That's the ticket...

In the amusing comedy Run, Fat Boy, Run, there's a heartbreaking scene when down-on-his-luck dad Dennis (Simon Pegg) tries to score some last-minutes tickets to Lord of the Rings from an unscrupulous scalper outside the theater.

After finding a man selling his tickets, Dennis gives him the sad story about how excited his boy is to see the show - and then gets busted for 'scalping' by the very same man who'd offered to sell him the tickets in the first place - an undercover policeman!

What makes it so sad is that scalping isn't just the domain of illegal entrepreneurs outside the stadium any more. The free market economy and the Internet have conspired to make scalping big business - huge, in fact.

Just take Bruce Springsteen, for example (you can see him perform on April 1st in San Jose - HP Pavilion Tickets) Recently, tickets went on sale for his performance in New York's Madison Square Gardens - but people watching to buy them were redirected to another website selling those very same tickets for up to double the price. Somebody clever and unscrupulous had abused the Internet system and scalped not just the odd ticket, but all of them.

Websites like stubhub.com have sprung up in certain states and made scalping easier than ever. These websites are designed to allow people to sell their unwanted tickets online - but those same sites are perfect for scalpers who want to streamline their operation. Tickets for the St Louis Cardinels, for example (see them at Busch Stadium, here - Busch Stadium Tickets) are largely sold out, unless you want to buy them for an instant $30 percent markup online.

The sad fact is that scalpers aren't just the odd individuals any more, standing outside stadiums like the Cricket Wireless Pavillion in Arizona (which, ironically, doesn't feature games of cricket - Cricket Wireless Pavilion Tickets.) These days, they're just as lucky to be sitting in the comfort of their den, scalping ten times as many tickets as they could have done dealing with people face to face.

Technology has made the crook's job easier, but made it harder for all of us to get tickets to events at reasonable prices.