Obama supporters and revelers looking to see his inauguration in person, may still be able to snag some of the coveted tickets to both the swearing-in and one of the inaugural balls, but they'll need to shell out some serious cash to some shady people.
Both events are sold out, but some of the tickets are showing up online on sites like Craigslist and eBay for as much as $2,000 per ticket.
While reselling some of the tickets isn't technically illegal, it's frowned upon. New York Senator Chuck Schumer made constituents who received inauguration tickets from his office sign a pledge not to resell them, and he encouraged other members of Congress to do the same.
Tickets to the swearing-in ceremony are free, but there are only a limited number. House and Senate members receive a total of 250,000 to distribute any way they see fit, but between 600,000 and 800,000 people are expected to show up on Jan. 21 to witness the ceremony.
Anyone can watch the event for free from the viewing area on the National Mall, which is a little farther away from the action.
Tickets for one of the inaugural balls are also sold out, due to an error by Ticketmaster, which was responsible for selling a limited number of the tickets to the general public online.
Some eager buyers were able to scoop up the tickets early. They retailed for $60, which makes the $2,000 scalped price a whopping 3,000 percent markup.
While Ticketmaster has apologized for the error, it doesn't plan to rectify the situation; people who weren't able to get tickets are just out of luck.
The scalpers of tickets for the inaugural ball are on shaky legal ground, and posts on eBay and Craigslist are short-lived, as authorities and site managers crack down on the unwanted commerce.
But posts keep popping up, so the demand is still out there for tickets to the historic occasion, which takes place -- auspiciously, perhaps -- on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
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