Thursday, December 11, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NFR fans find roping tickets easy

Scalpers, ticket exchange busy during popular 10-day rodeo

Tourist Rick Nix of Amarillo, Texas, tries to sell a National Finals Rodeo ticket Tuesday night near the main entrance to the Thomas & Mack Center. Scores of rodeo fans have been selling extras nightly outside the sold-out event. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

Ever since moving to Las Vegas 18 years ago, the National Finals Rodeo has enjoyed a reputation as one of the hottest tickets in town.

"Tickets are harder to get for this than they are for the damn Super Bowl," said Harley Martin, 76, a former bull rider from Westmorland, Calif., who scored his tickets by standing in line at a Las Vegas promoter's office on four separate days.

Although local scalpers and ticket services are hawking seats for $65 to $750 apiece, cheaper tickets aren't hard to come by if you know where to look.

Outside the Thomas & Mack Center on Monday evening, spare tickets available at face value were about as difficult to spot as cowboy boots and bottles of Coors beer. In the two hours before the rodeo's 7 p.m. start, dozens and dozens of people were making deals in what had become an open-air ticket market only yards from the venue's main entrance.

At the same time that NFR tickets were garnering bids of hundreds of dollars on eBay, they were changing hands at the makeshift ticket exchange Monday for $34.50 and $52, the respective face values of balcony and plaza tickets.

Some were selling tickets for friends who couldn't make it. Others were unloading comps they received from rodeo competitors or sponsors.

"You always hear that it's hard to get tickets, but I've never had trouble," said Jean McKinney, a 54-year-old airline worker from Dallas who was trolling for a plaza seat Monday evening.

Debbie Momberg, a housewife from Benson, Ariz., repeatedly waved her hand in the air and told passers-by, "I've got tickets over here."

Momberg, 47, said she gets first dibs on buying four tickets each year because she's a season ticket holder with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Often, she only needs one pair.

"I never have trouble getting rid of the others out here," she said.

One burly buyer claimed that he has traveled here from Logan, Utah, each December for eight years without tickets, but has never had trouble buying them outside the venue.

"And I've never paid more than face value," the man said after making a purchase. He declined to identify himself for fear he had committed a crime.

According to authorities, he has.

A Clark County ordinance bans scalping, the act of selling tickets for a profit without a business license. Although those selling tickets at face value aren't scalping, they're still violating a county rule that prohibits doing business without a license.

The face-value sellers on Monday were receiving little attention from police, completing their transactions without interference.

"It's not a big deal. You're not going to go to jail if we catch you selling tickets for face value," UNLV Police Sgt. Dustin Olson said. "We tell them the same thing we tell the scalpers. If you want to do it, don't do it on university property."

At least some of the tickets up for sell Monday appeared to be comps that had been given to rodeo competitors.

According to officials with the PRCA, each competitor gets one free ticket to each night's event and is offered the chance to purchase up to eight tickets at face value.

PRCA officials said they prohibit competitors from selling their comps or parlaying the tickets they were allowed to purchase into profit.

But several people selling tickets in front of the Thomas & Mack admitted in interviews that they were getting rid of extra tickets that competitors had been given as comps or had purchased and no longer needed.

When approached by buyers, these sellers would ask what night's event the buyer was looking for and then flip through a small book that contained perforated tear-out tickets.

Sponsors of the event also get scores of complimentary tickets that are handed out to friends and relatives. Some of those tickets also get sold.

"We bought ours from a friend who does business with the PRCA," said 23-year-old Ellensburg, Wash., resident Justin Henderson, echoing a story told by others outside the venue Monday evening.

The wide-scale availability of tickets available at face value hasn't gone unnoticed by scalpers.

"The problem is every son of a (expletive) and his brother is out here selling," said a scalper who would identify himself only as Jack. Although Jack said he was from Texas, he had no drawl and was wearing a UNLV Runnin' Rebels parka.

Jack began the evening offering $32.50 balcony tickets for $60. By the end of the night, he was trying to recoup whatever he could of his investment, offering the same ticket for only $20.

The informal ticket exchange wasn't the only thing scalpers have to contend with this year.

They also have competition from a cheap, legitimate service.

For $2, the NFR Ticket Exchange booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center hooks up ticketless rodeo fans looking to buy with season ticket holders who have extra seats to sell.

Also, four undercover UNLV officers clad in Western wear have caught dozens of scalpers since the rodeo's kickoff Friday night.

"We warn them the first time, but if we catch the same guy doing it a second time on the property, he'll probably get a citation," Olson said.

Four or five scalpers went to jail during the first four days of the rodeo after ignoring a warning, Olson said, but most of them had warrants out for their arrest for another crime.

In interviews, many of those buying and selling face-value tickets outside the venue Monday evening expressed disdain for scalpers.

Rick Lehman, an auctioneer from Gilbert, Ariz., paid face value for a ticket he bought from a competitor with a comp.

"That's the only way I can go," said Lehman, 41. "I'd go to the casino and watch it for free 'fore I pay a scalper $300 for a ticket."