New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says a ticket industry investigation has found most tickets are never sold to the general public. Schneiderman says more than half of all seats are usually reserved for industry insiders and if affordable tickets do go on sale, he says brokers swoop in, sometimes with illegal "ticket bot" software.
"It took a single bot just one minute to buy more than 1,000 tickets to a U2 concert last summer at Madison Square Garden. There's just no way ordinary fans can compete with that," Schneiderman said at a news conference in Buffalo Thursday.
The attorney general says investigators discovered some brokers mark up tickets as much as 1,000%.
He says venues and ticket sellers also tack on fees that add more than 21% to the face price of tickets.
"Even Pope Francis, when he came to New York, whose events were all to be free, could not escape seeing tickets to his events being re-sold for profit. Scalping tickets for the Pope is about as low and you can get," Schneiderman added.
Schneiderman says leveling the playing field for consumers will take action on many fronts, including changes in state law.