The richest person in Chinese entertainment

Chapter 573 Internet Speed ​​Determines Fate; The Scalpers' Sky Has Fallen
How many people are eyeing tickets for the "Voice of Peace" global tour?

According to statistics from various platforms, at least tens of millions of accounts across the internet opened Chenguang Music and Taopiaopiao websites to wait before the official sale.

Among them are fans who genuinely want to buy tickets to enter the venue.

Some people also want to use this channel to resell tickets and make a profit.

After all, it's still fresh in our minds that a few years ago, tickets for Michael Jackson's concerts were officially priced at $3000, but on the secondary market, they fetched as much as $5.

Scalpers are always active in scenarios where they can rely on other people's demand and provide the "qualification to buy".

This is especially true when the number of people in need far exceeds the actual number of "targets" that can be provided to those in need.

One hundred thousand tickets, watched by tens of millions of people.

Given that Zhang Chen's New York concert had a minimum ticket price of $300 and a total of 10 tickets available, the demand of tens of millions of dollars represents a market that scalpers dream of.

"I've been in this industry for so many years, and this is the first time I've ever seen such a huge demand."

Powell stared intently at his computer screen in his dimly lit basement.

Although it was close to midnight, he was in exceptionally good spirits.

Zhang Chen's concert is nothing short of a feast for scalpers around the world.

If the total ticket sales for an average celebrity are ten million, then the existence of scalpers can cause all the audience members who participate in this concert to pay 2000 million for tickets.

For a concert by a top-tier superstar, the total ticket price of 1000 million can be inflated to 5000 million by scalpers!
It wouldn't be unreasonable for Zhang Chen's concert tickets to be sold for ten times the price, would it?

Powell glanced at the machine behind him that was constantly emitting blue and green light.

This is what makes him stand out in this industry.

Newbie scalpers rely on manpower to buy tickets; whether they can get a ticket depends on their physical strength and speed.

High-end scalpers employ a variety of tactics when dealing with online ticketing platforms.

What everyone relies on is equipment, network speed, latency, capital, and technology!
Coincidentally, Powell himself considers himself to be among the best in all these areas.

"One minute left," Powell licked his dry lips, his eyes fixed on the computer screen, not daring to relax for a moment.

11:59:12
11:59:31
11:59:50
Powell felt his heart beating faster than normal.

For him, today's "war" is about turning the tide in their country's financial crisis.

"Those dried-up Wall Streets."

In the United States, people with money tend to invest it in the stock market; this is a national characteristic.

Powell has invested all the money he has earned in the stock market over the years.

As a result, this year, due to disregard for the government's call, I did not delve into the reasons for the popularity of the movie "La La Land".

People in their industry are the least respectful and mysterious about the celebrity profession.

In his eyes, no matter how big a celebrity you are, you are just a tool for him to make money.

so.
More than $200 million of their funds are now locked up in the stock market!

This is the culmination of his past ten years of hard work!
Now that his assets are shrinking drastically, with his 2 million yuan worth of stocks reduced to just over 300,000 yuan, he needs to find a way to make money.

The house he's currently living in won't give him time.

The tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes each year are like a Damocles' sword hanging over his head.

After he learned that Zhang Chen might be the culprit behind his "loss of money", he set his sights on Zhang Chen's concert.

You've made me lose so much money, so it's perfectly reasonable for me to make more money here, right?

As the clock ticked closer to midnight, Powell's mental journey during this period kept flashing through his mind.

Finally, with the anxious waiting of scalpers like Powell, or even those less professional than Powell, and countless genuine concert fans, the time arrived.

The first second of 00:00 Eastern Time.

Everyone clicked the "Buy Tickets" button.

then
"Watfa?! What the hell is this?!"

Countless scalpers around the world stared wide-eyed in front of their computers.

A "verification" page appeared before them.

This includes:
Name, region, age, and ID number.

After the initial shock, Powell quickly calmed down.

He quickly opened the computer's backend and began writing a program to modify the "ticket-grabbing" mechanism.

But he knew it was too late.

He himself knew that it would only take a few seconds for Zhang Chen's concert tickets to sell out.

But Powell still held onto a sliver of hope.

What if, what if!
After a full minute, he finished making simple modifications to the "ticket-grabbing" software he had created.

As for various identity information, people in his line of work have plenty of it.

A few seconds later, the program was running normally.

Hundreds of web pages on the computer screen are performing the same operation simultaneously.

On hundreds of pages, people simultaneously began entering different names, regions, ages, and other information into the "verification" boxes.

"Faster! Faster!"

Finally, after a few seconds, all the web pages completed the "verification".

but.
"Fake!"

The next second, all the web pages popped up a new page:
Please enter your mobile phone number and complete the identity verification using the SMS verification code.

Powell stared intently at the webpage in front of him.

He had an urge to smash the computer in front of him with his fist.

Mobile SMS verification?
Where was he supposed to get all those registered mobile phones corresponding to his various identities?!
Powell forced himself to take a few deep breaths.

With trembling fingers, he obediently began typing his information on a webpage.

Name: Powell
Region: California, USA
Age: 32 years old

ID Number: XXXX
Registration successful

Mobile phone number: XXXX
Verification code:
Powell waited about ten seconds, and then his phone on the table received a text message.

He entered the verification code 250250 as instructed in the text message.
Subsequently
Please slide the slider below the images to piece together a complete picture.

Powell, expressionless, followed the instructions and moved an irregularly shaped, jigsaw puzzle-like piece from outside the image to the image above that was clearly missing a piece.

At this moment, he was completely desperate.

At the same time, he also knew that the world's scalpers...
Collapsed!

Because what awaits them will be exactly the same as the hint before his eyes.

We apologize, but tickets for the "Voice of Peace" world tour in New York are sold out. Please visit the Chenguang Group website for information on other concerts. We look forward to seeing you in other cities.

Powell looked up at the quartz clock he had bought at great expense.

The time displayed above is 00:01
He didn't know if it sold out within that minute or even before he filled out the information.

He was very confident in his hand speed.

But the time he should have spent writing the program wasted his chance to buy a ticket.

Could the tickets have already sold out by the time he rewrote the program? If someone was quick enough, they could have "verified" it immediately, perhaps in just a few seconds?
Therefore, the key factor that truly determines whether or not a ticket can be purchased depends on how quickly the ticket buyer receives the verification code via SMS.

"Pah! With the telecom operators in our country, even we locals probably wouldn't be able to get many tickets!"

Then I thought about the possibility of further steps involving bank card information, SMS verification, and a series of other operations.
For some reason, Powell felt much better thinking about this.

Is there only one Powell in the world?
There are countless scalpers who, like Powell, have broken through defenses.

Meanwhile, there are countless ordinary people like Powell who have been driven to the brink of collapse by the ticket verification processes of the two official ticketing platforms, Morning Light Music and Taopiaopiao.

Facebook and Weibo, the two largest gathering places for netizens in the world, saw a massive influx of netizens in an instant.

Especially on the official Weibo accounts of Chenguang Group, Chenguang Music, and Taopiaopiao, a large number of netizens began to condemn this ticket-buying "rule".

"Outrageous! Absolutely outrageous! You have to fill out so much information just to buy a ticket!"

"It's really outrageous. I don't even know my ID number. I'm grateful to Morning Light Music for letting me go back and review my ID."

"Why is buying a ticket so complicated? Are they afraid their tickets will sell too well?"

"Although the ticket buying process is a bit troublesome, it is precisely because of these strict rules that scalpers have no opportunity to take advantage of the system, right?"

“I have a friend who prepared hundreds of thousands of yuan to help everyone buy tickets, but he couldn’t even get a ticket for himself.”

"What do you mean 'have a friend'? Aren't you the scalper yourself?"

"Are those people criticizing Chenguang Music and Taopiaopiao's ticketing rules just scalpers in disguise?"

"How much less money did the scalpers make this time?"

"One hundred thousand tickets. Given Lyon's influence, the actual value of each ticket is definitely more than ten times the official selling price. The scalpers missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars?"

"hiss--"

"Normally, not many real fans can buy tickets for those singers; it's almost an unspoken rule. So, Lyon's idea this time is actually a way to protect the real fans, right?"

"It is indeed a form of protection. Who is the biggest scalper at every concert? Those who know, know."

Where does the biggest source of revenue come from for organizations that organize celebrity concerts?
It's not just about the tickets themselves, especially those from organizations that need to share profits from star concert tickets.

For them, it's about using various means to "sell out" the tickets.

Then they secretly resell the tickets at a higher price through underground platforms.

This round trip is no small amount.

Simply put, a ticket priced at 100 yuan might generate a profit of 50 yuan after deducting operating costs and other expenses.

If a share of the profits is required, 10 yuan should be given to the celebrity's management company.

However, if he keeps the tickets and sells them on the secondary market, the price could reach 200 yuan or even 1000 yuan.

This profit of 100-900 yuan goes straight into my pocket; I don't need to share it with other partner organizations.

Why is the concert scalping industry so difficult to eradicate?
Simply stipulating that tickets can only be purchased on-site, with each person only allowed to buy one ticket per visit using their ID card, would eliminate all scalpers.

But why can't scalpers be eradicated from their inception, and even in the next 20 years?

Is it impossible to ban it?
They simply don't want to ban it!

"But our country's telecom operators are terrible. It took me a full ten seconds to receive the text message, and by the time I typed it in, the tickets were already sold out!"

"So fast!?"

"I completed all the operations at 00:00:23, but it still says the tickets are sold out."

"I completed the operation in 18 seconds."

"I lasted 16 seconds."

"Is there anyone with even faster hands?"

"Our country's telecom operators are pretty good. I even memorized my ID number. It took about 10 seconds to complete the operation and I successfully grabbed a ticket for the stands."

"I completed the operation in 12 seconds and grabbed a ticket for the stands."

"I completed the process in 13 seconds, and I didn't manage to grab a single one!"

"So, to sum it up, the Lyon concert tickets sold out in 12 seconds?"

"exaggerate!"

"Outrageous!"

"Oh my God!"

From the very beginning, everyone was complaining about the ticket buying experience for this concert.

Later, everyone started to spontaneously collect statistics on the time when everyone bought tickets.

The final "ticket purchase time" left everyone speechless.

12 seconds?
sold out?!
That's a full 100,000 tickets!

Those tickets range from a minimum of $300 to a maximum of $12000!
A transaction worth hundreds of millions of dollars was completed in just 12 seconds?

No one expected that a concert that hadn't even started would shatter everyone's previous "worldview" once again during the ticket-buying stage.

The global buying frenzy is intense.
If Zhang Chen says he's the second best in the music industry, then perhaps no one will dare to claim to be number one.

This is a "throne" that has been truly tested by the market.

No one is allowed to question it anymore.

"Wait a minute! It was supposed to be New York, but I noticed that the IP addresses of the people who said they bought tickets are all from Europe and Asia?"

"Now that you mention it, I've noticed it too. It seems like I haven't seen many of my friends in New York manage to snag tickets."

Many people have noticed this situation.

Someone started a poll on Facebook to count how many New York City residents and how many Americans bought concert tickets.

An hour later, when the data stopped increasing, a result emerged that made countless people around the world laugh, but infuriated New Yorkers.

"176 people?!"

"Fuck! Why is there so little?!"

"It was supposed to be a New York stop, but only one percent of New Yorkers actually showed up to see Lyon?!"

"Friend, it's a concert in New York, but it didn't say it was a concert for New Yorkers, did it?"

In an instant, netizens in New York and around the world began to argue online.

This online feud has spilled over into real life.

Many people have come up with the reason why New Yorkers can't buy tickets.

Mobile phone number SMS verification speed.

One was through mobile phone number binding, and the other was through bank SMS.

The speed at which text messages were sent and received made New York City residents truly realize the incompetence of their mobile network operators.

They have started to unite online and plan to protest at the operator's doorstep.

Many people also went to their mayor's social media accounts to question him.

But what about the mayor of New York City himself?

"Dry it up, Lyon!"

(End of this chapter)