Today marks a great day in American history with the official inauguration of Barack Obama, our 44th president and first ever African-American president. The inauguration ceremony itself was a grand affair in Washington, DC with everyone from John Kerry to the Clintons, Bushes and Carters coming to see Obama officially take office. And there were "common folk" spectators on hand as well as there were 240,000 free tickets given out to lucky individuals and families. They estimated that many more than that number attended the event.
While inauguration tickets were free that didn't prevent many entrepreneurial-minded individuals from scalping theirs. eBay and StubHub were outlawed from allowing sales of the inauguration tickets. According to WashingtonTimes.com:
Inauguration-related tickets have become such a hot commodity that people have gone to the Web to buy and sell them.
However, the Internet sites eBay and StubHub have decided not to help broker tickets at the request of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Mrs. Feinstein introduced legislation, passed by the Senate Tuesday, to make scalping of inauguration tickets a criminal offense. Passage by the House before the inauguration is uncertain.
Interestingly, this eBay auction here was for an offical Obama inauguration T-Shirt plus 2 "free" tickets to the swearing-in ceremony. The shirt sold for $699. So technically that person made the smart sale, side-stepping the scalping concept. See the completed auction here.
Not only were inauguration tickets a hot seller but so were any other event nearby the inauguration such as a Jay-Z concert on 1/19 and a Gala ball featuring singer Rihanna. There were even inauguration invite letters and subway tickets which pictured Obama selling on eBay.
Check out the numerous eBay listings here
Read more about the 2009 inauguration tickets at WashingtonTimes.com.
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