81–90 of 487 posts
Nothing new here. I remember when the Cubs stopped selling tickets via a line wrapped around Wrigley to a wristband "to cut down on scalpers". I lucked out and ended up 57th in line. You could only buy 4 tickets per game so in theory only 240 tickets would have been sold by the time I got to buy. I was only looking for bleacher seats (cheap and fun at the time) and there were about 5000 seats available. By the time I…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is legitimate ticketholders don't like this. You're going to a concert with your SO that you had to buy tickets for six months in advance, then you break up and get together with someone else. Now instead of transferring the ticket you paid for to your new SO, you're stuck either going with your ex (that'll go over well) or going by yourself. People don't like this.
I’ll take not having shared seating with a potential future partner due to the breakdown of my relationship with my current partner over spending $450/person to see a band I liked back in high school.
Why do the organizations putting on events like these leave so much money on the table? Why don't they just charge the market-clearing price themselves, leaving no room for scalpers to make any profit?
> Ticketmaster now requires text message phone number verification, but they can bypass this by buying “Mobile Virtual Network Operator” phone numbers in bulk from eBay I’m surprised SMS verification is this ineffective at testing for “human-ness”.
Why do the organizations putting on events like these leave so much money on the table? Why don't they just charge the market-clearing price themselves, leaving no room for scalpers to make any profit?
They might be doing that already by acting as scalpers. I don't see why the solution isn't simply what airlines are doing where you register a ticket to a name and it's non-transferable.
Both venues and airlines normally segment the market by how good a seat you get.
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Because, ironically, a show that only rich people can afford to attend will be pretty terrible. Rich people tend not to loudly enjoy the show, so the atmosphere isn't there. This is bad for the rest of the audience and for the performer. It's hard to put 100% in when all you can see is a bunch of people staring solemnly at you. It happens in football (soccer for my American friends) for clubs like Man Utd (and probab…
Why is it that rich people are solemnly staring in general? You'd think they'd be whooping it up on account of being made.
Why do the organizations putting on events like these leave so much money on the table? Why don't they just charge the market-clearing price themselves, leaving no room for scalpers to make any profit?
I don't know if artists negotiate ranges on ticket prices. But I assume most would want to make an acceptable amount of money and allow most of their fans to afford tickets, not just the rich ones.
In effect the number of less wealthy fans who can get into a show is a lottery. Ideally you would do just that, lottery off some tickets at affordable rates and sell the rest at market rate.
But the market has adjusted to that too and re-sellers dominate such lotteries. If you offer the opportunity for arbitrage, the market will take advantage of that opportunity.
So just sell at market rate, cut out the re-sellers entirely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is legitimate ticketholders don't like this. You're going to a concert with your SO that you had to buy tickets for six months in advance, then you break up and get together with someone else. Now instead of transferring the ticket you paid for to your new SO, you're stuck either going with your ex (that'll go over well) or going by yourself. People don't like this.
That is completely made up example - I’ve been to events that do this and you’re typically allowed to purchase 2-4 tickets per id
And you now have a new scalping model where you create a website for people to submit their IDs ahead of time and pay a fee to have someone try to get them a ticket in the two seconds before they sell out, but they buy 2-4 tickets per ID and resell the others.
Why do the organizations putting on events like these leave so much money on the table? Why don't they just charge the market-clearing price themselves, leaving no room for scalpers to make any profit?
This damages the act's fan base, which in turn negatively affects future revenues via streaming, merchandise, co-branding, and future ticket sales.