Jewish World Review Oct. 17, 2007 / 5 Mar-Cheshvan 5768

Like taking Miley Cyrus tickets from a baby

By Celia Rivenbark

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | An open letter to ticket scalpers who break the hearts of little girls (and a few boys) everywhere:

Dear Dirtball, In a perfect world, you'd be in jail about now, serving a very long sentence with a burly cellmate who thinks you look really pretty in lipstick. Harsh? Perhaps. But the way we see it, what he wants to do to you is the same thing you metaphorically did to all the kids and parents who just wanted a chance to pay face value for a concert ticket to see Miley Cyrus.

Oh, we know you don't even know who she is. All you know is that her concert tour is selling better and faster than previous chart-toppers Justin Timberlake and Sting and this means that there is money to be made by YOU and a lot of it.

So, while normal and admittedly unsophisticated moms and dads naively waited their turn to buy tickets on the date of release, you must've been doubled over laughing at such futility. Fools! Oh, sure, a few would be successful (even a broken clock is right twice a day, didn't someone once tell you that back in juvie?) but not many on account of you have computer programs that allow you to jam phone lines and buy up huge blocks of seats in every venue. That's why most of the 54 Miley Cyrus concert dates sold out in under an hour. Wow.

Now you didn't buy all those seats cuz your little niece and her friends needed a lot of tickets all across America. You bought those seats so you could resell that $67 ticket for many times that amount online.

It's not all your fault, just mostly.

Admittedly, even I have philosophical problems with the individual who paid $2,565 through an online auction for one seat to the concert in Charlotte. That's precisely the kind of must-have mega-greed that keeps you and your mangy ilk in business.

Before we go any further, let me assure you that I got my kid a ticket, at face value, (remember that broken clock?) so this isn't a poutfest about my needs or my kid's. This is about all the ones that won't get to go because you made sure that only the kids whose parents could afford your unscrupulous average of four times face value per ticket would go.

Or as Miley Cyrus' alter ego, Hannah Montana, might put it in her Disney sitcom, "Scum-sucking greedmonger said what?"

Scalping tickets is nothing new.

After all, it's whatever the market will bear, right? Heck, you could even say you're providing a service for people short on time and long on money.

But kids' concerts? Where's your conscience?

Oh, right. Sold out.