Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

hollywoodreporter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 378 posts

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#301

Post by heeton »

simoncion wrote: post #276
riffraff wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't scalpers a solved problem with nominal tickets? I'm pretty sure some bands were doing this a decade ago. Even UEFA, among the most corrupt organizations in the world, does this for football tickets, you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once or sell them back to the organization. At this point if you allow scalpers it's a decision not a technical problem.

> ...you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once... Unless you're forced to buy exactly two tickets [0], I don't see how that prevents scalpers? Pay people 100% of their purchasing cost and -IDK- 5% of the scalping profit to use their name to purchase the ticket and hand over the creds to do the ticket owner reassignment. [0] In which case, I suppose it's a huge "fuck you" to people who aren't particul…

1 ticket: you can only sell back, no name change. You’re solo, not going with anyone, this works.

2 tickets: you can either sell them both back, OR change ONLY one name once. This means you have the option of buying two tickets up front, before you lock-in your companion.

It works well, I’ve experienced this for festival tickets.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#302

Post by xnorswap »

makeitdouble wrote: post #278
crazygringo wrote: post #41

Honestly, this could turn out to be a really great thing. When artists become popular, they often complain that the people they are making their music for, their biggest fans, tend to be the people least able to afford the concert tickets. The artists are often totally willing to set aside a chunk of tickets at a much cheaper price, but they need to be able to guarantee that these tickets aren't just purchased by sca…

This sounds like what fan clubs and artists run communities are built for. Does Spotify putting itself as a middle-man help much, considering the artist has become a big enough operation to have to care about the issue in the first place ?

> Does Spotify putting itself as a middle-man help much

Yes, with discovery and lowering the barrier to entry. There's quite a few bands I'd have considered joining their fan-club for if it was easy as clicking a button and not having to trust yet another third-party site.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#303

Post by tempay »

simoncion wrote: post #276
riffraff wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't scalpers a solved problem with nominal tickets? I'm pretty sure some bands were doing this a decade ago. Even UEFA, among the most corrupt organizations in the world, does this for football tickets, you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once or sell them back to the organization. At this point if you allow scalpers it's a decision not a technical problem.

> ...you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once... Unless you're forced to buy exactly two tickets [0], I don't see how that prevents scalpers? Pay people 100% of their purchasing cost and -IDK- 5% of the scalping profit to use their name to purchase the ticket and hand over the creds to do the ticket owner reassignment. [0] In which case, I suppose it's a huge "fuck you" to people who aren't particul…

It helps make it difficult to do scalping at scale. They can't reliably sell seats next to people. Always having to pay people their cut to use their name means the refund mechanism is still costly to the scalper.

It doesn't have to be perfect to be effective.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#304

Post by dandaka »

I imagine the best distribution model like this. We split all tickets in 2 buckets 50/50:

1/ Sorted. Some buyers have priority. They can be sorted by price paid, by amount of minutes listened, depends on the sale.

2/ Random with KYC. Everyone has the same chance to purchase.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#305

Post by mattalex »

ssl-3 wrote: post #236
seandoe wrote: post #227

It seems like a step in the right direction to combat scalpers. I've wondered though... Why not have a non-transferrable ticket system? If you can't go then you return your tickets to the pool and if they sell you get your money back.

Non-transferable tickets suck for their own reasons. Someone in a group gets sick or otherwise can't make it? Their seat is now either empty, or their ticket goes back to the pool. They can't give that ticket to someone else. That's a big deal for a whole slew of reasons. Let's pick just one reason and run with it. Five 11-year-old-ish girls want to go see Olivia Rodrigo. These kids haven't ever even been inside an a…

Then allow resale through the platform at the original purchase price.

You still have no scalping, but you recover the ability to back out due to unforeseen events

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#306

Post by ffaccount2 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #236
seandoe wrote: post #227

It seems like a step in the right direction to combat scalpers. I've wondered though... Why not have a non-transferrable ticket system? If you can't go then you return your tickets to the pool and if they sell you get your money back.

Non-transferable tickets suck for their own reasons. Someone in a group gets sick or otherwise can't make it? Their seat is now either empty, or their ticket goes back to the pool. They can't give that ticket to someone else. That's a big deal for a whole slew of reasons. Let's pick just one reason and run with it. Five 11-year-old-ish girls want to go see Olivia Rodrigo. These kids haven't ever even been inside an a…

How is this different from, let's say, plane tickets?

And nobody says that tickets must not be cancelable. Just no reselling on your own.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#307

Post by charcircuit »

crazygringo wrote: post #41

Honestly, this could turn out to be a really great thing. When artists become popular, they often complain that the people they are making their music for, their biggest fans, tend to be the people least able to afford the concert tickets. The artists are often totally willing to set aside a chunk of tickets at a much cheaper price, but they need to be able to guarantee that these tickets aren't just purchased by sca…

>But it should be pretty easy for Spotify to look for signals that indicate real human listeners

It's not easy. There's already a market for fake listens that require real looking accounts. That existing infrastructure can be directly reused to harvest these tickets.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#308

Post by riffraff »

simoncion wrote: post #276
riffraff wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't scalpers a solved problem with nominal tickets? I'm pretty sure some bands were doing this a decade ago. Even UEFA, among the most corrupt organizations in the world, does this for football tickets, you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once or sell them back to the organization. At this point if you allow scalpers it's a decision not a technical problem.

> ...you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once... Unless you're forced to buy exactly two tickets [0], I don't see how that prevents scalpers? Pay people 100% of their purchasing cost and -IDK- 5% of the scalping profit to use their name to purchase the ticket and hand over the creds to do the ticket owner reassignment. [0] In which case, I suppose it's a huge "fuck you" to people who aren't particul…

you can buy 1 ticket, but then you can't change the name.

It does not prevent scalpers altogether, but it makes it harder and less profitable.

Generally, people do not want to go to an event alone, you'd go with a friend, partner, spouse, whatever.

So the scalper's profitability calculation goes from "buy 10 tickets for 100$ and sell them at 10x price to anyone" to "buy 2 tickets and sell 1 of them at less than 10x to people who want to attend the event alone". The profitability went from 10000 to less than 80.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#309

Post by williamdclt »

makeitdouble wrote: post #278
crazygringo wrote: post #41

Honestly, this could turn out to be a really great thing. When artists become popular, they often complain that the people they are making their music for, their biggest fans, tend to be the people least able to afford the concert tickets. The artists are often totally willing to set aside a chunk of tickets at a much cheaper price, but they need to be able to guarantee that these tickets aren't just purchased by sca…

This sounds like what fan clubs and artists run communities are built for. Does Spotify putting itself as a middle-man help much, considering the artist has become a big enough operation to have to care about the issue in the first place ?

Do you really want (would you even be able) to be engaged in a distinct fan club / community for every artist you listen to? I'm pretty average in how much music I listen to, and that'd probably be several dozens just for the "big" bands

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#310

Post by willsmith72 »

ffaccount2 wrote: post #306
ssl-3 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-transferable tickets suck for their own reasons. Someone in a group gets sick or otherwise can't make it? Their seat is now either empty, or their ticket goes back to the pool. They can't give that ticket to someone else. That's a big deal for a whole slew of reasons. Let's pick just one reason and run with it. Five 11-year-old-ish girls want to go see Olivia Rodrigo. These kids haven't ever even been inside an a…

How is this different from, let's say, plane tickets? And nobody says that tickets must not be cancelable . Just no reselling on your own.

Let's not make air travel the customer experience bar for anything please
Post reply on HN