Hamilton - Victoria Palace Theatre

How do the bots work now? Don't the primary ticket sale sites have captcha protection?

Surely you could buy tickets in someone else's name. As long as the name matches the ID it is fine.

In a recent interview with the NY Times, producer Jeffrey Seller was quoted as follows:

A complicating factor is that the money being divided derives from the face value of tickets that range from $67 to $477, hardly small change but short of what the tickets are fetching on StubHub and other secondary-­market sites — anywhere from $500 to $2,000 or more. The money from these secondary-­market sales goes to brokers, many of whom get their hands on tickets by using computer programs, or “bots,” to scoop up huge volumes of seats each time a new batch becomes available. The demand is heightened by a distinct lack of supply. Broadway theaters, in general, are small, much smaller than some of the bigger houses in other American cities. The Richard Rodgers, midsize for Broadway, seats just over 1,300, so during the course of eight shows in a week, far fewer people see “Hamilton” than attend a single Knicks game. Early this year, Seller says, a single bot purchased 20,000 “Hamilton” tickets. Even when the brokers’ methods are discovered, he says, “they figure out a new way to hack the system. It’s frustrating, and it’s infuriating.”

Here's the full (very long) interview:
www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/magazine/the-ceo-of-hamilton-inc.html?_r=0

So, anyway, yes, apparently still a big problem with bots. 

Thanks very much for posting that. First off, I'm very suspicious about the incentives here. Captchas and other human verifications are now commonplace and ought to be easy to implement, so it's curious that this is a problem at all. I would note, however, that sites like Ticketmaster also host second-hand tickets, for which they take a cut on both the buying and selling end. That means there's basically no incentive for them to clamp down on shenanigans with primary purchases.

But taking a step back: yes, the prices absolutely suck, but if scalpers find it worthwhile to buy tickets en masse and then resell them on secondary market sites even with cuts being taken out, then clearly the demand is there and the producers were underpricing tickets to begin with. And the thing is, even if scalping and resales were stopped dead in their tracks and the producers mandated that prices were lower, it'd still be frustrating to get a ticket; not because it was expensive, but because the queue would run the entire length of Manhattan and it would require days or weeks of camping out to have a shot. 

I have to agree- there are some shows I simply won't see (unless I get a comp) at the prices charged, (I'm looking at you Book of Mormon). I just don't support those prices- or more importantly, a proper RANGE of prices so that even those on modest budgets can book in advance without the rigmarole of lotteries or dayseat queues!

I want. But I'm broke as hell having bought an obscene amount of tickets from May until December. Time to start giving hand jobs and eating canned cat food to pay them bills.

Really? I've only seen £82 seats half way up the circle!

Aargh! I cancelled my order because my Dad is in the U.S so I figured he could pick one up in a bookstore, every shop he's tried is sold out. It's number 1 in all book sales on amazon.com at the moment. Think they've completely underestimated demand for this!

Oh no, what a shame. Hopefully it will become back in stock on Amazon soon.

Yes the book looks stunning from what I've seen online. I'm very impressed.

My copy arrived - it's a stunning book

That's awesome. You should all check out Chernow's biography too if you're interested... the musical only manages to touch on half of the amazing stories in Hamilton's life, and the book is able to fill in the broader context of American politics and Hamilton's place in them.