Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
You're listening to Roundtable with myself, Hai Yang.
I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu -Shen.
Coming up, you line up for concert tickets.
They vanish before you even click buy.
Scalping has gone global and digital, invading every system where demand outpaces supply.
It's not just frustrating, it's reshaping axis privilege and who gets a fair shot.
So who's really in control of access?
And what can we do about it?
And did well, would you need a boost to crush the week?
Our special segment motivational Monday is your ultimate adrenaline shot to kick things off strong.
Our podcast listeners can find us at Round table China on Apple podcast. Got a question that's keeping you curious from social issues to tech and everything in between?
Let us stat take a stab at it email us at roundtable podcast at QQ calm Now let's switch gears concert tickets drop at 10 a .m. By 1001 they are gone not to fans but to scalpers or home new in Chinese We've all been there.
Bots wipe out entire sections and resale prices hit the roof.
And it doesn't just stop there.
Around the world, they're hijacking, restaurant reservations, campsite bookings, even doctor appointments.
Super annoying, isn't it?
And that is illegal, the doctor's appointment thing in China.
If there is a queue, there is a scalper ready to cash in.
The question is, can tech, laws, or sheer public pressure finally put an end to scalping?
And scalping... well, here is the latest on this age -old problem.
What's happening in combating ticket scalping in London, the U .K.?
Scalping now, yeah, I'll get to that in a sec, but scalping now is so different than the way it used to be.
The image that comes to mind when I hear of a scalper is someone shady -looking outside a stadium, you know, like wearing a trench coat.
And when you walk by them, they're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, want a ticket?
Need a ticket? That's the image that comes to mind for me.
That's not the way it's done anymore.
What we're talking about here, you asked about London.
Have you ever heard of the British band Bastille?
They've been in the news.
They've joined forces with O2 Arena, that's an arena in London.
It's this huge concert venue, and they have some of the world's most famous entertainers and sporting events.
It's just a massive, massive place.
O2 Arena is to hold events.
O2 kicked off this campaign called Fight for Fair Ticketing, and this happened ahead of Bastille's 2025 tour.
The lead singer of the group, his name's Dan Smith, and he's very frustrated seeing fans having difficulty buying tickets, and he's calling for governmental action to stop scalpers and return tickets to the real fans of that group and of anybody who's trying to get some sort of event ticket.
Yeah, especially when the ticket price, you see on the piece of paper or digital ticket can be vastly cheaper than the scalping price that so many people are complaining about.
Yeah, this is a real, real, real problem.
It's not just happening in the UK, But to continue on with that example Research Commission from o2 they estimate that professional scalpers using automated bots to buy tickets they cost UK music fans an estimated a 145 million pounds that's about one hundred and eighty three million dollars every year by Bumping up the price of the tickets after they buy them because they're buying so these bots They go onto the websites and the timing is like almost instantaneous, right?
As a human it's very difficult to compete with these bots and they'll buy so many different tickets and then almost immediately those tickets will show up for sale on other sites, oftentimes much, much more expensive.
And this is, um, this is costing so much money because O2, they sell over a million live music tickets every year via their platform.
and they have to fend off thousands of bot -driven attacks every year.
No, every week. In one six week period alone, O2 blocked more than 50 ,000 suspected bot accounts trying to buy tickets so that the scalpers can sell them again.
That's who got my Imagine Dragon concert ticket last year.
Is it in Hangzhou? Yeah, no. Well, we're talking about the Hangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen tour this year.
But last autumn, they actually made a stop in the Shanghai S .A .R.
and that's the one, I think...
Hong Kong S .A .R. Sorry.
Yeah, Hong Kong S .A .R., right.
I was trying to get a ticket for that one and I think, was it you and Yu Shun that were there to witness the moment that I tried?
And I waited forever in the long afternoon and I couldn't even got in.
And the moment I got in, it was about less than one hour after the ticket releasing, after the portal was opened for tickets, and it's all gone.
Did you say an hour?
Less than an hour. That is way too long.
That's a long time.
A while. But hey, even before I got in, that took me an hour just to get in.
You see, there was multiple rounds of waiting.
It's not fair. I'm not sure what happened in your situation, but these bots, they're software programs, right?
And they're designed to interact with ticketing websites at superhuman speeds, and they can fill out forms and navigate pages and complete the checkout process in a matter of a blink of an eye, and this makes it almost impossible for actual people to compete with.
Yeah, and it's not only, sorry, it's not only in the UK as well.
I read that during the 2020 U .S. ticket sales for Taylor Swift's era tours.
Oh, that was a big piece of news.
That was such a big news, back then, and they have this platform called Ticketmaster, and that system sells the online ticket, and that was crashed under overwhelming demand, and also scalpers used bots, again, to grab large quantities of tickets and resold them for up to seven times their original prices.
So this incident drew major public backlash and also intensified federal antitrust security against the system Ticketmaster.
So we see O2 defending bots by 50 ,000 times while other systems are failing because of the multiple entrance of the bots.
That era's tour Ticketmaster debacle was all over the news at that time.
The presale tickets launched specifically on November 15th in 2022.
Do you know how many requests Ticketmaster got that day to their site?
Three and a half billion.
Three and a half billion.
And the company, they temporarily suspended sales.
And it made it really hard for fans to get tickets at face value, which is what we're talking about here.
The fairness of fans being able to buy a ticket to an event at the price that they're supposed to be paying for it.
See, for some people, they might think, or I suppose non -fans, they might think if I'm willing to pay more, if you're willing to pay more, and this thing, this commodity in scarcity is available, then you're kind of entitled to it because you're willing to pay more.
But I think the problem here is, you guys mentioned for one Taylor Swift ticket, it could go up 70, seven zero times higher than the original price, then that is way too much and that's not fair for anybody, I suppose.
Well yeah, because it's unfair.
It's unethical. It's an unethical practice and it manipulates the markets, right.
And it makes tickets unaffordable for genuine attendees.
And we're talking concert tickets here but it's also Broadway shows or West End shows or restaurant booking, restaurant bookings, what?
DMV appointments, department of motor vehicles?
So you need to have your license updated or something?
Yeah, famously in America, I don't know if it deserves this reputation or not, but it's a place that's a very stressful place to go and it's hard to get an appointment and things.
So I guess that's why.
How about this? A golf tee time.
A tee time doesn't mean like sipping tea and eating cookies, golf tee time means like the start of your golf day.
Those can be very difficult to get.
And those are often resold at a steep markup.
Mm -hmm. So if you're not willing to pay then you don't go, and then it really messes up, manipulates the market.
It totally does. And this is from a cybersecurity firm called Imperva, 40 % of all online ticket purchases are made by scalper bots.
40%, almost half of them are made by these scalper bots and then they bump the price way up and they base that on 180 different ticketing websites so it's not like it was a small study either.
This is a legit problem.
And also let me just add one Chinese scenario to that which is in the last 10 years we've I've seen at least a couple of times really heavy -handed crackdown on scalpers in China who are scalping doctor appointments.
Because this is sometimes life and death issues we're talking about, and we all know if you live in China, that getting the doctor registration, especially at tertiary or the best hospitals in China can be very hard. People really set the timer to try to register to snatch those slots to see a doctor, and with scalping at one point prevalent, then those who are in severe health conditions who can sometimes they're scrambling just to pay for the registration ticket and they couldn't get in.
Then there are all these scalpers who managed to get the slots and then that That was such a source of complaint for so many people, and then the government act on it, and then there were some severe crackdowns, and now the scalping issue is so much better in the ...
on this healthcare issue.
So maybe that can offer some kind of lesson there, but I suppose seeing a doctor for a life and death disease, as opposed to being a Swifty and seeing a concert, people feel kind of differently ...
It's not apples to apples for sure.
But let's talk about this.
There's also the illegality issue here.
In China, now when we look at doctor's appointments, scalping is illegal.
Period. But in other frontiers, this might be different.
Tell us about that.
In Ontario, in Canada, if you sell tickets above 50 % of the face value, it's illegal if you don't have a license.
In the UK resale is illegal but you have to comply with the Consumer Rights Act resale is legal excuse me but you have to comply with the law and that means you have to disclose the seat details right specifically where the seats are and you also have to disclose the original price and in the UK bots are banned from making bulk purchases, meaning buying a whole lot of tickets.
In Australia, they have some pretty strict laws in Queensland and New South Wales it's illegal to resell tickets at over 10 % markup their violators will face a maximum fine of a hundred and ten thousand dollars for a corporation or $22 ,000 for an individual and in the United States That's where the whole eras to our ticket master thing kicked off The legal status varies by state.
In California for example, it's illegal without a resale license.
But this was big news.
This happened, and this is from natlawreview .com.
On March 31st of this year, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, he signed an executive order titled Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market.
And that directs the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, to, amongst other provisions, rigorously enforce the Better Online Ticket Sales Act or the BOTS Act, as it's called, and address unfair ticket scalping practices.
That BOTS Act, by the way, was enacted back in 2016 to prevent ticket brokers from buying large amounts of event tickets and then reselling them at inflated prices.
But that's proven to be rather difficult to enforce, it seems. and in China when it comes to concert tickets, we've heard of these complaints of scalping for a few years ever since you know COVID and then everybody's got so crazy about going to concerts as such. And we know there is a vibrant resale market, there are legit, I spoke quote unquote, legit resale platforms in this country and people go to these places for tickets regularly.
So what about their unique situation in the market?
Well, that's what we call the third party ticket brokers because, well, the concert tickets here in China are usually divided into two types.
One is publicly available tickets that we can buy publicly and also the non -sale tickets, which accounts for, that's according to a 2023 Chinese authority paper, about 15%.
That's the non -sale tickets, which often end up in secondary markets through unofficial ways or unofficial transfers by individuals or third -party ticket brokers.
And these apps or third -party players, they can just resell the tickets and sometimes they even have advantages by guaranteeing a relatively reasonable price with the reasonable amount of service fee added.
So they get the ticket through official channels and they sell it to people who cannot get it from public channels.
Yeah, so, okay, this is a varied market to some extent.
So what about looking into the future?
How can, can fans get a better chance of getting the tickets at face value?
Hopefully, yeah. There are technical measures that can be taken like anti -scalping systems. They use that CAPTCHA system or IP restrictions.
Security upgrades could help with the problem as well, deploying risk control tools and upgrading application firewalls to detect any kind of ticket snatching behavior, if you want to call it that.
Charging fees for cancellations, like some railway systems do, and then maybe even big penalties, tougher penalties for scalpers.
So if they do get caught, they can face a huge fine, and that fine can be considered a deterrent.
Yes, and nowadays we can even use like digital technologies to help stop those spots so that's looking good too.
Yes coming up next Motivational Monday.
Yeah, this is the part where we give you that adrenaline shot for the Monday and and may I humbly suggest that I go first this week.
On April the 11th, I had the honor of serving as a judge at the very first Peak Talk Guizhou or Tian Shan Zhi Sheng English Speech Contest hosted ...
Wow. Cool. Thank you.
It was very cool, and it's hosted by the Foreign Affairs Office of Guizhou Province in southwest China.
Twenty -two contestants from both universities and workplaces battled it out in the finals with passion and poise.
Although only one person could go home with the first prize.
But everybody else got second prizes or third prices if you were wondering.
And honestly, every single contestant walked away a winner in my eyes.
And let me tell you why.
First, passion knows no job title.
I saw teachers, doctors, geology workers, airplane maintenance staff, a policewoman, even a tax collector, all stepping up to the mic in English.
After a full days of work, they still found time to pursue language learning.
It proves that no matter how packed your schedule is, there's always room to chase a dream and grow in non -office hours.
And also I wanna highlight that reading the world, understanding ourselves is what I feel is That is the fantastic takeaway of studying a foreign language.
And learning English isn't just about grammar or vocabulary, it's a key that unlocks global literature, journalism, history, AI studies and ideas.
And in knowing about others around the world, you begin to reflect on your own roots.
You see your own traditions, language, beliefs in a whole new light.
And that mirror English offers is not just about looking out.
It's about looking in as well and realizing who you are, where you stand and how you belong in this big, beautiful world.
So whether you're learning a new language, picking up a skill or quietly working towards a goal no one else can see, keep going.
Whether you're just starting your English journey or miles in, keep going.
Every step you take adds definition to your sense of purpose in a world that often rushes us to the finish line, and it's the steady progress that we rediscover what fulfills ourselves, in my opinion, and it's not just about doing more.
It's about becoming more.
And that's my motivational pickup that I like to share with you.
Awesome. I think you could have won that speech contest if you were in it.
Well, if I'm a judge, I'm supposed to be quite good, right?
Yeah, exactly. It sounds like you had a really good time there.
Really fantastic time.
We really don't have time to share much of my appreciation of Guizhou, the place, and hopefully that could be my happy place or something else I can share on the show in the future.
But also, what about you guys?
Yuxian, what is your Motivational Monday today?
Well, my tips are from a social media post I saw recently.
It's not entirely happening in a very recent time.
The interview I'm referring to happened sometime in the late 2024, but it's between the famous actress Kathy Bates and CBS Sunday Morning.
So Kathy Bates, she won an Oscar in 1991 for her magnificent performance in the Stephen King thriller called Misery.
I bit evil character is quite magnificent super evil.
And she got gaslighted according to that interview by her mom that even she her winning that Oscar she goes back home and only to be faced by her mom's criticism something like I don't know what all the excitement's about you didn't this like discover the cure of cancer or anything you just won an award and we didn't know about know of that part of Kathy Bae's life until recently when the CBS TV show replayed her speech at the award collecting ceremony to her.
After 33 years, she never go back to her speech because she thought her mom was really tough at her because she didn't thank her mom upon that speech. But when it was replayed to her, when the tape was shown to her 33 years later, she learned that she actually did.
You did thank her at the end of your speech. So at the age of 60 sorry, 76, she realized that all this pain and all this feeling of feeling sorry is actually fading into peace now that her mom is long gone and everything.
So it's something that's really encouraging to me as well that tough times they end and sunshine will come again, even after a long span of 33 years of your life.
That's tough. Can you imagine?
Win for an actor, that's like the dream, right?
To win that award, the Oscar for American Actors or, you know, so to hear that from your parent after you win, that would be crushing.
Not just disappointing, that would be crushing.
And also, her mom, did she even watch the speech?
Who knows? Or was it a deliberate and heinous act?
you just don't know yeah so sometimes maybe setting boundaries compartmentalizing if you can't really iron out certain things in life then I have no suggestion yeah yeah exactly mind I'll be very very quick this is related to progress and success.
I found this little tiny quote and I thought oh this is really good for people to know including myself.
Progress isn't linear.
We think of progress as a straight line, right?
We start with an arrow, a little low, and then continuously the arrow points in the upward direction.
And if it doesn't do that, then we feel disappointed.
But we shouldn't feel disappointed because there are lots of setbacks and detours in life, and that doesn't mean that we're not achieving our goals at the same time because that path never stops moving, right?
The path always keeps going, it's just never gonna go in that linear, straightforward line that we expect it to.
So if you experience a little setback, just remember, it's still part of the progressive path.
Oh that's very good to know.
Yes, because a lot of the times, I don't know why but we, oh, this is maybe a perfect example of tunnel vision.
We assume that, you know, it's just gonna go straight and it's just gonna go up, but it doesn't, it, real life is more complicated than that.
100 % true. And thank you so much, Steve Hatherly and Yuxian for joining the discussion.
Thank you for tuning in.
You can always find us on Apple podcast at Round Table China.
I'm He Yang. I wish you a beautiful day and do send us an email if you're so inclined to RoundTablePodcast at QQ .com.
That's it for today.
