Lesson 174--Concert Vocabulary

I capped off (finished) an awesome weekend by attending a Billy Joel concert at the Air Canada Centre (ACC).  I noticed that there were lots of advertisements for concerts that hold no interest for me, but that a lot of my students would love.  Because of this, I thought it would be a good idea to give you some useful concert vocabulary.

vendor:

These are people who sell souvenir items at a concert.  They could be t-shirt vendors, programme vendors, even hot dog vendors. 

knockoff/bootleg vendors:

These are people who sell things that are not officially connected to the concert.  Usually they sell artwork or t-shirts to people as they are leaving the concert.  They are called knockoffs or bootlegs because they are not official merchandise.

scalpers

These are people who sell concert (or sport) tickets for a higher price than they paid for them.  In Toronto this can be quite high for concerts or hockey games.  You will know them by the way they pester you for tickets outside the stadium or arena.  They usually shout "Who needs tickets?" in a loud and often annoying voice.  Although this is illegal, they never seem to get arrested.

The verb is "scalp"

examples:        He scalped his tickets for 100 dollars each.

                        He bought tickets from a scalper for 200 dollars each.