Scalpers at this event, however, were not selling unsold or sold out tickets as ticket scalpers are in the US are known to do. Scalpers at the Beijing Pop Festival, many of whom happened to be wearing Baidu-labeled clothing, were buying used tickets from people leaving the concert early (for as much as half the face value of the ticket in some cases) to sell for as much as RMB 200 to latecomers looking to catch the headline acts later on in the day. While this type of ticket scalping (or reselling) not an uncommon occurrence in China, I’d like to think that scalping is not a Baidu-supported service at these events. Then again, Baidu has been known to offer illegal mp3 downloads from their site so what’s one back door versus another?
In continuation of my investigation, I found another option available to concertgoers looking for an even cheaper route to get in - the back door, literally! In Chinese, the back door or ‘后门’, commonly refers to grey markets or “under-the-table” transactions. In this case, the back door entrance to the concert grounds literally provided a back door method to get into the concert at a heavily discounted price of RMB 100. The Baidu guys were nowhere in site for these back door services, however.
Beijing rock on!
(The following NIN track is brought to you for free from a quick search on Baidu: http://airwolf.ismac.cn/music/right_where_it_belongs.mp3)
