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Why scalpers can get tickets

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Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#211

Post by conductr »

thriftwy wrote: post #19

Why not raise prices until you hit the supply demand cross? Yes you will visit one event out of three (just as today), but the dignity will remain with you.

Given the tickets often are going on sale a year ahead of the events, they have plenty of time to just price them high and adjust prices down (or up) to satisfy or drive demand. The concept that the tickets all have a face value that’s fixed for all seats (or a couple grouping of) is kinda the weird part to me. The pricing should work like plane tickets. It’s not a market in its purest form and I think that’s ok. I see that coming with lots of issues too.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#212

Post by keltex »

scott_w wrote: post #67
josephcsible wrote: post #4

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?

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…

Related article: The reason why Billy Joel refuses to sell front row seats at his concerts

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/reason-why-billy-joel-refuses-s...

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#213

Post by Scalene2 »

mattmaroon wrote: post #189
ajb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one reason is that it would let venues in for a lot more work to properly check everyone's ID. At an airport, Homeland Security pays for that part Both venues and airlines normally segment the market by how good a seat you get.

Not with digital ticketing. No ID is necessary. It is a rotating code so you can't just ship someone a screenshot. You have to have the Ticketmaster app, logged into your account. Unless scalpers want to start giving away their entire Ticketmaster accounts, it would stop it easily.

They already sell accounts along with tickets.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#214

Post by Ferret7446 »

chris_va wrote: post #146
Ferret7446 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core problem is reality. Scarcity is reality. Free market economics, supply and demand is reality. You can try to ignore the equilibrium price point, just as you might ignore gravity, but reality will assert itself. Scalpers will always exist to rebalance the supply and demand equality. If you want to make something available to more socioeconomic groups, increase the supply. Simple as.

... and clearly not viable. Do you think an artist can do 1000 shows a year?

Welcome to reality. You can't make a scarce good cheap by willing it harder.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#215

Post by iambateman »

I think there’s a massive point which gets missed on this question…

A lot of these tickets get resold on the platforms themselves. If a reseller buys the ticket, and then sells it again to the end user, Ticketmaster gets paid twice.

This point results in at least hundreds of millions in revenue. Now, if one of the platforms “cracks down” and makes it harder to buy and sell people will prefer another platform.

So platforms have a huge disincentive to do anything about resellers.

Also…more obviously, demand pressure drives the price, so scalpers are helping create a market and getting paid for it.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#216

Post by pests »

kortilla wrote: post #196
nerdjon wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the view of greed falls on the organization and the artists instead of on scalpers. It also is up in the air of the market value is really what people are paying or if it’s being inflated by scalpers. Some people will pay it but I don’t think it’s an accurate view of what the price should be in that situation. But we saw exactly this with the recent Lorcana release. Local game stores acted like scalpers charging…

The scalpers can only charge what people buy it for though. So whatever the scalpers are paying are what the people are willing to pay on average. (This assumes there are any successful scalpers and it’s not just a continuously losing game)

> can only charge what people buy it for though

This can't make sense. Then where is the profit for the scalper coming from?

Its also a bit untrue. Its true that yes, people _will_ pay it, but did they need to get that high? Scalpers are like auction bots - not always going to win, but will raise the prices for those who would have bought at an otherwise lower value.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#217

Post by WBrentWilliams »

sn_master wrote: post #207
WBrentWilliams wrote: post #202

Impractical, perhaps, but sale-to-person on day of show is the only way I see that can prevent scalping. That is, you can by as many tickets as you want in person, but you must present a body for each ticket purchased. Of course, this approach has its own problems, including possibility of riot, long queues, and surprise venue fees scaled to handle crowd control.

Not many people would take a day off or travel out of town if there's a high risk of not getting a ticket either.

As I said, the idea I posited _is_ impractical. It works fine if your band is playing small clubs and the like, but it admittedly falls apart at scale.

I see plenty of technical solutions being proposed. They might even work. Except each one seems to be exclusionary in some way or another at scale. Or they stomp on the tender feelings of libertarians, but I repeat myself.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#218

Post by autoexec »

kortilla wrote: post #205
autoexec wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Sale doctrine is fine, hoarding ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding_(economics) ) and price gouging not so much. Rights come with responsibilities. Maybe I can buy up a pallet of toilet paper in the middle of a pandemic, but people would be right to think I was a total piece of shit if I did. Society's tolerance for parasites who do that kind of thing has a breaking point and when the people being nega…

That’s the sophomoric take. The only reason you had the opportunity to buy a pallet during a shortage in the first place is due to idiotic “price gouging” laws. During the pandemic the price of toilet paper should have been increased by an order of magnitude at the store level. This would prevent hoarding and it would make sure people who desperately wanted it could get it. Additionally, it would have incentivized pr…

> and it would make sure people who desperately wanted it could get it.

I fail to see how making toilet paper cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per roll would ensure that everyone who needed it would be able to get it, since many of those who desperately wanted to wipe their ass were unable to work and going into record amounts of debt just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Producers and sellers were already fully incentivized to sell their goods, as they always have been. They know people want their product and will pay them enough that they can turn a profit. There's no reason to turn toilet paper into an luxury item which only the wealthiest people can afford leaving the majority priced out.

Price controls and rations have their place. Like all tools, the key to is make sure that they are used correctly.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#220

Post by chris_va »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #214
chris_va wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and clearly not viable. Do you think an artist can do 1000 shows a year?

Welcome to reality. You can't make a scarce good cheap by willing it harder.

You can make a scarce good cheap, just not for everyone in the market... hence the entire point of the discussion.
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