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How to sell tickets fairly

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Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#21

Post by musicale »

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.

Some venues do this, but it does slow down entry (though during the pandemic some venues where checking IDs anyway along with covid test results, etc..)

AXS requires that you use their app and it must be logged into the account that purchased the tickets. The QR codes need to be refreshed before entry and expire in 60 seconds.

This presumably requires scalpers/bots to create an account per ticket purchase, and there is probably a limit on the number of accounts that can share the same payment method and address.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#22

Post by musicale »

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.

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.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#23

Post by adam_arthur »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #7
adam_arthur wrote: post #5

I don’t understand at all why prices aren’t raised in these severe demand/supply imbalance situations. Same applies to PS5 etc There wouldn’t be a shortage at all if it were priced appropriately. And scalpers just end up capturing that value anyway

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

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#24

Post by munk-a »

adam_arthur wrote: post #5

I don’t understand at all why prices aren’t raised in these severe demand/supply imbalance situations. Same applies to PS5 etc There wouldn’t be a shortage at all if it were priced appropriately. And scalpers just end up capturing that value anyway

Because their product is essentially unpriceable. If the concerts were priced by demand their demand would dry up considering that instead of forty people wanting to hear jazz on a saturday night you've got 30 million people screaming their lungs out - the only reasonable market response to this is for the pricing to adjust so that only the most wealthy can attend but then you'll get an issue where the performer will lose mass appeal since they so infrequently perform for "regular people" and it will cheapen their brand. It's a weird catch-22 and the real honest solution is that recordings are the solution to this problem but people still obsess over live performances.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#25

Post by danuker »

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).

These are called Sybil attacks.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#26

Post by smachiz »

etothepii wrote: post #3

While this might maximise the amount of money the organisers get for an event it doesn't handle variable fixed costs. That is I might need no capital at all to run my tour if I sell tickets at a highish (but sub-optimal) price early on.

What are the variable "fixed" costs? And when are they incurred?

This is about revenue maximization, not user enjoyment maximization or fairness maximization.

Ultimately I don't think most artists actually want revenue maximization - they're probably far more interested in fairness maximization in ensuring their fan base of all economic strata get to see them live.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#27

Post by projektfu »

the_mungler wrote: post #11
fparlane wrote: post #4

I wonder if you'd see "bank runs" happen spontaneously as nervous fans see the number of available tickets start to drop, causing a spontaneous feedback loop.

Hmm, that actually seems quite likely to me.

Congratulations, you've found the market-clearing price.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#28

Post by dec0dedab0de »

googlryas wrote: post #9
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.

Because people drop out last minute and might want to take a different friend.

I went to a concert that requires you to match your ticket, but allowed you to sell tickets on a site they control for the face value. I think the buyer has to pay a transaction fee as well.

I got the tickets by signing up and they took my credit card, and charged me when I was next in line and someone had tickets for sale. It was pretty neat, though I suspect I lucked out because a bunch of people sold their tickets when they announced vaccines would be required (September 2021).

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