DNCC clamping down on Obama tickets

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

We had expected to see a market open up for tickets to Obama's speech, but the DNCC is working hard to prevent it:

Scalpers beware — Democratic Convention organizers are keeping a tight hold on tickets to Sen. Barack Obama ’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field and are working with online auction site eBay.com to keep tickets in the chosen hands.

According to the Illinois Democrat’s campaign and eBay, the popular auction site is banning sales of tickets to the Aug. 28 acceptance speech. eBay is a common tool for reselling tickets to popular events, often well above face value — something Democratic organizers are trying to avoid.

“Because attendance at the national party conventions and convention-related events is not open to the general public and because eBay considers these events to be an important part of our nation’s political process, we will not allow listings for convention credentials or tickets to other convention-related events on our site,” said eBay spokeswoman Catherine England.

Democratic organizers have taken other steps to keep tickets in the hands of those who applied for them through their local campaign offices. Applicants for the Denver tickets had to provide background information and prove their intent to attend the speech in order to get tickets. The roughly 55,000 available tickets were snatched up almost immediately.

“We’re instituting a very strong, stringent tracking program for these credentials to make sure they intend to be there,” said Natalie Wyeth, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Campaign Committee. “Any credentials that are advertised for sale will be deactivated immediately,” she added.

Other ticket resale sites — such as Craigslist.org and Stubhub.com — on Tuesday had a few listings seeking tickets to the speech, but none offering tickets for sale.
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Several earlier posts offering tickets had been removed as of Tuesday morning. While Craigslist administrators may not have been involved, the site allows users to “flag” prohibited postings and force their automatic removal. On Tuesday morning, several of the posts had already been flagged for removal— possibly by campaign organizers without help from the site

On Craiglist, there are offers of up to $500 to buy tickets, but no offers to sell. If anyone sees anywhere what seems like legitimate offers to sell tickets, please let us know, either in the comments or by email.