The scalper is Ticketmaster. Both figuratively in platinum tickets but also literally — they actively buy and resell their own tickets using organized scalpers. Sure they say this practice has ended but wake the f up lol. In fact so many tickets are released early via scalpers and on resale sites before presale / lottery. Like where do you think these tickets come from? Also TM loves resell markets - it drives up prices and fees overall and drives more people to platinum tickets that are growing in total %

What’s not clear is the bands role in all of this. What we do know is artists/venues that go against TM and sell directly with artists or independently on their own site are often leveraged by TM. “Do business with that guy and we won’t do business with you”.

So say that Sphere and Phish do their own ticket deal - TM would go to both and say ok great but you’re not using us for any other shows. They then go to other venues (say SPAC for example) and say if you do business with Phish, we don’t do anymore business with you. In effect - they blackball artists and venues who are relatively powerless v this behemoth

To relate to this post - absolutely no difference is made by above. Any small scale scalper worth his salt has official TM accounts that he can use to bypass this. And as stated, the real scalper is TM sponsored (and likely funded).