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How to sell tickets fairly

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Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#151

Post by cortesoft »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #97
hluska wrote: post #2

Pearl Jam tried to beat Ticketmaster. At the risk of sounding like the big fan I am, if Eddie Vedder and co. (at their commercial peak) can’t beat Ticketmaster, I’m not convinced that software can. I’ve been pasting this Rolling Stone link since I was in my teens. I can’t believe how old I am… https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki...

Why can't they beat them? Advertise your website, people go to your website and click the buy button, a form shows up to fill their card data. What does Ticketmaster do that is better? Don't they have the same workflow?

> What does Ticketmaster do that is better?

A large war chest with which to pay venues for the exclusive right to sell tickets there.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#152

Post by cortesoft »

deanc wrote: post #141
bo1024 wrote: post #18

I think this is great if your goal is to clear the market at a competitive price. But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price. That makes the problem a lot harder. The obvious thing to do is have a lottery, but it's hard to stop people from using multiple identities (especially scalpers).

It’s really easy in many European countries to prevent identity abuse. In Finland there is a system called “strong authentication” where you log in with your bank. It’s directly tied to your social security number and banks do a very strict job of identifying you in person before you open your accounts. It works and I’ve not heard of anyone gaming this system. It’s used by the banks themselves, the government, tax of…

> This is the solution. Strong authentication into a lottery.

I really don't like using a lottery, because it assumes that everyone who wants to go to a particular concert has the same level of desire to go.

A lot of people might just kind of want to go, while for others going is the most important thing in the world. With a lottery system, each of those people have an equal chance of getting to go. It seems unfair to me.

I want a system that allocates tickets to the people who want to go the most. I know an auction type system isn't completely fair, since some people have more money than others, but it least it has some semblance of trying to distribute tickets to people who want to go the most.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#153

Post by duped »

Something not talked about here is that there's a finite number of seats that can be sold for all the tours in the year.

At a smaller scale, look at Broadway productions. There are 41 "broadway" theaters in New York, each with between 500-2000 seats performing 8 shows each week. Ballparking because I don't have the exact numbers, that's a total number of tickets you can sell of under about 350,000 tickets for all broadway shows that can be sold each year. Even if you include all the touring and local productions of shows in cities, there are not enough theaters to meet the demand for live musicals and plays (and while locally, shows will underperform and not sell out, and there are periods of downtime between shows changing, it's still capped).

Now these massive tours are limited in a similar way. There are only a few dozen arenas that can seat tens of thousands of people year round, and only so many nights they can operate. But unlike those shows, a single production team can't "own" a venue for months at a time. So they need to tour, which is about the most expensive way to get a production of that scale off the ground. Moving a production and staffing it throughout a tour is so expensive that guaranteeing the endeavor is profitable is still difficult - many of the "biggest" tours with sellout crowds across the country have been financial disasters.

Basically my point is that the issue isn't just in fairness in ticket sales. It's lack of venues. Which makes sense. If we had cities operate like Las Vegas, and have venues that put on high profile shows for months at a time with residencies, the access to the shows might be (paradoxically) improved despite being hyper local. If you can guarantee a low risk/profitable production and rely on people traveling to the show (which many do! look at broadway - people can and do see shows affordably with the highest cost being the plane ticket) then the problem might be better mitigated. Or maybe not. I'm not an economist, but the point is that the supply problem goes a lot deeper than people trying to buy tickets at the same time.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#154

Post by buro9 »

The proposed idea is a technical one that doesn't work for the promoters or artists or venues.

The promoters want to know very early whether the venue is the right one for the number attending and whether to upsize, add dates, or even to go the other way to a smaller venue. The time to book a venue is very long... So they need as complete data as they can about sales as early as possible (they would love if 80% of the tickets that will sell can be sold in the first week - as then they can quickly make a decision about whether this is the right venue and if more dates are needed).

The artists want to enable as many fans to get in as possible, including young and poorer fans... Who tend to be more evangelical about an artist and drive their growth more and ultimately are more loyal and spend more over the lifetime of being a fan. They are poorer but more sticky. The artists also want to play to as full a venue as possible as that is the best atmosphere.

The venues want to have surety in their bookings (see the promoter dilemma as to whether to change venue) and for the capacity to be as close to full as possible as they will make more revenue from bar and food sales than from pure ticket sales.

All of these... All of them... Are not solved by the technical solution proposed except when it doesn't matter... When you're absolutely sure you're going to sell out. In which case you also don't need to change anything or invest in anything new because you're going to sell out anyway.

There are solutions that can threaten the current model... But this blog is not one of them.

In fact, the idea that "I have more money and deserve more to have a ticket over someone that doesn't have as much money" is antithetical to the thinking of every artist I've ever worked with.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#156

Post by poopsmithe »

YES! I love this concept. The big clock featured in the post was described in a Tom Scott video[1] earlier this year. It's the Royal FloraHolland's flower auction in Aalsmeer. Fascinating to see how it worked then and how it works now. Same concept, just computerized and accessible remotely by bidders.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAdmzyKagvE

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#157

Post by [deleted] »

buro9 wrote: post #154

The proposed idea is a technical one that doesn't work for the promoters or artists or venues. The promoters want to know very early whether the venue is the right one for the number attending and whether to upsize, add dates, or even to go the other way to a smaller venue. The time to book a venue is very long... So they need as complete data as they can about sales as early as possible (they would love if 80% of th…

[deleted]

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#158

Post by duped »

adam_arthur wrote: post #23
lotsofpulp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because sports teams and singers need broad audience interest to maintain their brand’s popularity, which can drive things like merchandise sales, future concerts, music streaming, etc. If they simply sold to the highest bidders, the populace at large will stop being fans and they will move onto the next entertainer. In the short term, you might make a little extra from richer people, but longer term you will fall ou…

The scalpers grab most of the tickets at open anyway. And I doubt that a very large number of fans are concertgoers at all. How many football fans actually go to the superbowl? I looked it up and it's ~80k, while 100M watch on TV. The cheapest tickets are ~$5000 dollars

The largest NFL stadium seats about 85,000 people. So you can't sell more than that for the single game. Two years ago they actually set the record lowest attendance due to Covid restrictions - only about 21k were allowed in the building. I believe it's the first SB to ever sell below capacity, and you'd have to go back to the second world war to find an NFL championship that did the same.

Also, music is fundamentally better live. Football is not. I say this as an avid fan of both who attends both live.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#159

Post by allanrbo »

judge2020 wrote: post #81
allanrbo wrote: post #6

Or how about a lottery system. You get an email if you win the privilege of buying a tickets. Tickets are named and require ID check, to prevent scalpers. If you are unable to go, your ticket just goes back to the lottery pool.

> If you are unable to go, your ticket just goes back to the lottery pool. This is tough to enforce unless you have a "1/10th extra fee if you don't show up" policy or allow refunds.

Oh yea I meant they go back to the pool and a refund is issued. This is of course utopic. Just a dreaming about what the most customer friendly and fair system might look like. Will probably never be aligned with what maximizes the profit of TicketMaster.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#160

Post by s3000 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #91
adam_arthur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scalpers grab most of the tickets at open anyway. And I doubt that a very large number of fans are concertgoers at all. How many football fans actually go to the superbowl? I looked it up and it's ~80k, while 100M watch on TV. The cheapest tickets are ~$5000 dollars

There's a difference between "the odds are against you" and "nope, sorry". Even if those odds are extreme.

There is always the option to change the odds for fans. E.g. offer cheap tickets for members of the fan club and last minute tickets to fans who post the most convincing appeals on social media.
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