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Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

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Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#21

Post by 3JPLW »

pyre wrote: post #7
3JPLW wrote: post #2

It seems as though the important part here wasn't so much that he sold them himself as it was that he added the following clause: "You’ll see that if you try to sell the ticket anywhere for anything above the original price, we have the right to cancel your ticket (and refund your money). This is something I intend to enforce." This is something that any middleman could do, too... but the incentives simply aren't the…

I guess what it really comes down to is: How does he know which ticket is being sold? I imagine if a scalper wants to avoid detection, they just don't give out specific information until the sale is final (banking that Louis CK won't buy their tickets at scalper prices just to find out which tickets to cancel). If the ticket has some sort of ID, avoid giving that out before the final sale. If the ticket has a seat nu…

Yes, this I agree with. And I think this makes the argument in your top-level comment (that he's too small fry to worry about a different ordering system) much more convincing.

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#22

Post by toddmorey »

I love that he's shaking things up. However, he needs to find a better partner to work with on the technology side of things. I tried to purchase tickets for one of the shows listed as available, and it then told me it was actually sold out. Another show let me get further, but then told me my session had already expired (less than 1 min later). Finally, I was able to select ticket options and no 2 adjacent seats were available. It was a lot of effort to discover what they could have told me on the show listing page, and I don't want to spend all the time it would take to check all the other shows.

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#25

Post by roc »

erpa1119 wrote: post #12

Sounds like ticketing is ripe for re-invention, how about electronic tickets via smart phone?

Ticketing has long been ripe for re-invention. The big problem is that TicketMaster has anti-competitive contracts with most popular venues.

Louis CK, in trying to do his own thing, is facing largely the same troubles Pearl Jam did in their own effort to end-run Ticketmaster: they're forced to play, in many cases, massively smaller venues. And that winds up excluding more fans than TicketMasters' fees and scalper's artificial price-hikes ever excluded.

As for scalping itself, it can't be "solved". Any feasible system needs to allow tickets to be transferred or gifted in some manner. [1]

And as soon as you do that you've provided the mechanism whereby a secondary sales channel can allow party A to sell party B a promise to transfer the ticket for above-face-value.

[1] To cover people buying X tickets for a giveaway, or one person buying tickets for a group, or people giving tickets as gifts, or people giving tickets away to a show they can no longer attend, etc.

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#26

Post by cletus »

This is of course interesting and will lead to inevitable comments about disruption being needed in event ticketing.

Let me save you the trouble as this has been rehashed many times already: the problem here is Ticketmaster's exclusives on venues and the entertainment's willingness to let Ticketmaster be the "sacrificial anode" and focus of ire from both audiences and performers.

There was a deal done some years ago--I forget the name--whereby performers would get 90% of ticket sales.

The way around that is not to increase ticket prices but to add "fees". Online transaction fees, mail fees, processing fees, booking fees, you name it. The fees in some cases are approaching the ticket price. Ticketmaster does this, splitting the proceeds with promoters and venues while the artists get a 90% cut of an ever smaller part of the pie.

Ticketmaster has multi-year exclusive deals with venues such that none can really afford the attractive cuts they get to "go it alone".

IMHO this situation has reached the point of requiring government action as this is now an antritrust issue (the ticketing market basically cannot function now).

Until that happens any ticketing disruption is doomed.

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#27

Post by esbwhat »

chwahoo wrote: post #8
trickjarrett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terms during purchase made it sound like if they discovered a ticket was sold for higher than $45, then they would cancel the ticket without refund. So both buyer and seller get screwed.

This doesn't match the text on the site: "If the ticket is found to be offered for resale above face value we may invalidate the barcode and refund the ticket price."

Perhaps the refund isn't digital? I.e. you get refunded at the entrance if you have a scalped ticket

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#28

Post by trebor »

qq66 wrote: post #24

Isn't a ban on scalping a violation of the First Sale Doctrine?

IANAL, but I believe a ticket to attend an event is different from a CD or record. First Sale states that when you buy something like a book or CD, you have full right/control over what happens to it. But I believe that Louis has the right to revoke a ticket, making scalping virtually impossible.

I would like to know what a lawyer says about this, though.

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#29

Post by Androsynth »

toddmorey wrote: post #22

I love that he's shaking things up. However, he needs to find a better partner to work with on the technology side of things. I tried to purchase tickets for one of the shows listed as available, and it then told me it was actually sold out. Another show let me get further, but then told me my session had already expired (less than 1 min later). Finally, I was able to select ticket options and no 2 adjacent seats wer…

Contractors not dogfooding their apps is common. I would think that if you sent that exact paragraph to him through some sort of feedback/contact form from his website, he may actually realize that there are some poor UI flows.

Re: Louis C.K. sees ticket scalping drop over 96% by selling tickets himself

#30

Post by jbigelow76 »

toddmorey wrote: post #22

I love that he's shaking things up. However, he needs to find a better partner to work with on the technology side of things. I tried to purchase tickets for one of the shows listed as available, and it then told me it was actually sold out. Another show let me get further, but then told me my session had already expired (less than 1 min later). Finally, I was able to select ticket options and no 2 adjacent seats wer…

Ticketmaster has had most of the issues nailed down for 12 or so years. Nobody ever said disruption wasn't messy :)
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