Overly Aggressive Scalpers @ PAX Prime 2012
I understand that scalping is a life style for a lot of people. It’s how they make their living. A lot people buy and resell tickets to highly popular events, concerts, games and more and can feed their families, feed their habits, and live a good life doing it. But sometimes there’s no excuse for their actions.
At PAX Prime last year there was a huge issue with fake badges being sold online, and from what I hear more than 5,000 people were issued these fake badges through online sales. The show floor was incredibly crowded as a result and this year badge checkers were far more watchful than previous years. Scalpers last year were pretty casual though… they simply said “hey I’ve got 2 for today” or “I’ve got a three day badge” and then they’d yell out a price… this year, the demand was up to buy single day badges and resell them at a mark up.
At least, that’s what I saw. While leaving the convention center’s main entrance and crossing the street on my way to get lunch I saw a scalper, a young man, fairly clean cut run right up to a girl who was with the lunch time crowd, grab her arm and say “hey are you coming back? Can I buy your pass?” She had to shake him off and then I saw him do it to yet another girl. There were plenty of men, but this person was being incredibly rough with young women trying to cross the street. He was in the cross walk, being rather aggressive and it made me sick. On the way back I told him to fuck off when I saw him going for a girl, and she said “thanks.”
The fact of the matter is that the scalpers are far more aggressive this year, as are the guys trying to sell their blank CDs they claim are full of local rap music and more… It was kind of disgusting. I really hop that PAX Security steps it up next year and keeps that walk way clear of people trying to scam the PAXers. I don’t want to get asked 4 times if I want to buy local hip-hop when the CD is clearly blank. That’s not cool, and neither are the tools trying to harass women trying to enjoy the area.
