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How to sell tickets fairly

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Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#111

Post by Jarwain »

iopq wrote: post #78
notyourwork wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem but if you bought steaks from a butcher and you came home to find that your girlfriend already prepare dinner?

In the system that I can resell my ticket I don't have a loss, in a system where it's by name I can't I believe it should be auctioned anyway, so that the people with the highest desire to go can put their money towards it. This is the most practical solution to the problem - the organizers get paid what the tickets are worth, anyone who wants to go knows how much the tickets will go for, scalpers become futures trad…

The problem here is when artists want their tickets to go to any fan, and not just fans who have a lot of disposable income.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#112

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

musicale wrote: post #36

I think one reason why artists don't take the Dutch Auction approach is that they want to recruit new fans, including kids who might not have much money. They also probably don't want to be seen as greedy. In the absence of some system that prevents resale, scalpers will likely still buy up all of the Taylor Swift tickets before they drop to a price that is affordable for these less-affluent fans. The bots will likel…

The scalper can only make profit if he can buy the ticket at one price, and later sell it not just at a higher price, but a price sufficiently higher to cover the costs of the process (advertising, bot development, customer support, transaction fees, ...), and the profit needs to be worth both the effort and the risk.

In this model, anyone willing to pay more than the scalper paid already had the opportunity to buy at the higher price, so the only people the scalper could sell to would be people who really want to go, are willing to pay a high price, but weren't organized enough to actually buy when the ticket was being sold at that price.

That will almost certainly limit the profit so much that it isn't worth it at all, and even if it doesn't, anyone who plans ahead will be able to get the ticket directly from the system.

In the end, it's an auction system. Which auction system is chosen doesn't matter much economically. You could get similar results by having people bid on the available tickets. But psychologically, that will alienate fans more than a system like this. This only works for shows that will definitely sell out though, because otherwise it creates an incentive to wait for a lower price, deterring people from buying.

(Your first paragraph remains valid of course.)

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#113

Post by notyourwork »

iopq wrote: post #78
notyourwork wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem but if you bought steaks from a butcher and you came home to find that your girlfriend already prepare dinner?

In the system that I can resell my ticket I don't have a loss, in a system where it's by name I can't I believe it should be auctioned anyway, so that the people with the highest desire to go can put their money towards it. This is the most practical solution to the problem - the organizers get paid what the tickets are worth, anyone who wants to go knows how much the tickets will go for, scalpers become futures trad…

No ones buying your resold steak from the butcher. Life happens but that’s a minority use case. Not the example to design around.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#114

Post by llamataboot »

patmcc wrote: post #8

The obvious fix to bots and scalpers is just to not allow ticket transfers - you give your name when you buy the ticket and show your ID at the door. Why this isn't the current process is left as an exercise to the reader.

And if you get sick or if you don't know if you can go but want to?

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#115

Post by kodt »

Gigachad wrote: post #69
kodt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been to events that do this and if someone can’t make it tough luck. But it prevents scalping at least. Every system has pros and cons.

Better solution is to just price the tickets higher. Scalpers are only taking advantage of arbitrage. This requires a bit of complex demand estimation up front though.

That prices out more fans who can’t afford it though, something that some artists are trying to avoid.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#116

Post by hunter2_ »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #95
musicale wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember Green Day doing a local show where you had to pay cash at the door. This seems to address botting, though scalping organizations can still pay people to stand in line (and presumably take a cut when they are paid to give up their spots.) Personally I think this approach helps out kids who have time to wait in line but don't necessarily have the money to pay huge markups and fees from the secondary market.

The simple solution to getting fans rather than grifters is to make the tickets cost something other than money. Time is a nice obvious cost element to add. If only we could channel that time more productively (and in a more palatable way) than having people wait in line.

Sounds analogous to mining cryptocurrency with proof-of-work.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#117

Post by kodt »

iopq wrote: post #78
notyourwork wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem but if you bought steaks from a butcher and you came home to find that your girlfriend already prepare dinner?

In the system that I can resell my ticket I don't have a loss, in a system where it's by name I can't I believe it should be auctioned anyway, so that the people with the highest desire to go can put their money towards it. This is the most practical solution to the problem - the organizers get paid what the tickets are worth, anyone who wants to go knows how much the tickets will go for, scalpers become futures trad…

Ok but what about someone with not much money, but time. They may be willing to camp out for several days (certainly desire there) but would lose out to someone with money who can easily afford it.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#118

Post by [deleted] »

llamataboot wrote: post #114
patmcc wrote: post #8

The obvious fix to bots and scalpers is just to not allow ticket transfers - you give your name when you buy the ticket and show your ID at the door. Why this isn't the current process is left as an exercise to the reader.

And if you get sick or if you don't know if you can go but want to?

[deleted]

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#119

Post by timpetri »

I feel like Dice.fm already solved this. You can buy an untransferable ticket and if you cant go, you simply return it to a wait-list of people who have signed up. You get your money back, and they pay the same price. Maybe there are some transaction fees involved but overall this eliminates the ability for someone to buy just to sell?

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#120

Post by judge2020 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #15

It’s a trivially solvable problem to engineers because it’s not an engineering problem. They want all the hype and rush. It’s become a piece of culture to “wait in line.” I once had a company put me in an async queue for months to wait for my brand new gadget. I wish Sony had done the same with the PS5.

> I once had a company put me in an async queue for months to wait for my brand new gadget. I wish Sony had done the same with the PS5.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/21/23020823/sony-direct-play...

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