2023-11-08 02:38:53
The starting signal was at ten in the morning, when tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s concerts in Madrid in June of next year went on sale. Two, in principle. The ‘golden ring’, that invention that divides the track in two to charge more for those who want to guarantee the experience of seeing it up close (at 128 euros in this case), were sold out at the same time that the season opened. Or a few seconds later. Trying your luck in the modest part of the venue on foot, it was possible to get tickets for 88 euros. But the rest of the seats at Cívitas Metropolitano were sold out in minutes. On Viagogo, the resale website between individuals that experts recommend not going to due to its many complaints and reports of fraud, suspicions were confirmed: soon tickets for the ‘golden ring’ were being sold for 314 euros plus 57 euros in booking fees. management. The ‘bots’ never rest and fans once again suffered from the usual chaos in the sale of tickets for big events.
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Doro García is the technology manager and founder of SysAdminOK, a company that helps others that need to mitigate attacks from these robots that can either be programmed to launch tweets or to buy tickets en masse in milliseconds. “The servers can crash, because if you receive 10,000 requests at the same time it is very complicated to manage,” he explains.
How is it possible that the ‘golden ring’ tickets, thousands of them, are sold out in seconds? The expert proposes asking this question to the ticket sales websites, but the interview requests from this newspaper have not received a response. «’Bots’ are computer programs that people develop to automate the purchase and be able to do it in record time and in large quantities. Obviously to have an economic return with resale. And the fact that they sold out immediately and immediately went on resale makes one think about the action of ‘bots.'”
Bruce Springsteen, a Barcelona. EFE
But can’t anything be done? There are artists who have cried out against this problem, also against the ‘golden ring’. «Yes you can, but you have to see if the ticket sales companies are interested. They post their tickets, and that’s what matters in most cases, it doesn’t matter who. And to avoid the attack of the ‘bots’ they would have to make an outlay, pay for programs that can stop them. It all depends on each person’s ethics, but if you are selling 1,000 tickets for 100 euros and you sell them out in one minute, then in that minute you earn 100,000 euros. It is a business and many people don’t care whether robots buy them or people. What they don’t care about is if their servers go down due to a bot attack, and thus lose sales. “They do use resources in that.”
García highlights that ‘bots’ develop new formulas for attacking websites and also new ways of escaping control in a very short time, so the company of which he is the founder must be constantly renewing itself to be able to confront them: « “It’s easy to think that teenagers are behind the ‘bots’ to make money, but there are real cybercriminals hiding.” And they don’t just go for tickets, they also go for special edition sneakers or any other product with which they can make a profit. “We are talking about people who earn billions of euros like this.”
It would not be unreasonable to think then that companies that advertise themselves as ticket resellers between individuals were responsible for many of the bots that attack these websites. “To know that, it would be necessary to do an analysis of the pages, of the ticket sellers who usually use them… And it would be a matter for the authorities.” In fact, experts recommend users of this type of website who have been scammed not to be content with writing their experience on affected platforms on social networks and to report it to the Police. But above all, do not buy from them, not only because of the abusive prices, but because of the complaints they receive about fake tickets, tickets that are sold many times and only serve the first person who enters the venue, others that never reach the buyer. ..».
Nominal inputs
We would have to ask ourselves if artists can’t do anything to fight against these practices and ensure that fans and not robots take the tickets. “Well, it’s normal that it bothers them that a ticket is being sold at one price and the public is buying it at double the resale price, because that’s why they could also sell it at double the price, because that’s what artists are for.” This may partly explain the high price that many singers are asking in recent times to attend their concerts.
Some point to the sale of nominal tickets as a solution, with a limit of tickets per buyer: “And when you go you have to present your ID. Yes, but it is true that some flexibility would have to be given to be able to return them to the company again or resell them if it is because you cannot attend. But it also presents problems, you will have to ask a lot of information from the buyer and the seller. You have to request the DNI and we face cybercriminals who steal that data to carry out identity theft.
When asked if there is any trick to successfully compete against ‘bots’ when purchasing tickets, the expert assures that there is no. «There are no recipes or tricks. If you are in a queue to buy physical tickets and you have a hundred ‘zombies’ in front of you, you can try to put yourself first, but online you have nothing to do, trust your luck.
A third concert in Madrid
Only two hours after all the tickets were sold out yesterday, the sales websites offered a new date for ‘Boss’ in Madrid, “due to high demand.” Springsteen’s third concert in the capital will be on Monday, June 17. And at the same time, tickets for the sold-out concert appeared, at 324.50 euros, something they call ‘Top Seat’. They explain it this way on tickets.com: «They are tickets for the best reserved seat category and do not add any additional service or product to the other tickets in that category. Their prices are dynamic. That is, they vary according to demand, just as happens with plane tickets or hotel rooms. By selecting Top Seat, you have the opportunity to buy tickets through the official channel safely, entering the supply/demand game without falling into certain resale websites whose tickets do not give the right to attend this concert.
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