Emmy Monson got two expensive 23rd birthday gifts on June 20. The first was when her partner, Nolan Smiley, got down on one knee and presented her with an engagement ring. Then, about an hour after Monson said “Yes,” the couple neared the entrance to the Jackson Hole Rodeo, planning to redee m two tickets they had purchased for $360 on StubHub. “We’re hoping we get in,” Monson said. “We’re from Iowa, looked it up online, and they were sold out, so we went through StubHub.” The couple showed their tickets to a worker at the gate and smiled in relief as they learned the tickets were valid. Others haven’t been so lucky. Many rodeo-goers have learned at the entrance that the Jackson Hole Rodeo tickets they bought on StubHub or other third-party websites were scams. The Jackson Hole Rodeo has struggled over the last several years to combat scalpers, or people who buy tickets online at base prices and then sell them for a markup. The rodeo, which normally sells tickets for around $60, is currently sold out until mid-August. Tourists are instead searching for tickets online — running the risk of getting scammed — with price tags reaching into the hundreds of dollars. “We hate them,” rodeo representative Lisa Wilson said of the high scalping prices. “Being one of the last, true Western activities in Jackson, we do want it to be available to anyone that comes here. And these ridiculous scalping prices hinder that for the average tourist.” “I know it looks like you can get them for less expensive than on the third-party site. But the majority of our invalid tickets are coming, it seems, from Facebook.”Lisa Wilson, Jackson hole rodeo The rodeo has limited the amount of tickets that people — or bots — can buy at one time. It is also investigating other ways to try to combat third-party sales, including by potentially pushing back the starting date for ticket sales. But at least for this year, it is struggling to find a solution. “We looked, and we can’t find a solution,” Wilson said. “We’re looking at possible options. It’s just hard to find the right solution. This year, the buyout happened far quicker than I would have expected.” While the Teton County Fair is offering exclusively in-person sales for its marquee event, the Figure 8 Races, Wilson says that wouldn’t work for the rodeo, which operates two to three days a week over the summer. Scalping policy? The rodeo first noticed scalping during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it had to limit the number of people allowed to attend. Two people would show up from a group that had purchased 10 tickets. Since then, both scalping and the rodeo’s popularity have exploded as the event has circulated on social media, including TikTok. Both the rodeo and the Jackson Town Council are investigating whether amending state statute could potentially help. “There are no scalping laws in Wyoming, and a lot of these people who are purchasing don’t live in Wyoming,” Wilson said. “It’s just a difficult process to stop them.” Accountability is limited by the state of Wyoming’s absence of anti-scalping laws, which many other states and cities have, Wilson said. Elected officials for the town of Jackson, which owns and leases the land to the Wilson family, are taking notice of the scalping and high prices. But they don’t have answers either. “I am aware that there’s been issues about scalping. I know that the rodeo has taken that seriously. There [are] limits in terms of what we can do about it,” Mayor Arne Jorgensen said. “Don’t have a silver bullet, at this point.” The scalping issue may come up this fall when the Town Council is set to review its agreement with the Wilson family for rights to run the Jackson Hole Rodeo. The Town Council can renew its multiyear agreement with the Wilsons, or it can decide to put the contract out for a bid to see if other concessionaires are interested. If it decides to bid out the contract, the town may ask prospective partners how they intend to combat scalping. “I would think the best place to address [scalping] would be in that negotiation process around that concession agreement,” Jorgensen said. Wilson believes other concessionaires would run into the same problems. “It’s always easy to say you should do this or that, but there’s a whole lot more behind the whole issue,” Wilson said. “When you’re dealing with the internet, you’re always going to find nefarious individuals who are smarter than you on getting through any firewalls you put up.” Not worth that much Outside the gates of the June 20 rodeo, a group of four friends scrambled to secure tickets to the sold-out event, eventually spending over $600 in total. As the bull riding began, others who hadn’t secured tickets clung to the outside fence, hoping to get a peek. “It is not meeting any public benefit when we hear and see people having that experience,” Jorgensen said. “The rodeo is a valued activity in our community, and third-party people taking advantage of that in order to enrich themselves is against the public interest.” Some tourists who got in said they caved and bought expensive aftermarket tickets. Smiley and Monson, the newly engaged couple, were willing to take the risk. Others said they had secured tickets months in advance, knowing that the tickets could be hard to come by. “It’s definitely a mix of both true spectators and a mix of these people who are purchasing, or even setting up bots to come in and purchase,” Wilson said. Despite the high prices for the sold-out show, there appeared to be few — if any — empty seats at the Jackson Hole Rodeo on June 20. To Wilson, that signals that the rodeo could charge more for tickets, potentially up to $300. As it stands, the rodeo sells tickets online for $60 to $69. But the rodeo doesn’t want to charge more. “Our effort is to try to include everybody who comes to Jackson, not just those who could afford tickets at that price,” Wilson said. Paying up may incentivize scalpers to keep up the scheme, she said. “Our show is great, but maybe not worth $200 or $300 a ticket,” Wilson said. “If you keep giving these people $200 or $300 a ticket, they’re just going to ask more next time.” Advice for rodeo-goers The Jackson Hole Rodeo does not support or approve of reselling tickets, Wilson said. Buyers on third-party sites run the risk of landing invalid tickets, often because they are sent a duplicated QR code. “We haven’t had a huge amount of invalid tickets so far this year,” Wilson said. “But the ones that do come up invalid is because that individual who has purchased those tickets sells the same ticket multiple times.” Wilson particularly cautioned against buying tickets on Facebook. “I know it looks like you can get them for less expensive than on the third-party site,” Wilson said. “But the majority of our invalid tickets are coming, it seems, from Facebook.” Jacksonites have approached Wilson with suggestions on how to combat scalping, like selling tickets at the door. But some proposals are easier said than done, she said, including that selling at the gate would require more hard-to-find employees. “Say we just decided that we’re only selling at the gate,” Wilson added. “Then, we’re going to have almost 2,000 people standing at the gate, trying to get tickets.” People inquiring about tickets early, like wedding or bachelorette party organizers, would also struggle to secure tickets, Wilson said. “Essentially, we have to offer pre-sales,” Wilson said. “Once they get on the internet … anything could happen.” The post Jackson Hole Rodeo runs out of ticket scalping solutions appeared first on WyoFile . ...read more read less