Friday, April 22, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

LAS VEGAS CENTENNIAL: Ticket trouble clouds concert

Mayor fumes as 'pigs' grab free tickets to July 2 event on Web site, then offer them on eBay for hundreds of dollars

Happy 100th birthday, Las Vegas. Here's your present: a brand-new scandal.

OK, it's not a scandal at this point. But a brouhaha has broken out over the city's centennial concert on July 2, starring the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Weezer.

Nearly 50,000 free tickets to the event were snapped up Monday through a Ticketmaster Web site. Since then, dozens of people have been trying to sell their tickets online on eBay for as much as $359 for a set of four.

On Thursday, the situation incited Mayor Oscar Goodman to lash out and threaten litigation.

"Whoever takes advantage of the largesse and good will of the city is a bum," a seething Goodman said. "Real pigs."

Goodman has instructed the city attorney to investigate whether the scalpers can be charged with a crime.

An additional 5,000 tickets will be released May 16, but at that time, tickets must be picked up in person at participating Ticketmaster outlets and not just plucked off the company's Web site by any capitalist in the world.

Goodman said kids and adults have been e-mailing him, virtually begging for tickets. He echoed the sentiments of some of those constituents.

"It's so unfair because the centennial committee wanted to present this very special event available to everybody free of charge," Goodman said.

Ardent Chili Peppers fan Sara Tobin agreed.

"It was really lame that people would ruin a free show by taking advantage of it," said Tobin, 17, a junior at Bonanza High School.

Tobin's mother and some of her work colleagues all logged onto the Ticketmaster site at noon Monday, but they could score only a single ticket among them.

"So I only have one, and if we don't get another so my dad can go with me, I can't go," Tobin said. "I'm pretty upset."

Then again, the centennial committee did have, as one goal of the concert, to draw tourists, and that idea might be working, at least partially. Figures show that 46 percent of the tickets distributed Monday went to Las Vegans and about one-third to Californians.

Asked for his own reaction to the drama, City Councilman Larry Brown launched into the chorus of a 1991 Chili Peppers smash hit: "Give it away, give it away, give it away now."

Asked for further, actual comment, the three-term councilman said he believes the scalping could not have been prevented.

"Hopefully, no one will be gouged," Brown said.

Even though some city residents' sour grapes have turned to whine, taxpayers are not paying a dime for the concert, which is set for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority parking lot at Paradise Road and Convention Center Drive.

Show promoter Clear Channel is picking up the tab for the event. Consequently, the city will not profit from it, but Clear Channel will profit from the sales of concessions and merchandise.

The bulk of ticket scalping online seems to be from individuals who were among at least 11,250 people who got on Ticketmaster.com fast enough Monday to snag four tickets per person.

Ken Solky, president of the ticket-broker company Nevada Ticket Services, said Thursday he has none of the tickets in his inventory.

"We always try to assist our clients in whatever they're looking for," he said, but "we've yet to have a client ask for the free show."

Solky, a two-decade veteran of acquiring tickets to popular shows, was not shocked that a few thousand people rapidly acquired tickets before the rest of the city's population did.

"Quite frankly, we have a community of, what, a million-six and growing? And a weekly tourist count of probably a quarter of a million or more that recycles twice a week," Solky said.

"It doesn't surprise me at all" that all the tickets went so fast.

Solky, who is also the vice president of the National Association of Ticket Brokers, does have advice for people who are thinking of buying scalped tickets: Know your ticket dealer.

The Ticketmaster tickets, which bear bar codes that will be scanned at the concert gate, are printable at home. They even can be e-mailed around. This could increase the odds that scalpers will sell fake tickets.

Solky put it this way:

"Here's the deal. If you're dealing with just anybody, then you really don't know when you get to the show if you're gonna get in because a bar code can be duplicated with the stroke of a photocopy machine. And the first person to enter the grounds using that bar code gets in. Any subsequent person who shows up with the same bar code gets turned away."

But Solky, a self-described optimist, said the Fourth of July weekend concert should be fine, regardless of the traffic of 50,000 people trying to park and gain admission to an event that hardly could end up as controversial as the city it was designed to commemorate.

"I like to accentuate the positive," he said.

"This is America's party. This is Las Vegas' party. ... If they were lucky enough to get online early and get their tickets, they're really gonna enjoy themselves."

Review-Journal writer J.M. Kalil contributed to this report.