Desperate to join the pack for an orgy of brewed goodness? You’re probably not alone. The Vermont Brewers Festival sold out just 34 hours after tickets went on sale back in May. But if you’re willing to shell out, scalpers are finding ways to help beer geeks soak in the suds. But watch out — some are selling bogus tickets.
A quick Craigslist search turns up a slew of tickets, with price tags of as much as $85 per person. This may seem like a steal to some — one person posted an ad saying they were willing to pay $100 for a ticket. But for those who scooped up legit tickets from the festival, that’s a $55 markup. And the tickets might not even be real.
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initial thoughts:
VBF needs to find a different method next year for tickets. something that this article doesn’t even mention that I am sure will happen is scalpers selling multiple copies of their tickets. for example, nothing stopping someone from selling their legit ticket to multiple people. at this point, whoever gets to the event first wins b/c of the scanning tixs technology. this is due simply because the tickets get emailed as a PDF. the issue with PDF tickets as well is that anyone with Photoshop can easily create fakes.
i don’t know what the solution is for the future, but PDF tickets probably isn’t the best method. since this is a VT event, maybe we keep it local to only Vermonters? maybe VBF organizers hand out x amount of tickets to certain vendors and you have to physically purchase tickets.
as popular as VBF is getting, there will never be a way to fully stop scalping, just ways to make it harder.
maybe if you don’t get a legit ticket just skip the risk of buying from a scalper and take $50 worth of beer with you to the beach?
“But if you’re willing to shell out, scalpers are finding ways to help beer geeks soak in the suds.” Are you kidding me? Since when do scalpers help anyone?! They ruin the market, and destroy the fun for people that actually have a hobby for beer, sports, or anything else. This article is either VERY poorly written, or biased toward scalpers. What a disgrace.