On the International Trade of Ticket Scalping

I had a hard time choosing among many titles for this post. Losing contenders included:

• Our Introduction to the Artful Dodger
• How I became a fan of Chelsea Football Club
• London Policemen Earn Their Keep
• Why I Will Never Scalp Tickets Again
• Recreational Organized Crime in London

We decided at the last minute to catch a London football match today. We didn't have tickets, and the match was sold out, so we decided to head over to the stadium area and check out the informal ticket market. We determined that scalping is less acceptable in London than back home, as would-be sellers were quite discreet. But eventually, we made ourselves look helpless enough by just walking around hopelessly back and forth past the main entrance to the stadium. At this point I should mention that I'm officially retired from the ticket scalping game. Between the rest of this story and an incident I shared with my dad at Miller Park in Milwaukee, I've had enough. 

We had discussions with a few guys, but their prices were more than we were looking for. Stephanie eventually found a guy who was operating out of a knock-off merchandise stand. At first, he too charged more than we wanted to pay, but we haggled our way down. 

Here was the deal:

He would get us access to some member (read season ticket holder) tickets. He would get us a couple season passes, and we would have to bring them back after the game. We balked when he asked us for some collateral, so he came up with a plan B. He would send us in with another guy, who would show us to our seats, then collect the season passes. That was as close to good enough as we figured we were  going to get, so we agreed and forked over the cash. 

We made the nervous walk over to the stadium with the kingpin's henchman. He made small talk with us, we nervously tried to keep up and chat back to him. We were still a little nervous though, and at one point he even commented "You are quiet for Americans." As we approached the gate, the guy handed us the passes and explained the drill. 

And then we were intercepted by a couple of men, one for the henchman and one for us. CRAP. They quickly identified themselves as Chelsea security. They grabbed the passes, and led us away. I'm not sure about Stephanie, but I was pretty scared. We're in a foreign country, we don't know the rules, and we know that they seem to look down on this type of thing.

The security guy with us quickly let us know that we were not in trouble. I took a huge sigh of relief. We were led to the small security/ police shack right outside the stadium. A very friendly policeman took our report, at quite the amount of detail. He explained that we weren't in trouble too. I was happy to hear that every step along the way. He explained that these guys regularly did this, and that the club was cracking down hard. We explained what happened, and that we were just on vacation trying to see the match. We also explained that we were from "near Chicago" which is how we explain home over here.

During the process, another man got involved, and informed us that the Club would try to find some extra tickets for us. We probably wouldn't be able to get our money back, but that was way more than we expected. We went from probable jail time at Clink Prison back to being able to attend a football match. We are both grateful to Chelsea for their generosity, and have become supporters of the club, even if means we are no longer welcome in Nick & Steph's home.

In the end we saw most of the match, which Chelsea won, from quite excellent seats. I'll write more about the match itself later, along with more about today, but for now I'll sign off and enjoy my freedom.