wow! Really bad news if true.
I was chatting to a friend on Sunday and we had a couple of points about corruption at the festival.
The scalpers. I know it is common at events here but how can they sell tickets that much cheaper? How do they get the tickets? They must be making money so are they stolen tickets or do they have ‘friends’ in the ticket office? Surely the organizers would benefit by reducing prices but having all the money come directly to them.
The ticket prices with the scalpers changed day-to-day. I wasn’t there on Saturday but I heard the tickets outside were more expensive than on Thursday and Friday. That kind of makes sense if they were expecting Saturday to be busier but they also were asking for more cash on Sunday evening with only a few hours of the festival left.
Most of the scalpers on Sunday were asking for 200 for an actual wrist band or 150 to take you to the gate with a used wrist band. Even if you bought a wrist band they were taken off you at the gate and probably given straight back to the scalpers.
Also on Sunday, there were people all over the festival selling soft drinks and beer cheaper than at the official stands. 5 rmb for cold Harbin, great, but if I worked for Carlsberg and had paid a shit load of money to ensure my beer was the only one for sale at the festival then I’d be mighty pissed off.
It looked as if on Sunday people just didn’t care about trying to hide it anymore, everybody had their hands in the till.
