Wow. That’s not cool. I had no idea they went to such lengths.
Actually, it’s a bit more insidious than just paying people to stand in line. That’s the old way.
The new way involves software that apparently lets the ticket brokers (read: scalpers) to cut in line and buy hundreds of tickets, shoving the ordinary user to the back of the line. Very not cool. There is a court case going on currently about this.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/10/15/Ticketmaster.html
Now, for me, this is not an issue. My tastes don’t tend to track with the trends (LOL), so the brokers don’t mess with me too much. The last show I attended was Friday night, at the firehall in Arcadia MD, Del McCoury Band with David Grisman as a special guest.