Selling off unsold tickets certainly isn’t a revolutionary idea; scalpers have been doing it since gladiators entertained the masses in the Colosseum. But this is a bit different, and apparently has the blessing of the event producers.

 

While airlines and hotels have embraced the opportunity to push leftover stock online through websites like Priceline.com, the sports and concert industries haven’t shown nearly as much enthusiasm for the practice so far.

A new company in Los Angeles is hoping to change all that.

ScoreBig Inc. recently launched to offer distributors a new venue to sell tickets to sports and concerts at cut-rate prices.

Company CEO Adam Kanner explained that unsold tickets are a huge problem for the concert and sports industries.

“We have 35 percent to 50 percent of total industry capacity that goes unsold each year,” he told the Wall Street Journal, noting that fans “can’t afford” the events.

Through its website, ScoreBig lists tickets to events without listing specific seat numbers. Instead, potential buyers are given a general description of the area of a seat and shown what similar discounted seats at an event may go for. It is not an auction. A potential buyer offers a price, which is then denied or accepted by ScoreBig’s partnering ticket providers.

ScoreBig gets some of its stock from team and venue holdbacks and has already gained a foothold with some in the concert industry.

An unnamed executive for a company that reportedly operates several high-profile venues told the WSJ the company has contracted to sell thousands of discounted tickets through ScoreBig but isn’t ready to have its name linked to the site just yet.

“You can’t just go out flashing discounts because that hurts the brand,” the exec said.

The paper noted the discounter has not secured a deal with Live Nation / Ticketmaster. ScoreBig has however, earned the respect of investors, reportedly scoring $8.5 million from Bain Capital and Shari Redstone, daughter of Viacom chair Sumner Redstone.