PC-55455.yaml

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speaker_name: "Valérie Ouellet"

talk_title: "How our Python bot found your baseball ticket"

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talk_tags:
- "visualisation"
- "database"
- "fun"
- "best practices"
- "MySQL"
- "community and culture"


talk_abstract: "Creating a custom database by mining five ticket sellers allowed us to expose staggered rollouts, experiments with variable pricing and reveal how high-demand events actually sell. From accessing Ticketmaster’s databases to mining the data, we’ll walk through CBC’s ticket scalping investigation."

talk_details: |
  Creating a custom database by mining five ticket sellers allowed CBC News developer William Wolfe-Wylie, data journalist Valérie Ouellet and their team to expose staggered rollouts, experiments with variable pricing and reveal how high-demand events actually sell. From accessing Ticketmaster’s databases to mining the data, Valérie Ouellet will reveal the code behind CBC's ticket scalping investigation.
  
  Last winter, CBC News shocked sports fans by revealing that nearly half of all tickets for the Blue Jays home opener were listed on resale websites, priced at more than 50 percent above their face value. Behind it, all was a Python bot sent to monitor ticket rollouts from the primary box-office all the way to a half-dozen resale sites. The program then combined that data into a single tracking system that created a virtual map of the stadium, monitoring how each seat therein moved from primary to reseller markets and eventually turned into a fan sitting in the seat.
  
  For the first time since the start of their investigation, data journalist Valérie Ouellet will take you deep inside CBC's Python-operated ticket monitoring machine, and will lay out a step-by-step explanation of the team's workflow, including how they cleaned and structured their raw data, collaborated to ensure their project was data-driven and found creative ways to visualize their findings.






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about_author: |
  *Valérie Ouellet* is a senior data journalist with CBC’s national investigative unit. She was part of the team who investigated the Paradise Papers, a massive leak of tax-haven records. The international investigation was awarded both the George Polk Award for Financial Reporting and the Gannett Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism. Her recent work also includes uncovering large-scale tickets scalping, investigating questionable inmate deaths and documenting a rise of violence in nursing homes. She teaches data journalism at Humber College and Ryerson University."

  *William Wolfe-Wylie* is a senior developer with CBC News. He was the lead developer behind Canada’s interactive database of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) which won the Canadian Hillman Prize and was a finalist for a Michener Award in 2016. His recent work also includes compiling the details of fatal police encounters in Canada and reconstituting the 1917 Halifax Explosion using virtual reality. William has taught data journalism at Centennial College and Ryerson University.


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author_website: ''