Ticketmaster To Require Negative COVID-19 Test Or Vaccination To Attend Concerts 152
Ticketmaster is planning to check the coronavirus vaccination status of concert-goers prior to shows once a treatment is approved. The New York Post reports: The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify their inoculation or whether they've tested negative for the virus within a 24- to 72-hour window, according to the exclusive report. The plan, which is still being ironed out, will utilize three separate components, including the California-based company's digital ticketing app, third-party health information firms like CLEAR Health Pass and testing/vaccination distributors like Labcorp or CVS Minute Clinic.
Ticketmaster will reportedly not store or access medical records under the plan. If approved, fans would need to verify that they've either already been vaccinated or have tested negative as recently as 24 hours prior to the show. Concert-goers would then instruct a lab to send over test results to companies like CLEAR Health Pass or IBM's Digital Health Pass, which would verify the fan's status to Ticketmaster. Anyone who tests positive or doesn't get screened won't be granted access to the event venue, Billboard reported. The digital ticketing app will also eliminate the need for paper tickets and can be prohibited from being resold, according to the report. Further reading: Billboard
Ticketmaster will reportedly not store or access medical records under the plan. If approved, fans would need to verify that they've either already been vaccinated or have tested negative as recently as 24 hours prior to the show. Concert-goers would then instruct a lab to send over test results to companies like CLEAR Health Pass or IBM's Digital Health Pass, which would verify the fan's status to Ticketmaster. Anyone who tests positive or doesn't get screened won't be granted access to the event venue, Billboard reported. The digital ticketing app will also eliminate the need for paper tickets and can be prohibited from being resold, according to the report. Further reading: Billboard
And no doubt.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There will be a 'Covid-19 surcharge' in order to "cover the costs" of implementing those checks, amirite?
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Re:And no doubt.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well of course! I mean, would we expect anything less?
... and it'll still be added on every ticket sale 10+ years from now.
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So? Nobody is forcing you to go watch any ticketmaster events.
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So? Nobody is forcing you to go watch any ticketmaster events.
And it's a good thing too, because I have no plans to ever do so.
Re:And no doubt.... (Score:5, Funny)
So? Nobody is forcing you to go watch any ticketmaster events.
They aren’t really “Ticketmaster Events”, Ticketmaster just sells tickets to it. That said, I personally see no problem with a large corporation providing sole access to a societies live performance art. I’m just pissed off that a big company can’t restrict our access to oxygen with whatever policies they dream up. Instead you got all these freeloaders jogging and breathing up as much as they want. It’s not fair! Like broadband, some has to charge those who use more than me.
I mean, if you don’t like it, you can always kill yourself.
I’m a big believer in choices.
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"Nobody's forcing you to buy it" isn't a good argument. Presumably Ticketmaster would like us to buy tickets so it's fair to evaluate their offer and complain when it's shitty.
Re:And no doubt.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So? Nobody is forcing you to go watch any ticketmaster events.
That is irrelevant. This is the thin edge of the wedge towards a mentality that mirrors the, "papers, please" society that used to be mocked as intolerable. But now throw in a little baseless fear, and suddenly totalitarianism somehow becomes acceptable to the majority.
At some point, we find ourselves unable to get a driver's license, unable to enter grocery stores, and unable to exist in society unless we can provide documented proof that we followed the forced vaccination mandate that follows this wedge. And once we surrender control over what we allow to be forcefully injected into our bodies, we no longer live in a free society. At this point, we enter into the Fourth Reich (Godwin be damned).
Re: And no doubt.... (Score:2)
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Require a vaccination? (Score:3)
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the same place any common person can get quick covid19 test with less than 38% false negative rate.
Which is to say, no where.
what stupidity. Yes there are rather accurate tests that would be useful, they are quite expensive and time consuming with turnaround in week plus range.
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The PCR test has a false negative rate of 20% and is the most commonly used test around. It's also possible to get it easily and results come back quickly.
Decrying something with a 20% false negative as useless stupidity is just ignorance in itself, especially if you think even a perfect test is capable of preventing a virus from being brought into a venue.
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Seriously? They're that inaccurate. I had no idea. Considering a random test has a 50% false negative rate, 20% is pretty damn bad as far as tests go.
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Seriously? They're that inaccurate. I had no idea. Considering a random test has a 50% false negative rate, 20% is pretty damn bad as far as tests go.
One of the main reasons why the advice is if you feel any symptoms then stay the f__ at home regardless if you have a test showing you're negative.
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20% is decent. It's in the range of when diagnostic tests start being considered useful in individuals. It's well within the range where they're useful at the public health level. It's useless for acting as a gatekeeper.
Keep in mind that false negative rate only tells you half the story. The false positive rate for something like a COVID test needs to be quite low because the prevalence is quite a bit less than 50%. A random test doesn't do that.
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"False negative" rate is a rather blurry concept. A PCR test will come out positive if there are just a few viral RNA molecules in that swab, while the infectious dose is estimated at a few hundred virus particles, inhaled. A negative PCR result is a pretty good indicator that the person was not contagious at the time the swab was taken. The question relevant for Ticketmaster is: what is the probability that someone who is (asymptomatically) contagious today had a negative PCR test 72 hours ago. The false n
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A 20% false negative rate isn't useless stupidity in general, but it's unlikely to prevent someone bringing COVID into a typical concert venue. For every five people with COVID who want to go to your concert, on average one of them is going to get through.
You know what does prevent people from bringing COVID to crowded concerts? Not having them.
Requiring proof of vaccination is a viable idea though.
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Where are you getting 38% false negative? My understanding is that the slow tests have a very low rate of both false negatives and false positives. The rapid tests have a very low rate of false negatives, but a high rate of false positives. That makes them useful for catching people who are sick, but it's also going to "catch" some healthy people too. So they aren't unsafe, but are inconvenient. That's why a rapid test should be used as a first step. Take the rapid test, and if it says you are positive, onl
Re: Require a vaccination? (Score:3)
The "38% false negative" thing may come from back in the peak panic period where people were getting tested soon after exposure but ended up coming down with it anyway. It's why hospitals started running antibody tests to confirm a diagnosis where the symptoms matched but the PCR test came back negat
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Where are you getting 38% false negative? My understanding is that the slow tests have a very low rate of both false negatives and false positives. The rapid tests have a very low rate of false negatives, but a high rate of false positives. That makes them useful for catching people who are sick, but it's also going to "catch" some healthy people too. So they aren't unsafe, but are inconvenient. That's why a rapid test should be used as a first step. Take the rapid test, and if it says you are positive, onl
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PCR doesn't really do false positives since it pretty much requires the RNA to be there to trigger (Like, yes, it will pick up a too-low to be truly infected viral load, but that isn't a false positive, the virus is actually there, and you *probably* will get infectious if not actually sick.).
The false negative things a little dicier though. In the first week of infection the false negative rate is disturbingly high, in the 50% rate (This is why you really shouldnt take a single negative result as accurate,
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All PCR does is multiply target DNA. Since each cycle doubles the amount 10 cycles increase the amount 1000 fold. That can be made to work pretty reliably.
The question then is what you can conclude from the test after that: the outcome of the full test will be "originally there were between X and Y items of the original DNA present (and therefore RNA in the original material)" . Which RNA match count in the specimen do you consider a detection. 1? 100? 10000? You could have a bad sample of someone early in
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The rapid tests aren't antibody tests, they're antigen tests. They *contain* antibodies and you're looking to see if they react with the sample.
They still have the issues you mentioned, just in reverse, but they do detect infection (or at least virus fragments) that is currently present.
Re: Require a vaccination? (Score:2)
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i've been tested 4 times for work in the last 3 weeks. 24/48 hour turn around on test results. tests are done on site and sent off to a lab for processing. if you get a phone call, you get bad news. so far no phone calls.
But of course you realize those tests aren't very accurate, right?
dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
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Seems a bit ridiculous to conclude if you tested negative 72 hours ago you will be negative at the concert, or even when you buy the ticket.
Won't there be a huge run on tests locally if there's a big show, making it iffy that you'll get a test result back in time?
This thing seems rife with potential problems.
That said, I'd never jump through those hoops for a show personally, so if someone wants to go through this, the more power to them.
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Seems a bit ridiculous to conclude if you tested negative 72 hours ago you will be negative at the concert, or even when you buy the ticket.
False. The 72 hour period comes from the fact that the virus is not contagious during the incubation period which has been calculated to be on average 5.2 days. That is to say we are capable of testing for the virus *before* it becomes contagious and that if you were tested negative 72 hours ago and contracted it as soon as you left the test centre you will likely not pass it on to anyone at the venue.
This is also standard operating practice in most countries and most governments right now which are mandati
Re: dumb (Score:2)
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In case you haven't noticed people are going fucking mental. I'm not, but then I'm an introvert. Give me a decent single player game and a PC and I'll hide in the basement until the end of days. That said I know of several people who are just dying to do absolutely anything. So I understand the sentiment.
Re: dumb (Score:2)
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Is that the case for the antigen test? I am pretty sure it works for shit, or marginally better than shit, in early incubation. And incubation is 3 days to X days.
This testing policy is going to be statistically and epidemiologically useful even if it's only, say, 90% effective but we will still see some spread from these concerts if widely attended and some super spreading if they go on.
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Re: dumb (Score:2)
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Clearly not a viable alternative. Your suggestion is as ridiculous as not requiring a servant to cut your hair.
Re: dumb (Score:2)
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The alternative is to tell them to fuck off, as in "Hell No, I won't go" and shoot the fuckers in the head if they try and force you against your will.
Who is going to force you to see a concert?
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I don't think that's the assumption. I'm pretty sure this is a means of meeting insurance/liability expectations within the litigious world of the US.
I think it's that if you test negative within 72 hours, you're less likely to be positive by concert time. This shows that Ticketmaster, the venue, and the performer(s) are taking some reasonable measure to avoid being a mass-spreader event. This effort would be used as a defense in cases where people contract COVID-19 at the event and sue the various involved
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Re: dumb (Score:2)
A 62% drop in asymptomatic spreaders would be significant, as would a 62% drop in people with mild symptoms thinking they have a cold spreading.
lol (Score:3)
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Ticket master is just a sellers platform. Whether a show is refunded or not is up to the event organiser and not ticketmaster. I got a full refund for a show that was also indefinitely postponed.
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I've done a few purchases on ebay that ebay ended up eating because the seller just ghosted.
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To clear up, I could have requested a refund until Ticketmaster changed the refund policy the minute COVID hit, because scum is scum.
Sure, but Pearl Jam tried to take them on, and received not much support for their efforts, so you get scum because the people accept scum and pay people handsomely for being scum. We're a greedy, hedonistic species that doesn't sacrifice unless they are threatened with a greater punishment ... such as being penniless in old age. Heck, even religion knows that people won't d
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Well it's worth knowing that Ticketmaster doesn't actually add much value
The value ticketmaster adds is to be a central clearing house. The value to you is that you're able to get your stuff from one place, not hand your information over to 100 different companies, not have to deal with shady independent sites.
Running a concert and buying shit from scammers on ebay are two different things.
And if a show is actually cancelled rather than just rescheduled I'm sure there's an obligation to refund.
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Likely bullshit. Ticketmaster serfs have been complainimg about concert ticket prices for...decades. And all they had to do is, en masse petit, go to a few fewer concerts, let ticketmaster know why and they would have caved. Now is their chance to test this 'free market' crap they've been taught in school. But watch what happens. Serfs.
Yep yep and yes, people are innately serfs. All governments and corporations know this.
Want lower taxes? Everyone stop paying them. Voila, your taxes will be lowered. The
Cellphones? (Score:2)
The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify their inoculation or whether they've tested negative for the virus within a 24- to 72-hour window, according to the exclusive report.
So now you need a cellphone to attend a concert? There are still many people, especially smaller children, who do not have cellphones. Are they now excluded from attending concerts or any events covered by TicketMaster?
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Russia, apparently.
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I don't own a cell phone, and I have no idea where to get a COVID-19 vaccine.???
As for phones, 99.999% of humans lived without ever having experienced such amazing, affordable technology.
Don't waste it. Surely you could find some use for the devices while still maintaining a contrarian point of view?
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So now you need a cellphone to attend a concert?
They've been pushing for this for a few years now. They really want you to use an app that shows a QR code of your ticket rather than any other form of ticket.
I remember the first time I decided to go ahead with this, and sure enough the app wouldn't load my damn ticket once I got down to the event center. Had to screw around for a while with the truly terrible TicketBastards app before I could get my tickets scanned.
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The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify their inoculation or whether they've tested negative for the virus within a 24- to 72-hour window, according to the exclusive report.
So now you need a cellphone to attend a concert? There are still many people, especially smaller children, who do not have cellphones. Are they now excluded from attending concerts or any events covered by TicketMaster?
You've obviously not attended any concerts in the last couple of years.
Re:Cellphones? (Score:5, Funny)
So now you need a cellphone to attend a concert? There are still many people, especially smaller children, who do not have cellphones. Are they now excluded from attending concerts or any events covered by TicketMaster?
Dude, what are you doing? Are you trying to ruin it for everyone?
Tell you what, shut up and practice:
"Sorry honey, Daddy would LOVE to take you to 'Barney the Dinosaur Princess' ... oooh ... and look here, it's on ICE ... you know how much I ice ... but that mean old Ticketmaster said that kids can't go to shows until the plague is over. Arg, I'm so mad! I totally wanted to go!"
Then instead of sitting there in the middle 10,000 screaming spogs, you can spend the day spanking it to Playboy's "The Girls of Barney the Dinosaur Princess" special edition.
And you're MAD about this?
Let it go, man. Let it go.
Ticketbastards (Score:3)
I had never considered that ticket master, stub hub, street scalpers, and other ticketing scam artists are probably experiencing significant financial difficulties as a result of COVID. Every cloud has its silver lining, I guess.
What the hell? (Score:2)
How do ticketmaster get to set entry conditions? I thought the venue owner did that, and/or the promoter.
Ticketmaster is the boss (Score:2)
How do ticketmaster get to set entry conditions? I thought the venue owner did that, and/or the promoter.
My understanding is that if your live production wants to go beyond the limits of community theatre, you have no choice but to deal with Ticketmaster. They know this, so they set the terms.
Re:Ticketmaster is the boss (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that if your live production wants to go beyond the limits of community theatre, you have no choice but to deal with Ticketmaster. They know this, so they set the terms.
And even though the founding fathers were strongly against monopolies, and subsequent early Americans tried to put in place safeguards against them, modern "conservatives" generally support them, repeating like a mantra "well, if you don't like it, don't use (whatever the monopoly provides)" as though "market forces" will somehow take care of it.
I make this observation not even being a Democrat myself.
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That seems extremely odd. It's not like it's hard to set up an ecommerce site. Perhaps there are some baseball bats involved in Ticketmaster's dominance?
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There are likely to be government-mandated rules saying that you can't have an event unless you have a plan for Covid-19.
The idea here is that Ticketmaster does the screening so that the even organizer can say "look, I have a plan". Presumably, Ticketmaster will work with the authorities to get their system approved. I suppose that an organizer can come up with his own plan, but having it approved and executing it may be more of a hassle than just going through Ticketmaster.
And incidentally, it is a way for
the rent a cops at the event will have to enforce (Score:2)
the rent a cops at the event will have to enforce it
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How do ticketmaster get to set entry conditions? I thought the venue owner did that, and/or the promoter.
Ticketmaster has exclusive ticketing contracts with many large venues (80% of the biggest venues in the US according to this New York Times article [nytimes.com]). Especially after they merged with Live Nation, many venues felt like pressured into these contracts because Live Nation controlled a number of traveling shows and these shows wouldn't go to venues without these Ticketmaster contracts.
There have been a few attempts to stop this, such as the proposed 2019 Hawaiian legislation [ticketnews.com], but I can't see any significant
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How do ticketmaster get to set entry conditions? I thought the venue owner did that, and/or the promoter.
TicketMaster and LiveNation are one, thanks to the douchebag politicians who were bought off to let them merge, totally ignoring the anti-trust implications.
Chuckle (Score:2, Insightful)
This will last for a few concerts at most.
Then, when attendance / profits are down 95%, they will drop this rule faster than they implemented it.
In related news, Photoshop is pretty awesome at generating very official and very fake documents to show that I am vaccinated against shit we haven't even named yet :D
Re:Chuckle (Score:4, Informative)
Then, when attendance / profits are down 95%
What do you mean when? Did you just wake from a year long coma? Attendance and profits have been down 95% since COVID started.
Photoshop is pretty awesome at generating very official and very fake documents to show that I am vaccinated against shit we haven't even named yet :D
I travel cross borders for work in a high risk area so I get a COVID test 3 times a week. The result takes 4 minutes from swab to signed letter. I bet you a Marsbar you can't fake a certificate faster than I can get a test performed and an official one signed.
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I suppose there are ways around anything but a few cheaters would not have much impact on the overall effectiveness. (Even a few percent cheating wouldn't have all that much).
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That is not what will happen. The whole trend is towards complete surveillance. It has advantages in that if all data is available it becomes easy to offer a service in a selective manner: someone with a digital id which has a flag 'is covid immune' can move freely about and enter anywhere on a simple id check . No cases where you have to say 'we cannot open this shop because we cannot filter the safe from the unsafe people'.
On the other hand this data represents a large power. If you can make someone's acc
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and that's why they want access to your health data digitally for 3rd party verification. the only people getting access to my health records are health entities and my lawyer.
Until it's no longer your decision. It's just a matter of time until the retroactively legalizing giving this info to whoever asked for it.
Remember, it's a felony for you to lie to an insurance company.
If any insurance company lies to you, you're free to hire an attorney on your own dime and file a civil suit. It's probably not worth
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I'm wiling to be that Ticketmaster has an arbitration clause too, even further lessening their incentive to act ethically.
LOL (Score:2)
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Scared of a test? I get 3 a week. It's not that bad man.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Scared of a test? I get 3 a week. It's not that bad man.
Unlike you, I'm guessing he's more concerned about handing over his medical history to some scumback outfit like TicketMaster.
Re: LOL (Score:2)
Yeah, I can see where âoeIâ(TM)m not currently illâ is a really inconvenient data point for Ticketmaster to have.
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Only an American would equate "telling people you tested negative" to "handing over your medical history".
I'm not sure what it is with you guys, but even Germany a country which has privacy of people embedded deeply in its laws to the point where foreign firms often find them selves fined for normal operating practice, even they are okay with this kind of stuff. It's a letter with a doctor signature saying that person x is negative. Whoop-de-fucking-do.
Not sure what the American fetish is with medical histo
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Scared of a test? I get 3 a week. It's not that bad man.
(20 years later)
Scared of a home inspection? I get 3 a week. It's not that bad man. I mean, unless you have something to hide.
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Scared of a test? I get 3 a week. It's not that bad man.
(20 years later)
Scared of a home inspection? I get 3 a week. It's not that bad man. I mean, unless you have something to hide.
I'll take slippery slope fallacy for $20.
Learn to form an argument.
Not a problem (Score:2)
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because as somebody smart enough to avoid COVID
Are you avoiding all contact will all other people? Because, smart guy, that's the only way you're certain to avoid it.
Unless you somehow have magical control over all the people you come into contact with (and all the other people they come into contact with) you're not going to avoid a virus with brainpower.
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Clearly there is no difference whatsoever between going to the grocery store with a mask and a mosh pit.
and now they give full refunds to people who don't (Score:3)
and now they give full refunds to people who don't / can't do this and they have tickets now?
Orly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Too little, too late. (Score:2)
Can you imagine if there was widely available testing in the US back May? If everyone could take a test weekly? It would have been a gamechanger and we would have been able to keep open much larger sections of the economy. But somehow the USA couldn't get our s--- together and we wasted months doing nothing but complaining, pointing fingers, lying to ourselves, and dealing with on again/off again lockdowns. It's really pathetic. Could have spent $10 - $20 billion on a true moon-shot style R&D e
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Economically I'm not as sure. It seems to be a mixed bag [wp.com]. (That's a scatterplot comparing GDP impact and deaths per capita among many nations). Japan held deaths to basically zilch but the economic impact was about as bad as here in the US. Then there's South Korea that got straight A's in both safety and cost.
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we wasted months doing nothing but complaining, pointing fingers, lying to ourselves, and dealing with on again/off again lockdowns
You forgot we were also buying toilet paper. Lots of toilet paper.
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we wasted months doing nothing but complaining, pointing fingers, lying to ourselves, and dealing with on again/off again lockdowns
Really? So those people cancelled themselves for the lame jokes they told 40 years ago? I suppose YOU divided and conquered the proletariat in exchange for thoughtcrime immunity all by yourself?
You better watch yourself. You're a hashtag away from being unemployed.
bitch.
ALL RIGHT (Score:2)
sorry (Score:2)
Non-essential Employees (Score:3)
Rock stars and concerts should be the last businesses to reopen.
If there is non-essential, this is it.
Like I trust 10,000 burnouts to get a covid test before a concert
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Like I trust 10,000 burnouts to get a covid test before a concert
I agree. It's like I've always said, the overriding problem with the world is that all of its inhabitants are not you. Every concert I've ever been to has consisted of 10,000 burnouts, and rdlp, sitting in the 5th row, clapping along in rhythm and staying seated so that he won't block the view for the people behind him. If only it could have been 10,000 rdlps and one burnout.
One can dream.
Yeah right! (Score:2)
Confused (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that "Has been vaccinated for Covid", and "Has negative test result" would both count as medical records.
Even if TM only intend to use that data for the day of the event, I can't see how they do so without HIPAA being invoked.
Fuck Ticketmaster! (Score:2)
What test? (Score:2)
Over here where I live, you would have wait days to get tested, if they haven't run out,
And then you'd have to wait days, or even weeks for the result.
24 hours?
Bah!
Re:Test? Vaccine? (Score:5, Insightful)
"no side effects" is an impossible bar. Almost everything has a chance of side effects in a certain percent of people. I mean, peanuts can (and do) kill people who are allergic to it.. yet we havent banned peanuts .. we haven't stopped eating peanuts for the sake of those people, even though we can do with it -- unlike a vaccine which can actually save lives.
Re: Test? Vaccine? (Score:2)
"yet we havent banned peanuts"
Except in public school. And as diarreah icing on the shit cake, they will likely punish the kid, and perhaps call CPS on mommy who packed that PB&J sandwhich into little Johnny's lunchbox that morning.
Don't worry though, bullies will still be allowed to bully and assault their victims until the victim committs suicide.
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Although the risk of vaccination is harder to justify in nations where the disease is not running rampant.