Ticketry

When Brian F. Harlig of Good Time Tickets says that tickets brokers do not have better access to concert tickets than the general public, he’s crazy (Calendar Letters, March 13).

Maybe the brokers don’t get tickets before they go on sale, but they sure get the best tickets when they do go on sale. I have known brokers and scalpers who boast openly about their ability to bribe security guards and ticket sellers in order to get the best priority numbers and/or seats.

I even bought tickets for a broker a few years ago and that was an eye-opening experience. A friend told me to show up at the Forum at 8 a.m. Priority numbers had already been given out when I arrived. I was then led a block away from the Forum with about 20 other people.

We were each given a priority number in the first hundred, money to buy six tickets, and they had a Forum hand stamp to show we had waited in line. We then each bought six tickets (the seats were on the floor, within the first 25 rows) and gave them to the scalper. For this we were paid $20 or we could have one of the tickets we had bought.

Harlig talks about “supply and demand.” Well, I am sure that if everyone had a fair shot at the supply, the demand for his product would be much less, and then no one would be “forced” to come to him.

LARRY ZERNER

Los Angeles