Jay Chou's ticket was sold to 150000 yuan? He said he snatched 19 platform | concert | tickets

"Where are the tickets? Where are the tickets? I feel like I only took a half breath and the tickets are gone!" On the 18th, when Jay Chou's concert was held at Tianjin Station, she complained on social media that she had been operating on her phone for a while but couldn't get a ticket.

But the next day, she saw on a second-hand platform that there were many high priced tickets for this concert for sale, and some even marked two consecutive seat tickets with a face value of 2000 yuan for 150000 yuan. "Who stole all the tickets? Why did they get the tickets?" Sasha asked.

Ticket grabbing software: can set the number of ticket grabbing times per second

To Sasha's surprise, not only Jay Chou's fans were grabbing tickets with her, but there may also be robots - ticket grabbing software.

Generally speaking, there are two types of scalpers active in the ticketing market: one is self snatching and self buying, and the other is collecting tickets from individuals and selling them at a higher price. For the former type of scalpers, using various high-tech means has become the key to whether they can grab tickets. Especially some concerts do not require real name ticketing, which provides them with convenience.

▲ Online rumor of scalpers grabbing tickets at the scene. At present, various software used for ticket grabbing has become a business on second-hand platforms, and the prices are not expensive, mostly between 10 yuan and 50 yuan. The reporter purchased a popular ticketing app on the market, priced at 19.9 yuan. From the files sent by the seller, it appears that this is a script called "KuaiKuaishou", which comes with a tutorial and update package.

Introduction to a ticket grabbing software purchased by the reporter. The reporter's experience found that the operation of this ticket grabbing software is not complicated. After determining the number of sessions and price of the target concert, a QR code will be generated to quickly enter the ticket grabbing interface. Then, the script's running time will be set 1 second before ticket issuance, and the number of ticket grabbing times per second will be set by oneself. Scan the ticket grabbing QR code using the ticketing platform app 10 minutes before invoicing, and open the script to wait for the machine to grab the ticket.

But the effectiveness of this ticket grabbing software still needs to be verified.

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"Seize two tickets for the 1000 yuan dynasty, no admission or refund guaranteed"

The ticket grabbing software purchased by the reporter for 19.9 yuan is considered outdated by some professional scalpers.

"You bought this software for ten yuan. It's useless. It has been shielded, especially for Lu Han's concert, but Jacky Xue's concert two days ago can be used," said Li Da, a ticket scalper. "Shield" refers to the script being blocked and cracked by ticketing websites.

The reporter consulted Li Da as a fan, and he introduced that there are not uncommon program scripts that can automatically refresh and place orders on the platform to grab tickets. However, the platform will also take countermeasures, "if you shield it, you won't be able to use it.".

Li Da said that his team is using a "manual+technological" approach to grab tickets, that is, relying on machine scanning first to squeeze into the ticketing process. If no tickets are scanned within 3 minutes of invoicing, they will be manually adjusted and returned tickets will be scanned. "Nowadays, we all rely on machines to grab tickets, and it's too difficult to rely on manual labor."

For a concert, the more popular the seats, the harder it is to grab tickets. However, Li Da said that in front of the machine, the difficulty of finding popular seats is not high. "As long as it's not in the first row, you can almost grab other seats."

Li Da introduced a "package" package to the reporter, and the specific price depends on the difficulty of the concert. Taking the Luhan 2023 Shanghai Station concert as an example, in order to grab two consecutive seats, in addition to the original ticket price, an additional fee of 1000 yuan is required. If the ticket is not obtained, a full refund can be issued.

How did the scalpers operate after collecting a 1000 yuan robbery fee?

"We have about 20 people using different methods to help you grab tickets at the same time. Not only do we have different scripts to prevent being 'shielded', but we also have direct access to the platform's internal software. Whoever grabs the ticket will be counted as their own," said Li Da.

It is worth noting that most scalpers in the market need to log in to the buyer's ticketing platform account, and in the process of buying tickets, the buyer's name, ID number, mobile phone number, address and other information are exposed to scalpers at a glance.

How high is the success rate of this operation? Li Da revealed that he received 44 tickets for Jay Chou's concert on the 18th, and successfully snatched 19 tickets.

Duohai, who has worked as a ticketing scalper, told reporters that scalpers commonly use "connection devices" to control hundreds of mobile phones on a computer, constantly refreshing and grabbing tickets. "Scalpers don't have much high-tech, they basically rely on a combination of human and machine tactics, so it's not guaranteed that they will be able to grab it."

Can ticketing platforms discover scalpers?

At present, it is not possible to determine the proportion of tickets to a concert that are snatched by scalpers, but if scalpers place orders, can ticketing platforms see the clues?

"Generally, orders created in 0.1 seconds or 0.01 seconds are not at the speed of human hands, and can be basically judged as machine snatching," said Huang Wei, a ticketing system operator.

According to Huang Wei, the reason why concert tickets are difficult to grab is because the "door" of the ticketing system server is fixed in size. At the moment of ticket issuance, the number of ticket snatchers exceeds the size of the "door", and the ticket snatchers are stuck at the "door". Only a few lucky ones can squeeze into the ticketing system and successfully purchase tickets.

Ticket buyers who are stuck at the "door" will receive a "system busy" prompt, and if they want to squeeze into the "door", they can only do a few more times. "It takes about 3 seconds for ordinary users to return to the ticket purchase interface, but the machine can repeatedly hit the 'door' within 1 second, which is why the success rate of machine ticket purchases is higher than that of manual purchases."

Zhang Yi, CEO and Chief Analyst of iMedia Consulting, told China News Service that behind the phenomenon of scalpers, on the one hand, their ticket grabbing technology is too "powerful", and on the other hand, it indicates that the management methods of the organizers and ticketing platforms are slightly outdated.

Zhang Yi believes that although it cannot be completely eradicated, it is not difficult to curb this phenomenon. "Trading rules such as real name binding, non transferability, and batch issuance of train tickets can to some extent curb the phenomenon of scalpers."

In addition, Hu Gang, deputy secretary-general of the Legal Working Committee of the China Internet Association, said earlier that this kind of rush buying software interfered with and damaged the normal operation order and operation effect of the online shopping platform by invading computer programs. The production and sales activities have violated relevant laws, and may also reveal user privacy.