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Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

arstechnica.com

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Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#131

Post by hakfoo »

KumaBear wrote: post #16
pavel_lishin wrote: post #6

We bought $700 tickets to see a show we really wanted to see, but ended up being unable to make it. We tried selling it on Ticketmaster, where you can in theory set your own price, or accept their "best offer". Our best offer was somewhere in the neighborhood of $150, and given that it was the night of the show, we accepted it. We paid $54 per ticket in "processing fees" when purchasing, and paid $50 in more "process…

Solution that might be anti user friendly. Tickets are bought and assigned to a persons name at time of purchase. They can only be refunded at cost and resold at cost to buyers. Release of tickets refunded shall be reposted for resell at a random time after attempting a refund. This will however allow people to pay for bots that will purchase tickets on their behalf. But I believe a verification system can prevent th…

I always figured a lottery would work best.

Accept reservations (maybe with a token deposit or a card authorization to discourage making too many claims) for a week. Then at the end, draw winners for each block of seats; if they don't claim them in 48 hours, draw from remaining reservations. Repeat a fixed number of times and then scrum-sale anything that didn't go through.

There's no more risk of "the website crashed for everyone but scalpers" if you have a full week to place your request.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#132

Post by notreallyauser »

thimabi wrote: post #125
prewett wrote: post #113

This not to say that Ticketmaster is not scummy (and the article elucidates some of their scumminess). But this seems like partly a consequence of "ticket stabilization". As is commonly cited on HN, rent "stabilization" distorts the market and leads to all kinds of problems, like lack of available apartments and people living where they do not want to live because it's financially infeasible/unattractive to move to w…

I for one find it much, much more fair to have the queue or the lottery systems. If it can be paired with anti-scalper measures such as truly non-transferable tickets or banning resales at a profit, even better. But of course the problem runs deeper when we consider what you and others have been saying: it’s just too convenient for artists to reap the profits of the current system and have Ticketmaster as their scape…

Artists don't reap the profits of the current system -- they get the face value -- Tickmaster and the scalpers do.

My solution would be some kind of auction where people put in bids of what they're willing to pay for different seating types and allocation happens so same-type seats are either sold at their reserve price or sold out at the lowest price they'd sell out at exactly, while maximising revenue -- that would give the revenues to the artists, avoid queues and disincentive scalpers. Legislating for no resale above list price and fair fees would disincentivise TM supporting scalping. TM etc could always negotiate a cut of selling-price-above-reserve to encourage them to do the best for the artist from however the auction works.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#133

Post by AbstractH24 »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #12

Not in any way to defend Ticketmaster's unscrupulousness, but my undergraduate university used TM for the student football tickets and we had none of the unfairness, which leads me to agree with the sentiments that TM is actually following the will of the artists / event managers. At school, we could sell our tickets to other students gray-market, and just "transfer" them for "free" in the TM app without issue. They…

> So not only is TM to blame, they are the henchmen.

TM basically exists to be the thing that collects all the hate so people don't blame artists, venues, or teams.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#134

Post by pants2 »

Loughla wrote: post #86
prmoustache wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of show sell $700 tickets? Does that include an escort?

I was stunned by the prices of shows these days. The closest venue used to be $200 for up close, EXPENSIVE seats. Now they're $350 for open lawn. This is only 5 years apart, and the only difference is they use Ticketmaster instead of selling themselves.

That's why I haven't been to a Ticketmaster-run show in years. Went to one crappy show that I paid $400 for and felt completely ripped off, haven't been back.

There are plenty of local concerts and events that are like $15 cover and significantly more fun.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#136

Post by rtkwe »

carlosjobim wrote: post #124
rtkwe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venues don't want to be checking all that at their gates plus they don't want to prevent scalping it's only really the artists and fans who are anti scalping the rest of the parties in the pipeline loooove scalpers.

Venues are already checking IDs at the gate anyway. And it takes less than one second per ticket to scan and verify tickets.

I don't remember ever having my ID checked at the door of a concert or show.
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