Hot demand for (invisible) Obama inaugural tickets

The hottest ticket of 2009 can’t be reserved yet, hasn’t been distributed and is supposed to be free.

But on Monday, tickets for President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural events were selling for as much as $10,858 apiece.

Ticket brokers wouldn’t say where the tickets were coming from, and the committee in charge of the main event emphasized that none has been sent out yet. All 240,000 tickets to the swearing-in are sitting in a locked room.

In effect, the brokers are selling a promise of tickets, banking on their ability to acquire tickets at a lower price than they charge for them.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said she was drafting a bill to ban sales of inauguration tickets, which would make scalping them a misdemeanor.

“These tickets are given for free to people,” Feinstein said in an interview with the Associated Press. “This is a major civic event of the time, and no one pays for their tickets, and we believe no one should be required to pay for their tickets.”

She said her Senate office received 8,000 ticket requests the first day after the election.

An inaugural committee spokeswoman, Carole Florman, said: “Any member of Congress is prohibited from profiting by their position. A letter is going out to them reminding them of that. Soon.”

The individual committees organizing events including parades and inaugural galas haven’t even formed yet, Florman said.

With so much up in the air about the Jan. 20 festivities, there seemed to be only two certainties Monday:

Inaugurating the first African American U.S. president will be historic.

And everyone wants a ticket.

GreatSeats.com offered spots at the yet-to-be-planned inaugural parade for $495 to $1,815, with caveats that none are available now.

StubHub offered parade tickets for $681 to $1,025, with a money-back guarantee. Spokeswoman Vanessa Daniele said the site has already sold several, plus a pair of tickets for the swearing-in ceremony that together cost $21,716.

“I think it’s shocking,” said Florman, who said the brokers were selling “a ticket to nothing” because they didn’t have any tickets yet.

Only members of Congress can dole them out, she said. They get them Jan. 19, a day before the event.

Janega writes for the Chicago Tribune.