How Much Are You Willing To Pay?

I am starting to notice a trend in Vancouver; not only due to lack of venue capacity but lack of venues available, live shows seem to sell out the day the tickets go on sale. Now, I am sure that some of the bands actually do have legit fans buying up all their tickets, I for example, purchased four tickets to see Franz Ferdinand on November 9th, because there seems to be a pattern in which Isaac and I are usually on the ball when tickets go on sale, however our friends usually seem to miss the boat. This sucks for us, since we obviously want to go out to a live show with our friends. I picked up two extra tickets that I was going to offer to our friends, that I was not going to scalp on craigslist which seems to be what the majority of people are doing with concert tickets these days, making it even more unaffordable for the average low-income Vanouverite. I would only ask my friends to pay me the same cost of the ticket (including all of those horrible service charges) because I want them to have the opportunity to go, without patiently waiting by their computer at 10am on a Saturday morning to buy tickets online. Whatever happened to the days of camping out at B.C Place the night before the tickets went on sale where no one could budge in line and take what was rightly deserved of the true fans?

Not only has scalping become common practice on Craigslist, but it seems as though Ticketbastard, who already makes us pay through the nose for service charges, also seems to be holding back tickets to auction them off after the concerts have been sold out. After letting you know that "no exact matches (to your request) have been found" you can click on the link that takes you to www.ticketsnow.ticketmaster.com, where you can buy tickets that were originally $35 for $85 or more, where you are also charged a convenience fee of $6.60 per ticket. So for one ticket I originally purchased for $47.09 including service charges, I am paying $108.68 for. That is over double the regular ticket price and is fucking ridiculous!!

I am asking you fellow Vancouverites to please only buy tickets that you or your friends will actually be using to go to conert events. I understand that at times there will always be events that come up for which you have a ticket but can't actually make it to, however when there are over thirty ads on Craigslist for tickets just after they go on sale, its obvious that some people are just making a living on selling tickets to sold out shows because we don't have enough venues with large capacities for live bands to play in! And why is it that all other provinces in Canada except B.C, scalping is illegal?
Food for thought my friends.