This Brooklyn man invented ticket scalping for the 21st century

Like many others, Winston Walker’s job was replaced by automation in the last few years and he found himself out of work. Recently, however, he’s founded a true startup to get back to work. Walker’s vocation had been ticket scalping. Now it’s on-site ticket printing.

The story comes from a charming and scrappy piece in Entrepreneur, “When This Ticket Scalper Couldn’t Find Work, He Made His Own Ticket Business,” by its editor-in-chief, Jason Feifer.

Thanks to the Barclays Center’s policy that only printed tickets allow entrance to concerts and sporting events, many customers, phone in hand, are turned away at the door and must find somewhere to get the tickets on their phones printed out.

https://twitter.com/heyfeifer/status/950385257223786496

In the piece, Feifer interviewed Walker, who charges $5 per print right there outside the arena.

This has happened to me, too. After a long trip out to Flushing, prepared for a day of tennis-watching at the U.S. Open, my brother and I couldn’t get into the venue because we’d bought our tickets on StubHub and didn’t print them out. Refused at the gate for not having printed out tickets, we had to head half a mile down the road to the Holiday Inn, where scores and scores of other people were printing out their tickets at a StubHub kiosk. We’d planned to be early for the day and get good seats, but instead we missed the first set of a match we wanted to see.

Seems like a good business, Winston Walker. Good luck!

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