This picture was taken just before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games, when I had the most tickets in my possession. There were some others that had quicker turnover and aren’t in this photo. The basic premise was that I bought bulk packages of tickets, picked out the events that I wanted to see, and then distributed the rest on the “black market.” It was amazing what people were willing to pay for the in-demand tickets such as USA men’s basketball. I was able to see over 30 contests and was able to give tickets to my friends when I was too tired to go out.
All told, I spent close to $5000 dollars on tickets via eBay or in person, with at least 81 tickets having passed through my hands. An excel spreadsheet kept track of the specific match time, seat class, face value, bought price, expected selling price, and actual selling price. It all reminded me of the middle school calculator game “Drug Wars.” Just trying to sell for higher than you paid. By my worst calculation (the spreadsheet eventually got pretty complicated) I made back all of the money minus $194 USD, less than the price of one basketball ticket.
Some cool things I learned from this experience:
1) Chinese people are capitalistic. They were standing on the corners selling tickets with more dedication than me.
2) Chinese Renmenbi (the currency) can’t be exchanged back into USD unless you have a receipt from the bank saying that it came from USD in the first place. Since all of my sales were in cash, I had a stack of 330 100 rmb bills in my sock drawer for about a month before I decided to get a Chinese bank account. I wish I had a picture of the stack because it was about 6 inches tall. I ended up not changing it back because of the high fees and was able to pay off the credit card with other funds.
3) I excel in when put in tight spots with very specific time deadlines. One key to my success was organization and keeping track of the dates and times of my tickets. Obviously, they had to be sold before the game. The fun part was finding the perfect time after the customer was desperate to find the ticket and before I was desparate to sell it. During August, I rarely did anything but work on selling tickets, going to games, and talking to family on Skype.