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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

#11

Post by majorlazer »

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…

StubHub is not owned by Ticketmaster, they are owned by ebay.

Source: http://www.stubhub.com/about-us/

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

#13

Post by _delirium »

nollidge wrote: post #9
pyre wrote: post #5

Sounds to me like: 1) Louis CK isn't big enough for scalpers to care about going through a non-traditional method of obtaining tickets. 2) People that would turn to scalping to recoup their expense when they can't go are just going back to Louis CK for a refund. Personally, it sounds like offering a full refund also comes with the possibility that scalpers will purchase the tickets because they can easily flip them b…

Did you read it? #1 is invalidated by the fact they're comparing his shows (sold traditionally) vs. his shows (sold independently), not his shows vs. others'. EDIT: nevermind, I get it now.

I think the hypothesis in #1 is that many scalpers just buy up tickets through regular channels for all big shows, going down the list. If you're not selling tickets through regular channels, people using that approach won't even have you on their radar, and may not consider it worth their time to go after the handful of events sold via "weird" means when they can just move on to scalping the next event on ticketmaster.com instead.

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

#14

Post by ef4 »

pyre wrote: post #5

Sounds to me like: 1) Louis CK isn't big enough for scalpers to care about going through a non-traditional method of obtaining tickets. 2) People that would turn to scalping to recoup their expense when they can't go are just going back to Louis CK for a refund. Personally, it sounds like offering a full refund also comes with the possibility that scalpers will purchase the tickets because they can easily flip them b…

And number 2 is invalidated by the fact that the terms allow you to sell your ticket, just not for more than you paid.

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

#15

Post by mhartl »

For his shows, C.K. saw scalping rates as high as 25%, driving up the price of his shows for people who wanted to attend, by those who didn’t.

The only people driving up the price of the shows are people who want to attend. How could it be otherwise? People who don't want to go to the show certainly don't raise prices. If scalpers can profit, it means you aren't charging market price. Policies like the one described in the OP simply shoot the messenger.

If the market price is too high for some fans, have a lottery with an aftermarket. Once they see the market price, low-income lottery winners can decide whether they'd rather attend the show or sell the tickets to pay the rent.

It's not like these issues haven't been studied before. Do a few web searches, or consult an economist. If you don't accept that your naive economic intuition is wrong, you're going to make stupid decisions that often exacerbate the very problems you're trying to solve. (I'm looking at you, Burning Man.)

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

#16

Post by 3JPLW »

majorlazer wrote: post #11
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…

StubHub is not owned by Ticketmaster, they are owned by ebay. Source: http://www.stubhub.com/about-us/

Thanks, already fixed. Chacha got it wrong and confused me until I found more authoritative sources.

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

#17

Post by glesica »

pyre wrote: post #5

Sounds to me like: 1) Louis CK isn't big enough for scalpers to care about going through a non-traditional method of obtaining tickets. 2) People that would turn to scalping to recoup their expense when they can't go are just going back to Louis CK for a refund. Personally, it sounds like offering a full refund also comes with the possibility that scalpers will purchase the tickets because they can easily flip them b…

Did it actually say you can get a refund at any time? The only place the word "refund" appears is here:

> ...we have the right to cancel your ticket (and refund your money).

So based on the article, we don't know if you can get a refund on-demand. All we know is that if he (his people) decide to cancel your ticket, you get a refund.

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

#18

Post by mrtron »

nollidge wrote: post #9
pyre wrote: post #5

Sounds to me like: 1) Louis CK isn't big enough for scalpers to care about going through a non-traditional method of obtaining tickets. 2) People that would turn to scalping to recoup their expense when they can't go are just going back to Louis CK for a refund. Personally, it sounds like offering a full refund also comes with the possibility that scalpers will purchase the tickets because they can easily flip them b…

Did you read it? #1 is invalidated by the fact they're comparing his shows (sold traditionally) vs. his shows (sold independently), not his shows vs. others'. EDIT: nevermind, I get it now.

I am not sure you understand the argument.

#1 is like saying virus makers don't write virii for the operating system I wrote for myself...it just means I have an obscure operating system not necessarily a virus proof operating system.

If everyone starts going this independent route, you can bet that scalpers will shift their methods over to these new ticket purchasing systems.

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

#19

Post by beambot »

ef4 wrote: post #14
pyre wrote: post #5

Sounds to me like: 1) Louis CK isn't big enough for scalpers to care about going through a non-traditional method of obtaining tickets. 2) People that would turn to scalping to recoup their expense when they can't go are just going back to Louis CK for a refund. Personally, it sounds like offering a full refund also comes with the possibility that scalpers will purchase the tickets because they can easily flip them b…

And number 2 is invalidated by the fact that the terms allow you to sell your ticket, just not for more than you paid.

Huh? Many sporting event tickets have the same terms (tickets cannot be sold for more than face value), but that doesn't stop scalping.

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

#20

Post by tikhonj »

nollidge wrote: post #9
pyre wrote: post #5

Sounds to me like: 1) Louis CK isn't big enough for scalpers to care about going through a non-traditional method of obtaining tickets. 2) People that would turn to scalping to recoup their expense when they can't go are just going back to Louis CK for a refund. Personally, it sounds like offering a full refund also comes with the possibility that scalpers will purchase the tickets because they can easily flip them b…

Did you read it? #1 is invalidated by the fact they're comparing his shows (sold traditionally) vs. his shows (sold independently), not his shows vs. others'. EDIT: nevermind, I get it now.

The thing is that his shows sold traditionally are sold exactly the same was as plenty of other tickets, through some big site. So, as a scalper, you just trawl through Ticketmaster (or whatever site in question) and buy tickets that look promising. You have your existing process and it works on tickets for anything sold through the site.

When an individual performer stops using the site, the only scalpers are going to be the ones familiar with the performer. That is, the sort of scalper that just goes through all the shows on Ticketmaster won't even realize that these tickets are an option--only somebody following Louis CK would.

Even if some scalper does realize, a relatively small show (I don't actually know the size of Louis CK's shows, so I'm just assuming they're not too big) will not be worth changing your process for. You would have to spend a significant amount of time figuring out the restrictions of the custom site he is using and how to best profit off them--there is no guarantee that this time would be worth investing.

This is basically like a small site using a custom CAPTCHA as compared to using a very common one. Spammers aren't going to bother with your site in particular, but if you use a common CAPTCHA they know how to deal with, they will spam even tiny sites.

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