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How to sell tickets fairly

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Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#221

Post by JKCalhoun »

detaro wrote: post #214
aetherson wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is, you start at the maximum price you think any significant number of people will pay. If that's $4000, it's $4000.

If you want your marketing signaling to be "this artist is for rich people, normal people have no chance to see them anyways", sure. Many probably don't want to do that - indeed the strength of the lottery system is that it does signal the opposite.

You can of course have a hybrid — where say 75% of the tickets are lottery, the rest are insanely high priced.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#222

Post by MichaelZuo »

blowski wrote: post #200
listenallyall wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Influencing the market" is just a way of introducing unenforcable or ineffective rules, or unintended consequences. You want to tax resale of tickets at above face value at 100%? Sure. Now enforce it. I mean, it's been illegal in many states for a while now anyway. Back in the day, before the web, anyone who wanted a ticket at face value could get one. You just had to wait in line. For a long time. And back then, pe…

So we can influence the market for travel, healthcare, education, military, environment, food, children’s toys, etc. But not for tickets to watch Taylor Swift?

Seems a bit of a weird question.

Considering how often it's discussed on HN what the unintended effects are of regulations on healthcare, education, and environment.

I would wager more than 5% of posts that got more than 100 comments in the last 5 years have discussions about that topic.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#223

Post by detaro »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #217
detaro wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want your marketing signaling to be "this artist is for rich people, normal people have no chance to see them anyways", sure. Many probably don't want to do that - indeed the strength of the lottery system is that it does signal the opposite.

No, they would also advertise the descending nature of it, so if they book a big enough venue, there won't be that much demand at $4000 to sell it out. So the price will descend down to more affordable levels. Of course if the biggest venue isn't big enough to do that, then that's more of a problem of the local facilities, or the artist's decision to play in an area with inadequately sized venues.

I don't think "avoid playing in places without mega-venues, because otherwise our self-choosen pricing policy will make us look bad" is a particularly clever approach. (not to mention that doing so will drive up the price for events in places with such mega-venues)

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#224

Post by Spivak »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #216
manholio wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model that works is to build relationships with fans and afford them privileged access, and sell everything else at market clearing prices. Ticketmaster tried too offer that through a "verified fan" route, but it failed under the weight of its own monopolistic ineptitude. Whoever cracks the fan management+ticketing service and offers it to bands will have an incredibly strong moat.

How exactly do fans prove their loyalty?

* Link your Spotify and see that the listening history for the artist goes back a while.

* Require names on tickets and verify them at the door. Then for fan checking see if they’ve been to shows in the same scene.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#225

Post by MichaelZuo »

kodt wrote: post #115
Gigachad wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better solution is to just price the tickets higher. Scalpers are only taking advantage of arbitrage. This requires a bit of complex demand estimation up front though.

That prices out more fans who can’t afford it though, something that some artists are trying to avoid.

I don't see why they would outweigh the fans who want to make last minute changes?

In any solution there are those who get the short end of the stick.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#226

Post by somehnacct3757 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #204
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuz the auction ran out of tickets so the price starts to climb as scalpers monetize FOMO. Regular purchasers don't know what the scalpers think X is for this particular concert. Even if you knew X, all you could do is try to buy a ticket right before the remaining quantity reaches X which guarantees you paid more than the scalper, but maybe not more than the scalper's resell price. X is the moment scalpers buy up th…

Regular purchasers would learn to not try to game the auction like that any more. In the scenario you described, they are only losing out on tickets because they are getting greedy and trying to buy them for less than they think those tickets are worth. The point of auctions is that the right strategy is to bid to your price, not to try to guess what other people think the price should be. That's why they work.

Again, X is not a price it's a demand level (for scalper tickets). Everyone can 'bid their price' and scalpers will still buy out the bottom of the auction and take control of the pricing.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#227

Post by matwood »

onion2k wrote: post #176

Starting at $2000 for a concert where demand outstrips supply to the point where people will pay $4000 to a ticket scalper just means the minimum ticket price will be $2000. All the tickets will still sell out immediately. The audience will be entirely made up of wealthy people, or people who are willing to break the bank to see Taylor sing. The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and you want everyo…

> Personally, if I was selling tickets, I'd just not sell them "fairly". Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.

Agreed. Tickets are a luxury item. The only fix is for the artists to do more shows. Obviously this is hard on the artists, but I wonder if they could do short term residencies in a place like Vegas? If Taylor Swift played every other night for 3-6 mos. in a fixed location, it seems like everyone could eventually see her show if they wanted. Fans would probably spend less than 2-4k each even accounting for any travel.

I also don't find the lottery method 'fair' either. Random yes, but not necessarily fair if a person can only see a show on a certain date and doesn't win the lottery.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#228

Post by matwood »

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).

> But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price.

Then do more shows. If the goal is to satisfy as many fans as possible across all economic spectrums, then more shows is the only answer.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#229

Post by matwood »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #112
musicale wrote: post #36

I think one reason why artists don't take the Dutch Auction approach is that they want to recruit new fans, including kids who might not have much money. They also probably don't want to be seen as greedy. In the absence of some system that prevents resale, scalpers will likely still buy up all of the Taylor Swift tickets before they drop to a price that is affordable for these less-affluent fans. The bots will likel…

The scalper can only make profit if he can buy the ticket at one price, and later sell it not just at a higher price, but a price sufficiently higher to cover the costs of the process (advertising, bot development, customer support, transaction fees, ...), and the profit needs to be worth both the effort and the risk. In this model, anyone willing to pay more than the scalper paid already had the opportunity to buy a…

Yeah, people forget scalpers also have downside. When I lived in a big city my partner and I would routinely go to sporting events by paying under face value on the tickets simply by waiting for the event to start. Of course, we had to be ok if it didn't work out, but most of the time it did. Worst case, we walk back across the street and watch the game from the bar.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#230

Post by blowski »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #222
blowski wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we can influence the market for travel, healthcare, education, military, environment, food, children’s toys, etc. But not for tickets to watch Taylor Swift?

Seems a bit of a weird question. Considering how often it's discussed on HN what the unintended effects are of regulations on healthcare, education, and environment. I would wager more than 5% of posts that got more than 100 comments in the last 5 years have discussions about that topic.

There are three categories of criticism being mixed up here.

1. You cannot influence the market, it will always revert to form.

2. You can influence the market, but in doing so, you will cause too many damaging side-effects.

3. You should not influence the market, because it’s morally wrong to do so.

The first comment was very much in category 1, but now it sounds like category 2.

The problem with category 2 arguments is that they pretend any solution must be perfect with no side-effects or we shouldn’t do it. Clearly, it’s a trade-off - even if there are negatives, if they are outweighed by the positives, it’s worth doing.

Thus, if it’s possible some mixture of regulation, tax and subsidy can prevent monopolistic behaviour, it’s worth at least discussing.

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