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A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

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Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#201

Post by r7000 »

conjectures wrote: post #112
illvm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if the box office said "we're auctioning off all the tickets, there is no set price" then I would be inclined to agree with you. But that's not what happens here. Scalping with bots is someone profiting off of the work of others. It's borderline theft. Moreover, it's already illegal in many states and further widens the chasm between the rich and the poor. I don't understand why you would defend such practice.

What cheeses me off is that the artists aren't making that money. Under an auction system more of the money would go into artists' pockets rather than scalpers - which is surely something hardcore fans would want.

That is not correct. Some artists sign deals guaranteeing them more than 100% of total face value. Others put tickets on the secondary markets themselves.

If any system does not funnel a huge amount of cash to the artists it would be changed immediately.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#202

Post by SilasX »

austenallred wrote: post #22

I spent some of my formidable years scalping and brokering event (mostly broadway) tickets in various forms. The company I co-founded made a few million and I learned an expensive lesson in equity at age 18 (I opted instead for the $14/hr salary). We worked in broadway (meaning the style of show, not just the street), and I met the Wiseguys folks at secondary market trade shows, but I had no idea they were this big,…

>I have never yet seen a system that cannot be beat by scalpers, including paperless ticketing, and I find that most venues and artists want to maximize profits and, more importantly, minimize risk anyway.

What about charging more, so there is less (or zero) spread between what scalpers can charge vs. the official price (or whatever they call it)?

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#203

Post by mcv »

kbenson wrote: post #176
Pigo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However justifiable it might be, this ticket gouging is the reason I haven't seen a concert in almost a decade. Maybe I'm a cheap bastard because I refuse to pay hundreds for the few decent artists I've seen on tour, but it's not that I don't have the money. The first NIN concert I went to, I only had to steer clear of certain mosh-pits. The last one I had to put up with a sea of "brighter than the stage" phones uphe…

> I do think Kid Rock's approach to sales Kid Rock is one of the few artists to actually solve the problem (if you view it as one) of a secondary ticket market. It's a market, it responds to supply and demand. He just increases supply until demand falls. For example, he's playing Detroit for 6 consecutive days in 2017. He did similar in the past. You'll still have some premium tickets being resold over cost, but he's…

That is probably the most free-market way to solve the problem: just increase supply until you can sell to everybody who wants to buy.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#204

Post by [deleted] »

criddell wrote: post #147
LordKano wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the convoluted reasons why scalping must be stomped out have never made sense to me. If people would let the market handle it, things would sort themselves out naturally. If scalpers have to spend more money buying tickets than they can make by selling them, they'll stop buying so many tickets. Also, maybe venues should have some method of selling unredeemed tickets at the door. For example, if a ticked hasn't…

Let the market handle it? You mean sell to those willing to pay the most? If you are a performer, sometimes you want to sell to the biggest fans. What's the market mechanism for that?

[deleted]

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#205

Post by degenerate »

Louis CK went the extra mile to work with specific venues to circumvent Ticketmaster and eliminate scalping. Some venues have contracts with Ticketmaster and could not be used. It's totally doable if you sell your own tickets, but most artists (band managers) are not up for the challenge.

He explains:

“Most tickets are $50 or less. There are no ticket fees for any shows. My agent worked hard to accomplish this by negotiating in every city and finding venues that were willing to help us make the shows affordable. In some cases, the venues and I are splitting the ticket charges between us so you don’t have to pay it. In the end it’s worth it to me because I don’t want coming to see me to be a painful choice for anyone and either way I’m making plenty of money on the tour. I sincerely hope that everyone takes advantage of this by simply buying the affordable tickets and coming to the shows. For those of you who plan to take the opportunity of the simple and cheap ticketing on this tour to make a profit at the expense of my fans, please note that we are working hard to prevent scalping and that if you resell your tickets at an unfair price, you are risking having your tickets invalidated. Also if you purchase tickets to my shows from Stubhub or other scalping sites, that ticket may not be valid.

Source: http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/05/louis-c-k-announces-22...

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#206

Post by r7000 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #188
ryandrake wrote: post #3

> "There's an emotional aspect to what artists do, which is to say 'I'm not willing to charge $500 even though clearly the market value is $500. I'm going to charge $100, and at the end of the day someone else is going to make that money,'" The bots are just a symptom. Seems like this is likely the root of the problem. If the primary market was efficient, then there would be no secondary market, and the whole point o…

This is a very narrow concept of efficiency. The person who drops $500 on a ticket doesn't necessarily like the band more than the person who can only afford $50. People are always citing models of price efficiency forgetting that perfect competition only obtains under very limited conditions, and that participants are theoretically free to enter or exit the market at any time. Bands don't generally want to maximize…

> Bands don't generally want to maximize revenue from any given gig

They do more nowadays. The old model of touring to drive demand for record sales has been turned upside-down. It is now sell music to drive demand for concert ticket sales.

Most (not all) artists now make much more of their overall revenue from touring and want to maximize the revenue there - without seeming too much like they are.

As well artists can sometimes have a narrow window of time to cash in.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#207

Post by anigbrowl »

r7000 wrote: post #206
anigbrowl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very narrow concept of efficiency. The person who drops $500 on a ticket doesn't necessarily like the band more than the person who can only afford $50. People are always citing models of price efficiency forgetting that perfect competition only obtains under very limited conditions, and that participants are theoretically free to enter or exit the market at any time. Bands don't generally want to maximize…

> Bands don't generally want to maximize revenue from any given gig They do more nowadays. The old model of touring to drive demand for record sales has been turned upside-down. It is now sell music to drive demand for concert ticket sales. Most (not all) artists now make much more of their overall revenue from touring and want to maximize the revenue there - without seeming too much like they are. As well artists ca…

I never even mentioned record sales. I'm just saying that bands want fans who keep coming back over and over. They Might Be Giants are a good example of a band with a very 'sticky' fanbase.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#208

Post by criddell »

LordKano wrote: post #199
criddell wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The market doesn't work very well except for the very simple scenario of maximizing revenue.

That's precisely the opposite of both my point and observable reality. Why doesn't every apartment rent for $1500 per month? Because people aren't willing to pay that for every apartment. Because of this, every real estate market has a ceiling with regards to how much can be charged for rent. If Lil Bow Wow goes on tour at the same venues as Eminem, will the tickets cost the same? No because people are willing to pay…

We both keep saying the same thing. You're right - that's the market at work and I agree with you on that. The market is doing the only thing it can do which isn't necessarily what the artist wants. It's failing the artist.

The article talks about U2. Apparently they are so wealthy now that when they put on a show they want to maximize for something other than money. Most performers will tell you that a great show is half performer and half audience. Shouldn't they try to get tickets to their biggest fans that will help them put on the best show even if those super fans don't have the deepest pockets?

When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Maybe market mechanisms aren't good enough when dealing with intangible quantities.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#209

Post by cb21 »

koolba wrote: post #30
austenallred wrote: post #22

I spent some of my formidable years scalping and brokering event (mostly broadway) tickets in various forms. The company I co-founded made a few million and I learned an expensive lesson in equity at age 18 (I opted instead for the $14/hr salary). We worked in broadway (meaning the style of show, not just the street), and I met the Wiseguys folks at secondary market trade shows, but I had no idea they were this big,…

> I have never yet seen a system that cannot be beat by scalpers, including paperless ticketing, and I find that most venues and artists want to maximize profits anyway. How would a scalper get around ticketing that requires presenting ID that matches the name of the person on the ticket? I've been to a few shows that were like that for pickup up tickets at the will call booth. I suppose you could get them there and…

The scalper could "sell" their front-row ticket to someone else who buys a cheap nosebleed. Then they get in with the cheap seat and go sit at the better spot. Clumsy but it would work.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#210

Post by SilasX »

simonsarris wrote: post #35
jstanley wrote: post #8

> The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom I very much disagree. If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. If it weren't for ticket-scalpers, die-hard f…

You reasoning is a pretty good example of why the median person should be very wary of anyone saying that free markets and their "efficiency" are a good thing, or will result in good outcomes for them. They will result in good outcomes for the richest, sure. We can agree to that. You are conflating die-hard fans with die-hard wealthy fans which is a little silly. Not all fans have the same marginal value of pocket ch…

Maybe that would be a better way to do it[1], but that's not actually what happens.

Buyers will still pay $500. They will just pay it to middlemen instead.

Fans will not "get to trade their time waiting in line" for tickets, so that the golden admit-one is rationed by die-hardness. Instead, such fans will be right there in line with those choking said lines for money. And which they're also better at.

Sellers could move to what you suggest. They could do a lottery, and they could lock the winners by ID to their purchase, completely non-transferrably. But none of them do it, because they aren't optimizing for what you claim they are.

If and when they start doing that way, those would be applicable points to raise in defense of that practice.

[1] i.e. if you replaced "charge $500 to the N highest bidders" with "charge $10 to N randomly-chosen chosen people".

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