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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

#101

Post by mhartl »

blhack wrote: post #61
mhartl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year Burning Man sold out for the first time. In an attempt to alleviate the shortages, this year they had a lottery where people could request up to four tickets per person. The obvious strategy was to request more than you needed, in order to hedge your risk of losing the lottery (essentially a prisoner's dilemma situation). The utterly predictable outcome was worse shortages. They added an aftermarket to "fix…

*Two tickets per person

"Up to four" covers two. There was an early lottery that allowed four. (I got four myself.)

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

#102

Post by mhartl »

blhack wrote: post #60
mhartl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the scalpers who are to blame. It's bmorg (and the broader Burner community) that's at fault for ignoring basic economics and human behavior. Everyone with a rudimentary understanding of game theory saw the whole mess coming a mile away.

The broader burner community (hi!) were the ones screaming at the borg that this was a terrible idea. They didn't care.

Some screamed about the lottery, but capping secondary sales at face value is a deeply entrenched (and, in my view, terribly misguided) part of Burner culture.

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

#103

Post by dagw »

Androsynth wrote: post #57
AndrewDucker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market efficiency is not necessarily a person's aim.

Leaving money on the table does no one any favors. If people are willing to pay $150 for tickets and hes charging $50 (or whatever it is), he's only doing himself a disservice. If people are willing to pay that much and he delivers a show that is up to his normal standard, they won't hate him for charging them that much; quite the opposite actually. It's only the price gauging and poor service of monopolies that peop…

First of all, just because there are a number of people willing to pay $150, that doesn't necessarily mean there are enough of them to sell out every show. So now he either has to lower prices as the dates approach or play to half full venues. Both of which are obviously sub-optimal.

Secondly you're ignoring the broader message sent by charging $150. Even if he can find enough people willing to pay that to fill a small venue, it risks sending the wrong message and pissing off people who might otherwise have bought his DVDs, watched his TV shows or gone to other shows. So now instead of being seen as broadly popular "man of the people" who "sticks up for his fans" with wide appeal, he's seen as a stuck up rich fucker entertaining other stuck-up rich fuckers. This will have obviously negative effects on his TV ratings, where I suspect is where he makes most of his money.

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

#104

Post by xenophanes »

brianpan wrote: post #64
dkokelley wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The artificial demand you mention is essentially speculation. The scalpers are betting that the actual price attendees are willing to pay is higher than the initial selling price, which leads them to buy the ticket. This system still requires players who ultimately purchase the tickets for the utility of seeing the show. If $100 tickets ultimately get sold for $2,000 to actual attendees, the original seller significa…

I'm definitely not an econ expert (far from it). Scalpers may not be confusing demand. But aren't they're artificially constraining supply? There are a limited number of shows and seats available. If I'm a scalper and I buy the last 100 seats (or rather, I have the last 100 seats not taken by someone who actually is going), I can now sell the tickets at a premium. If there are only 75 more fans that want to go, they…

It's not scalpers who are constraining supply.

If a show has 1000 seats, and 900 fans buy the first 900, and never consider reselling at any price, then they are the ones constraining supply relative to an efficient market. (And there's nothing wrong with that, shrug.) The scalpers, by reselling tickets instead of just holding them and ignoring the market price, actually are increasing the amount of tickets available on the market, not lowering it.

Imagine if there were zero scalpers. Then it sells out and price goes to infinity. How can price go to infinity? Because supply is being constrained to zero because people refuse to consider reselling. Scalpers delay that some and keep the market more robust, while also making a profit from underpriced tickets.

And you can never ever sell a ticket to someone for more than the value of the show to them, so the buyers never lose.

All they are "losing" is the ability to get underpriced tickets (tickets for less than they are willing to pay) from the original seller who could have charged more (since he controlled all the tickets) but, for whatever reason, preferred to leave some money on the table for scalpers.

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

#105

Post by callmeed »

cletus wrote: post #26

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-…

On top of that (somewhat to TM's credit), I remember reading an article stating that they were the only company who had proven they could handle the huge load of online sales for top-tier acts (think Gaga and Bieber).

Let's face it, Louis CK's site probably could not handle 100K simultaneous people buying tickets and choosing seats.

EDIT: found the article http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_ticketmaster/all/

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

#106

Post by larrys »

alxp wrote: post #86
Androsynth wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Correct Market Pricing 1-This is inherently a class-based argument. It assumes that someone with more money than you isn't a 'real fan' and that his true fans are the squeezed middle class (or whatever class-bracket you happen to be in). 2-The world doesn't owe you anything. Thinking this is unfair because you can't afford tickets to a stand-up comedy show is the epitome of a First-World problem. edit: this isn't…

Performers now know that they lose good will when a fan has to pay a scalper to see them. Louis C.K. is earning tons of good will by doing this, and the only person who loses out is the scalper. Wealthier fans have always been able to work the system to get extra tickets, back stage access, etc.

"Louis C.K. is earning tons of good will by doing this"

People want to see Louis because he is funny. The minute he stops being funny all that good will won't mean a thing.

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

#107

Post by sambe »

fusiongyro wrote: post #97
sambe wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing a service to anyone who buys scalped tickets, who is happy to pay extra rather than not go. Competition at this price is lower. I know many people who have happily paid well over face value on several occasions. Of course everyone would rather pay an artificially low price. Wanting a better deal isn't the same as the premium being extortion. You may not like scalping but there's no point being blinkere…

Except they're only paying extra because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The competition is higher at the lower price because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The arguments for scalping only work if the effects of the scalping are ignored. Eliminating scalpers benefits everyone.

It's not so much an argument "for scalping" as an argument against being emotional and extreme. So, once again, - no, not everyone benefits. Without the higher price tickets available from the scalpers, they would not have been able to go. They got what they wanted at a price they could afford. Disliking something is not the same as it being inherently and totally evil.

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

#108

Post by larrys »

joezydeco wrote: post #80
Androsynth wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Correct Market Pricing 1-This is inherently a class-based argument. It assumes that someone with more money than you isn't a 'real fan' and that his true fans are the squeezed middle class (or whatever class-bracket you happen to be in). 2-The world doesn't owe you anything. Thinking this is unfair because you can't afford tickets to a stand-up comedy show is the epitome of a First-World problem. edit: this isn't…

C'mon, let's have a little reality here. Anyone that has tried to deal with buying tickets (either in today's system or even back in the old days where you had to stand in line) knows that there are people with large sums of cash willing to pay people to stand in line or bombard ticketmaster.com with requests to land tickets for a show they have no intention of seeing. They resell those tickets immediately for a prof…

"more time and resources than you can jump ahead of you in line and, as a result either deny you an experience or make you pay more out of pocket for it."

Isn't that the way the world works? We aren't talking about access to food, education, or healthcare here. We're talking about entertainment. Is there a particular reason why someone with more time or money shouldn't have an edge and be able to spend their money to do something someone with less money can't do?

If you fly enough you also can get upgraded to first class cabin. Is there something not fair about that as well?

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

#109

Post by pinchyfingers »

cletus wrote: post #26

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-…

This isn't a situation requiring government action. This is an opportunity for entrepreneurship, where venues will have to take the risk of staying with Ticketmaster, or not. Clearly, Louis CK is exemplifying this.

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

#110

Post by droithomme »

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."

It's not clear who gets the refund here. If the scalper, then he has no risk, and earns both the money he sold it for AND the refund of the original fee. Win! This is also likely the only refund they can do since they don't have the credit card number of the person who bought the scalped ticket.

If they refund the final purchaser, then the scalper still makes his money and the purchaser loses the amount above the face value.

In both scenarios, the scalper makes his money, or even more than he would have otherwise.

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