Some of the Bruce Springsteen fans who were upset at the scalping incident I’ve been writing about recently displayed a touching naivete when it came to the subject of the practice’s legality. If you’re just tuning in, the incident in question happened at the Tower Records on Wabash early on a Saturday morning a month ago. After what was supposed to be a randomization process to line people up to buy tickets to Springsteen’s acoustic performance at the Rosemont Theatre, it became apparent that a scalper had foiled the system. A group of down-and-out-looking men, apparently collected at a nearby shelter to act as operatives for a scalper, held almost all of the first 25 places in line. Eventually vocal objections from fans shamed Tower’s management into redoing the system, and fairness prevailed–but not before a lot of fans got mad.
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Illinoisans were front-row witnesses to how the process worked in this particular instance, because in 1990 scalping was outlawed. Spurred by an unruly and unpretty market for tickets when the Cubs got into the playoffs in 1989, state representative John Cullerton and state senator William Marovitz supported–and Governor Jim Thompson signed–a bill making it illegal to sell tickets for more than their face value. (The bill allowed surcharges approved by the promoter or team owners, such as Ticketmaster fees.)
“People didn’t raise much of a commotion,” agrees Cullerton.
