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Why scalpers can get tickets

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Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#271

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

iambateman wrote: post #215

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 plat…

> If a reseller buys the ticket, and then sells it again to the end user, Ticketmaster gets paid twice.

So basically scalpers are being paid to be the scapegoat so Ticketmaster can make more money, at the expense of artists and fans.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#272

Post by [deleted] »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #271
iambateman wrote: post #215

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 plat…

> If a reseller buys the ticket, and then sells it again to the end user, Ticketmaster gets paid twice. So basically scalpers are being paid to be the scapegoat so Ticketmaster can make more money, at the expense of artists and fans.

[deleted]

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#273

Post by dreamcompiler »

Scalping (or at least reselling) airline tickets used to be a thing before 9/11 when the TSA came into being and they and the airlines began requiring positive ID to get on an airplane. Ticket reselling cost the airlines money: It made nonrefundable tickets fungible again, which the airlines hated. So the airlines loved the TSA's new positive ID policy.

Ticketmaster could do the same thing if they wanted to, but I have a feeling they don't.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#274

Post by johnnyanmac »

iambateman wrote: post #215

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 plat…

>if one of the platforms “cracks down” and makes it harder to buy and sell people will prefer another platform.

1) what other platform? I'm not too intimate with this, but part of the revolt over the Taylor Swift contrversy came from how Ticketmaster as exclusive use to most of the big venues. That seems to be the other half of the issue not talked about in this article.

2) I thought this issue would be as simple as banning resales, but after reading the kind of tech (and money they pay) to invest in the scalping... idk. It'd kill off the casual scalping of someone who buys maybe a half dozen tickets. people paying hundreds for fake numbers and specialized browsers won't be deterred. And the demand for the tickets comes from the celebrities, so it's a pretty safe market as long as the concert industry stays up (so, no more COVID. Even then, it's not like it's hard to pull out).

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#275

Post by bufferoverflow »

azinman2 wrote: post #172
bufferoverflow wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just make it an auction. Every ticket goes to the highest bidder.

That’s effectively what it is now, and it means poorer ppl lose. That’s not good for society.

That's not what it is now. Right now the scalper gets the difference between the ticket price and what the highest bidder pays. In an auction all that money would go to the artist.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#276

Post by mym1990 »

rs999gti wrote: post #226
iambateman wrote: post #215

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 plat…

Simple fix then, ban reselling. The artist and TM still get the revenue, but the scalper gets inventory they can't move. What about the fans? Similar to airlines, let people buy standby tickets, at the event, check attendance, if there is space let the stand bys in. TM still gets paid twice, scalper has garbage, and fans get in. What about fans who can't go? Buy the insurance at checkout, if you can't go the insuranc…

Instead of banning resale, why not just allow resale at face value? The French open(tennis) does this and makes it possible to still get tickets at a reasonable price up until the day of the event.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#277

Post by mpixel »

bko wrote: post #249
rs999gti wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple fix then, ban reselling. The artist and TM still get the revenue, but the scalper gets inventory they can't move. What about the fans? Similar to airlines, let people buy standby tickets, at the event, check attendance, if there is space let the stand bys in. TM still gets paid twice, scalper has garbage, and fans get in. What about fans who can't go? Buy the insurance at checkout, if you can't go the insuranc…

This is only a problem because concert venues want to charge below market price and have the scalpers take the heat while they get their cut both ways. You can’t magically get around the market price. If you price too low you’ll have scalpers. If you beat the scalpers you’ll just have not enough tickets and a few people get tickets at below market value. Maybe that’s more fair but if you’re a fan that doesn’t feel co…

> People just don’t want to deal with the reality that the Taylor swift tickets that start at $40 or whatever were never real to begin with

This.

Here's a much more optimal semi-auction style solution. Tickets go on sale for 20 days, each day, all the seats and spots are worth the same price, you can buy anything, the price is always the same.

Day 1, the price is $2000. Day 20, the price is $10. So you'd only pay $60 at most for a ticket? Sure, just check in on day 16.

Since we start the price at the higher-than-scalp price, there's no scalping opportunity if you are paying the 'real market price'.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#278

Post by chongli »

mpixel wrote: post #277
bko wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only a problem because concert venues want to charge below market price and have the scalpers take the heat while they get their cut both ways. You can’t magically get around the market price. If you price too low you’ll have scalpers. If you beat the scalpers you’ll just have not enough tickets and a few people get tickets at below market value. Maybe that’s more fair but if you’re a fan that doesn’t feel co…

> People just don’t want to deal with the reality that the Taylor swift tickets that start at $40 or whatever were never real to begin with This. Here's a much more optimal semi-auction style solution. Tickets go on sale for 20 days, each day, all the seats and spots are worth the same price, you can buy anything, the price is always the same. Day 1, the price is $2000. Day 20, the price is $10. So you'd only pay $60…

For someone like Taylor Swift, the tickets would sell out at $2000 on day 1. Then what? Her fans burn down her private jet on the tarmac for being greedy.

The entire reason performers want their tickets sold below market value is so that non-rich "real fans" can actually afford them. All of the other shenanigans going on are there to get around this issue (and the performers definitely get a cut) while protecting the performer's shield of plausible deniability.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#279

Post by DrammBA »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #271
iambateman wrote: post #215

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 plat…

> If a reseller buys the ticket, and then sells it again to the end user, Ticketmaster gets paid twice. So basically scalpers are being paid to be the scapegoat so Ticketmaster can make more money, at the expense of artists and fans.

That's right, there's no incentive from TM to "fix" this.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#280

Post by fach »

nerdjon wrote: post #182
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?

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…

Agreed. With the recent Taylor Swift fiasco, if she charged $2k a ticket, she would be viewed as some nightmare of capitalism. Instead, she gets to hide under the guise of ticketmaster since she sold tickets at a lower dollar cost only to be resold at a market clearing price. I have anecdata to say some people won the initial lottery and paid a few hundred for floor seats when the large majority needed to pay the market clearing price on the secondary market. I'd posit this is the real purpose of ticketmaster's monopoly: In exchange for their exclusivity agreements with large venues and artists, thus filling stadiums and providing kick backs, they allow themselves to become the target of venom from the larger market instead of the artists themselves.
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