We’ve all been there...tickets for a concert you really, really want to see are set to go on sale at exactly 10am...you’re on the Ticketmaster site as the clock ticks toward the appointed time...

9:59:57...9:59:58...9:59:59...ten o’clock!...show time...

Enter...nothing...refresh refresh refresh the browser...nothing...you try mashing the f5 button a bunch times...no luck....you hit control-r a couple of times...still nothing...but then, one last time and you’re in!...except you’re not...at 10:01 and 17 seconds, the show you so desperately wanted to see is sold out...

What the--...you did everything right...how could so many tickets get sold so fast?...hello, what’s this?...tickets are already for sale on the secondary market?...and the price is double the face value?...what just happen

This is just one ticket-buying scenario...maybe you were able to get in only to discover that tickets were already selling for quadruple the original price—and that’s through the primary seller—in this case, Ticketmaster...

You’re the act’s biggest fan!...you should be able to get tickets to at least one of their shows...and you’ve been shut out in less than 90 seconds...hello?...ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?...

Hold on...back up...there’s a lot to process here and it can get pretty emotional...buying concert tickets can be one of the most frustrating of all retail experiences...and a big part of the problem is that the average person doesn’t understand how it works...

Wait...that sounds condescending, but I don’t mean it to be...getting a ticket to a concert should be simple—but it’s not...the complexities of buying and selling concert tickets today would drive Einstein insane...

Stick around and I will do my best to unravel everything for you and by the time we’re done, I won’t have made it any easier to get a ticket, but maybe you’ll understand why you can’t get one...this is the weird history of concert tickets, part 2...

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