’s got a parking pass. He does. As he’s talking with his customer, traffic begins to move. Cars honk behind them—Keith just smiles and waves. He tells the customer to drive forward slowly. As the car rolls down the street, he jogs alongside as the transaction is completed. He pats the roof of the car as if to say “thanks” and hops back on the sidewalk.

Keith’s ring, a large golden setting with a scripted “Dad”, suggests that he’s at the top of his selling game. When asked about end-of-day profits, he shrugs.

Mike, another ticket vendor, walks past Keith and asks about a concert the previous night: “You made a killing?”

Keith smiles.

“Gotta do your homework, man.”

Legal Issues

Six police cars passed Keith on North Shore Drive. None of them stopped to talk. Keith waved at all of them. Half waved back.

Such is the questionably legal situation on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Although police didn’t bother Keith while selling an hour before kickoff, he’s been harassed numerous times by police, and has testified in court on several occasions, he said.

Mary Fleming, the building-inspection assistant chief of code enforcement, says that the city only issued three licenses this year. She is quick to note that only three people applied.

This is in stark contrast to the 30 or more scalpers outside of Heinz Field during the Pitt v. UConn game.

Diane Richard, spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Police, said Detective John Fisher deals with the same group of scalpers during most local events. He indicated that several undercover officers work during games to fight illegal scalping. These officers see a larger influx of counterfeit tickets being sold during larger events (championship games, big concerts) by out-of-town scalpers.

Since January, approximately 71 scalpers were arrested for selling during Pirates events and 24 during Steelers games, according to Richard.

Keith claims that the Pirates organization typically gives him the most problems while selling and that the Steelers organization only occasionally gave him troubles.

Both the Pirates and Steelers failed to return phone calls seeking comments on the issue.

As for the Stanley Cup champion Penguins?

“The Penguin organization never raised issue over this concern. However, they do address counterfeit merchandise,” says Richard.

Ordinance

In 2005, more than 15 ticket sellers unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit to block the city ordinance that confines unlicensed scalpers to a designated area—the so-called slave box.

Another blow to their business came in 2007 when Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell legalized the resale of tickets online. This bill hurt street scalpers because it allowed season ticket holders, a major source of inventory, to resell their tickets online directly to buyers. With a new legal outlet, season ticket holders no longer have to make a trip down to the game to unload their unused tickets.

The Governor’s office declined to comment when asked if Rendell was aware of the concerns voiced by ticket scalpers about the bill.

Gary Becker, a Nobel prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, said in an April 2002 Wall Street Journal article that “the use of the Internet is a way of making a market more perfect, in the sense of getting the tickets into the hands of people who at any moment are willing to pay the most for it.”

Scalpers like Keith are all too familiar with this concept—it’s their market that the Internet is replacing.