the unqualified economist

Last night two interesting things happened.

1. I took two awesome videos at the Foo Fighters concert.  Note: I am thoroughly impressed with the sound quality captured using only an iPhone 4S and no special features.

2. There was an extremely strange situation in the market for tickets being resold around the venue.

In order to justify posting #1 (see below) I am going to discuss #2.

I showed up with three extra tickets for seats in the 101 section.  Not floor.  But decent.  Tickets were going between $35-$130 on Stubhub prior.  Immediately, walking over I was bombarded by people selling floor tickets for anywhere between $20 and $60.

I tried for about 25 minutes with absolutely zero interest from other sellers and potential concert-goers. The market was flooded with cheap floor seats.

Interesting possibly related facts:

• The floor wasn’t even that crowded.
• Foos had played a NJ show at the Izod center about a month ago.
• They had played across the river at Madison Square Garden the night before.
• It was a Monday, the night when only real fans go to concerts.
• Most of the parking lots around the arena are valet and thus people were not hanging out in them tailgating.
• I was told there is a law that tickets can’t be resold within 100 feet or 100 yards (this is obviously not verified) of the arena.

Also, if I am on my smartphone standing within 100 feet of the building purchasing a ticket am I technically breaking the law?

Thoughts on what happened?  Other possible conclusion: some snafu with Ticketmaster/the venue?

And now here Foo Fighters and Bob Mould covering Tom Petty’s ‘Breakdown’ and Dave Growl playing ‘Wheels’ dedicated to some Germans in section 103.