Always buy higher-end arts tickets directly. You can probably claim most of it as a charitable tax deduction (the difference vs a GA ticket). The SF Ballet even has a page on it: "*You may deduct up to 80% of your Preferred Seating Premium on your taxes. Please consult your tax advisor for more information." https://www.sfballet.org/tickets/seating/repertory
The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
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Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#22Arbitrage is never shady. Sure, the seller might feel upset that they lost out on a slice of the profit, but that doesn't imply that the reseller is in the wrong.
> Arbitrage is never shady.
That's very much an opinion, not a fact.
Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#23Reminds me of viagogo a bit, a ticket 'second hand' reselling website. Through some undercover investigations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWlnL8drSdw) it turned out that they are only partly a second hand site but have a stack of credit cards and buy out most of the ticket stock available to resell it with crazy margins.
It went so far that ticketing companies even gave them ticket stock for re-selling with a high margin to get a higher cut of the ticket sale. This especially happens for very popular concerts where the demand is high and people are willing to pay.
Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#24Arbitrage is never shady. Sure, the seller might feel upset that they lost out on a slice of the profit, but that doesn't imply that the reseller is in the wrong.
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Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#25Arbitrage is never shady. Sure, the seller might feel upset that they lost out on a slice of the profit, but that doesn't imply that the reseller is in the wrong.
If I really, really want to ensure that people who might not be able to afford market price can reasonably come to see my show while still making a reasonable profit, there's no mechanism under capitalism to be able to do that, because of arbitrage. I think that's sad.
Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#26> Clearly, the opera itself should price its tickets to more accurately reflect demand. And the great irony is that, by doing so, more often than not lower prices will bring new people into the opera, while high prices will capture demand from the price insensitive. So let's untangle these two sentences near the end of this essay. 1. I believe that the San Francisco Opera should raise its prices to match - or exceed…
In general, I guess I'm confused why someone wanting a ticket to an event wouldn't at least check to see whether it was available and for how much on the venue/organization's own site. It would certainly be the first place I'd look for tickets.
Sure, if there's nothing available or available seats aren't great, I might suck it up and go to a ticket broker if I really wanted to see something. But my assumption going in would be that I should expect to pay a big premium.
Maybe there are people out there who aren't price sensitive and default to making ticket purchases through StubHub or whatever, but I have trouble believing it's the norm.
I'd just add that although I don't really think dynamic pricing is a good idea here, presumably the San Francisco Opera, like many such organizations, does price discriminate is various ways: VIP seating, student tickets, more expensive weekend tickets, etc.
Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#27Arbitrage is never shady. Sure, the seller might feel upset that they lost out on a slice of the profit, but that doesn't imply that the reseller is in the wrong.
If I really, really want to ensure that people who might not be able to afford market price can reasonably come to see my show while still making a reasonable profit, there's no mechanism under capitalism to be able to do that, because of arbitrage. I think that's sad.
> If I really, really want to ensure that people who might not be able to afford market price can reasonably come to see my show while still making a reasonable profit, there's no mechanism under capitalism to be able to do that, because of arbitrage.
But people who can afford your artificially-cheap tickets can sell them to folks who can afford the market price, making them better-off.
Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I really, really want to ensure that people who might not be able to afford market price can reasonably come to see my show while still making a reasonable profit, there's no mechanism under capitalism to be able to do that, because of arbitrage. I think that's sad.
> If I really, really want to ensure that people who might not be able to afford market price can reasonably come to see my show while still making a reasonable profit, there's no mechanism under capitalism to be able to do that, because of arbitrage. But people who can afford your artificially-cheap tickets can sell them to folks who can afford the market price, making them better-off.
> But people who can afford your artificially-cheap tickets can sell them to folks who can afford the market price, making them better-off.
Except that in reality they can't because other large companies and people who have this down to a business buy all your tickets first. Also, money does not actually replace not getting to see a unique show. We can see this by the fact that not everybody sells their cheap tickets onwards.
Long story short - the group of people who really wants to see the show but can't afford it, and the group of ticket scalpers, are really, really not the same groups, 99% of the time - unless all your fans are ticket scalpers. This is pretty much by definition. Why is worship of capitalism more important than a person's desire to ensure their fans can actually afford to go see them?
Re: The problem with San Francisco Opera ticket prices
#29Arbitrage is never shady. Sure, the seller might feel upset that they lost out on a slice of the profit, but that doesn't imply that the reseller is in the wrong.
By that logic reseller is acting perfectly rationally by raising the price of the good they're reselling even though they're excluding some people that can't afford the markup.
By that logic and taking it to the extreme then it's perfectly logical some drug companies are raise the prices on their essential drugs, leading to prolonged sickness and death for some that can't afford the markup. I mean, they don't want to leave profit on the table!