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CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

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Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#161

Post by bko »

stavros wrote: post #134
kassner wrote: post #119

I can’t claim I’m the first one to think about this, but every time Ticketmaster shows up on HN I keep coming back to this idea: Sell the tickets with regressive price based on time. Sales starts say 2 months before event, initial price is truly exorbitant, say one million dollars. Price decreases linearly down to zero (or true cost price). At any point, people can see current price and the seats left. Now every pote…

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

Ticketmaster has it's own resale platform. It's able to double dip. They basically say tickets are relatively cheap and scalpers are the bad guys. They encourage the scalpers. Then they can resell using their own resale platform and they get fees on top of that.

The fees on re-sellers are crazy, and they take fees from both seller and buyer.

Seller Side:

List price: $100

StubHub seller fee (15%): -$15

Seller receives: $85

Buyer Side:

Ticket price: $100

StubHub buyer fee (10-15%, let's use 12%): +$12

Buyer pays: $112

StubHub's Take:

From seller: $15

From buyer: $12

Total StubHub revenue: $27

So they're making an additional ~27% (on the "true" market price) in addition to the ~25% they charge in the primary market. So if the market price was $200, if they just charged that they would make $50. But instead they'll sell it for $100, make $25 on the primary and an additional $50 when sold in the secondary market.

They don't own StubHub but they have their own. In 2017 they opened up TicketExchange which allow the sale and validation of tickets on third-party websites, including StubHub, which they did to capture some of that amount. They get to play like the reasonable party here, the scalpers are taking the heat and they're getting a cut of that.

They do other things that's baffling like selling tickets a year ahead of time, which is kind of weird considering very few people, even big fans, would be really on top of buying tickets a year out. It's obviously designed for scalpers.

You can easily solve this by having the ticket tied to a name and requiring you to show ID, maybe allow others to dump back at face value, but that would likely be gamed as well but not as easily (you dump your tickets and let someone else pick them up at that exact moment). Or make them non-transferrable but that would greatly reduce the value to fans.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#162

Post by masswerk »

modeless wrote: post #142
masswerk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because artists need an at least semi-competent vis-a-vis, AKA audience. This is the main proposition for entering a stage to begin with. And chances are that the most economical potent ticket buyers are not in this group and probably also not the most enthusiastic about the act. So there's a natural incentive to aim not for the highest cap, but for a somewhat realistic medium. I.e., "the prices people are willing to…

If people paying high prices for tickets makes the event worse, as people seem to believe without evidence, then prices will come down, solving the problem naturally. These arguments make zero sense.

I think, in terms of art, it's more like a death march: events will become more exhausting and less emotional rewarding for the performers, so there will be less events, which will be even more exhaustive as they are exclusive. So, under these conditions, there may be no performances, at all, as relevant performers just give up. (Art is not a simple product and may scale inversely.)

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#163

Post by Incipient »

mqus wrote: post #69
Incipient wrote: post #55

This is a trivially solvable problem with essentially little friction for buyers. The industry doesn't WANT to solve this. I don't see why anyone believes or entertains the idea they are even trying.

The author builds a ticket system and says it's not trivially solveable. What's your trivial solution then?

Names on tickets, and an in-application/website transfer+fee process that stops people putting on a mark up.

Revert to the current anonymous ticket process for any lower popularity event for simplicity if required.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#164

Post by BrenBarn »

ahtihn wrote: post #71
mschuster91 wrote: post #63

The solution is, as always, simple: regulation. In this case: - break up Ticketmaster, Live Nation and their European friends. Ban vertical integration. And for good measure (and to placate the public who is out for blood, and I mean that one in the literal sense - ask a random on the street about what they'd do to scalpers and TM, I'd bet good money on at least 50% going for one or another form of violence), place t…

Why should ticket sales be regulated? Why should the government care about what price event tickets sell for? Concerts are pure luxury. I like going to concerts, but I don't see a reason why the government should intervene? Scalpers exist because artists underprice tickets on purpose.

Because most people don't like scalpers, and the government is a way for people to incentivize the society they want.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#165

Post by jdietrich »

stavros wrote: post #134
kassner wrote: post #119

I can’t claim I’m the first one to think about this, but every time Ticketmaster shows up on HN I keep coming back to this idea: Sell the tickets with regressive price based on time. Sales starts say 2 months before event, initial price is truly exorbitant, say one million dollars. Price decreases linearly down to zero (or true cost price). At any point, people can see current price and the seats left. Now every pote…

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

Ticket sales companies and scalpers are holding the bag for everyone else.

It is extremely convenient for artists, promoters and venues that ticketing sites will tack on a bunch of extra fees, take the blame for pushing up the price of tickets, then share out most of that extra cash to everyone else in the chain.

Scalpers are effectively providing financing for the rest of the industry - it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced, rather than having to bear the cashflow risks yourself. There is of course absolutely nothing stopping a promoter from reserving some proportion of tickets to be sold directly to secondary resellers at substantially above face value, or on an agreed profit-sharing basis.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#166

Post by sealeck »

abetusk wrote: post #159
Symbiote wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I've only had this once for a concert I've attended, but generally: > I buy a ticket for a friend (maybe as a present) but don't actually want to go to the concert You'd need to transfer the ticket to them electronically, which is possible on all the ticket selling sites that support these restrictions. > I buy more than one ticket for a group of people (I'll be attending the concert) One person can buy up to…

Ticketing organizations have solved these problems some of which, I'm sure, do exactly as you propose, so it's not like it's an insurmountable problem but, besides wanting to hear a proposal, my point was that these are common tasks that are not as clear cut to solve as one might imagine. To go into more detail, you're proposing training staff to recognize a valid ID, both from all 50 USA states and international pas…

> Someone else proposed that these events are tantamount to international or domestic flights, where the expectation is that ID requirements are invasive and security is high.

Yes, because a large crowded space with tens of thousands of people tends to - unfortunately - be a prime target for terrorism.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#167

Post by sealeck »

abetusk wrote: post #154
gruez wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How would you handle the following conditions? It doesn't, but that's fine, because it's the cost of preventing scalpers. Everyone just accepts that you can't buy a flight ticket as a present, for instance.

This is maybe the answer, but I'd like to at least acknowledge that this is what's being proposed: Buying tickets for shows has the same security requirements and domestic and international flights.

This is not the proposal. The proposal is to ensure people's names match their tickets. Additionally, I think most people at concerts support security measures that would improve their safety and avoid a rerun of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#169

Post by Brybry »

EGreg wrote: post #148
frabcus wrote: post #19

The option that strikes me as missing, is making users pay a cost before they are randomly entered in a lottery for the ticket. So, for example, everyone pays $0.01 on their credit card, or does a holding charge on their credit card, or registers their identity. All in a 5 minute (or 1 day!) window. And then after the window, tickets are randomly distributed amongst every card which so registered. You could check mul…

I asked why are school vouchers bad since it’s a single payer system. The “progressives” told me it would starve public schools of funds and students since private schools would admit only the best and brightest So I said — don’t let the schools choose. Let the people choose. If the school is filled then you use a lottery for who can actually get in, M of N people. Simple.

Decades ago a local popular public magnet high school near me had a lottery system like that.

Students would apply for the school and M of N applicants would be picked randomly.

It turns out the administrators running the lottery would run the randomization program until it gave them the student distribution they wanted (read: the best and brightest, and since it's the south... somehow whiter than expected).

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#170

Post by landl0rd »

sealeck wrote: post #168
landl0rd wrote: post #10

I'd rather see bot resistance (important for everyone) and privacy (important for everyone) take precedence over accessibility (important for a small minority) and have laws change to reflect that.

Why is accessibility only important for a small minority?

Because objectively most of the population doesn’t depend on accessibility. Most people can complete a visual captcha.
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