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Why scalpers can get tickets

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Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#151

Post by bluehatbrit »

username332211 wrote: post #51
bradleyankrom wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artists do not get most of the money from Ticketmaster fees.

Yes, most go to the venue, which the artist/producer would have had to pay for (from the ticket price) otherwise. Because money is fungible it doesn't really matter if they pay the artist, or if they pay for the artist's expenses. What matters is how much fees they charge and how much do they keep. Can't find it right now, but I remember an article claiming they rarely keep 50% of their fees.

Generally there's a promoter in the middle. They sign the artist and then have a deal signed with their ticketing partner. They'll then sign contracts with venues for the given tour. The contracts between promoters and ticketing agencies vary a lot depending on the country but that's how it often works in the states.

The "face value" (base price) will usually be determined between the artist and promoter, the venue will apply a fairly generic fee on top, as will the ticketing provider.

How much of the face value goes to the artist will depend on their leverage in the contract with their promoter. This is usually best improved by the confidence that the venue will sell out, meaning artists with bigger audience and social media presence will usually get the best terms.

I don't have a paper or article I can link to as a source, but I have experience in the industry.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#152

Post by justinlkarr »

neilv wrote: post #128

Could Ticketmaster have any incentive to permit scalpers? (Besides the potential for personnel to be bribed individually. I'm wondering about whether there's hypothetically an angle for the company to permit scalpers. Maybe to be involved in scalping, as a kind of double dipping.)

Ticket marketplaces take fees on every transaction, so incentivizing multiple transactions on a single ticket is in their interest.

Additionally, resale fees tend to be higher, on a percentage basis, and prices tend to be higher on resale tickets for high demand events.

But this does not mean ticket marketplaces are incentivized to sell to resellers initially instead of actual event-goers.

Primary prices and fees are lower because artists and venues demand it. Ticketmaster's continued ability to source tickets to high demand events is more important than marginal revenue from resale on even a large number of those tickets.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#153

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kelnos wrote: post #134
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work for honest people when the person who used their ID is the one who can't go. And you now have a new scalping model where you create a website for people to submit their IDs ahead of time and pay a fee to have someone try to get them a ticket in the two seconds before they sell out, but they buy 2-4 tickets per ID and resell the others.

Simple fix for that: require the concertgoer to physically present the ID when arriving at the concert. They can also just disallow multiple tickets per ID. To clarify the proposed process: you buy one or more tickets online, and you're required to put full names to those tickets when you purchase them. You are not permitted to change those names later. You can return the tickets (minus some "restocking" fee), but th…

> Simple fix for that: require the concertgoer to physically present the ID when arriving at the concert.

That doesn't fix it. The person whose ID it is actually wants to go to the concert. They show up with their ID and activate the other tickets sold by the scalper.

> you buy one or more tickets online, and you're required to put full names to those tickets when you purchase them.

Then you're back to pissed off customers because they have multiple tickets they actually want to use and can't change who gets to go when one person can't.

> I do think this would inflate some ticket prices, but I feel like the situation would still be much better than it is now.

A lot of things like this work okay the first time you try it, then entrepreneurs find a way to improve the efficiency of the market.

Fundamentally the problem is that you're trying to violate the law of supply and demand. If you want scalpers to stop existing, raise the price of tickets to match what people will pay for them. If you want prices to go down, move to a venue with more seats.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#155

Post by koolba »

valyagolev wrote: post #154
azinman2 wrote: post #114

My impractical solution: no resale of tickets, and check of ID at the door. It’ll slow things down for check in, and people sick will miss out, but it will collectively bring prices down and increase seat availability.

this, but allow refunds.

If you do, you have to allow a random back off before the tickets are made available for resale. Otherwise there will be “transfers” through sale / purchase.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#156

Post by losteric »

SoftTalker wrote: post #133
TylerE wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalping is legal in most jurisdictions, sometimes with restrictions (“no selling within 1000ft of the venue for more than 20% over face”.

As it should be, without restrictions. Basically First Sale doctrine. If I buy something, I own it and should be able to sell it at market price.

The concert is the product. A ticket is one approach for artists to control access to the limited experienc, typically while maintaining substantial equity and equality of access.

Of course profit maximization is not the only (or even primary) goal, that's what makes this such a hard problem. If it were, ticket sales would be trivially solved - just auction each seat to the highest bider, close biding near the concert date and prevent any transfers. Of course that's a terrible idea.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#157

Post by hedora »

h1fra wrote: post #147
azinman2 wrote: post #114

My impractical solution: no resale of tickets, and check of ID at the door. It’ll slow things down for check in, and people sick will miss out, but it will collectively bring prices down and increase seat availability.

I don't see any reason why platform and artists are alright with tickets reselling, it's madness to me that no artists "consortium" has demanded a change already. In France, a famous youtuber has partnered with the major platform to forbid any ticket resell for their show, and it worked pretty well. But still it was only one time.

In the US, the ticket selling platform (tickemaster) and the venue (live nation) are usually the same company.

The sale is set up so that ticket resale is forbidden, except that scalpers can resell them via ticketmaster. Ticketmaster gets to charge a second transaction fee when the scalper resells it.

Artists don’t have enough market leverage to bypass this. (Pearl Jam famously tried and failed at the top of their career.)

So, it’s a combination of auction fraud (building a platform for scalpers while pretending to enforce anti-scalper policies) and monopoly power (colluding with venues and probably agents to depress first-sale ticket prices).

I tried to figure out if ticketmaster also owns and operates the scalping companies (allowing two-sided auction fraud). I came up with a firm “maybe”.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#158

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #131
azinman2 wrote: post #114

My impractical solution: no resale of tickets, and check of ID at the door. It’ll slow things down for check in, and people sick will miss out, but it will collectively bring prices down and increase seat availability.

This is the only true solution. There’s a few things to work out legally - but they are all solvable. Perhaps there should be a seat transfer portal that opens 24-48 hours before (or at some specified time) for those true extenuating circumstances so family members or friends could get access to tickets. Otherwise, first principles says end transferability to end the secondary market.

You add a game; and it will get gamed.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#159

Post by jmole »

koolba wrote: post #155
valyagolev wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this, but allow refunds.

If you do, you have to allow a random back off before the tickets are made available for resale. Otherwise there will be “transfers” through sale / purchase.

just make a waitlist?

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#160

Post by Quarrel »

azinman2 wrote: post #114

My impractical solution: no resale of tickets, and check of ID at the door. It’ll slow things down for check in, and people sick will miss out, but it will collectively bring prices down and increase seat availability.

This is what Hamilton did when it opened in London.

You could in some circumstances return tickets to the theatre for a full refund, but couldn't resell them.

The buying credit card had to be shown at entry to make sure they hadn't been resold.

Afaik, they're still doing this.

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