331–340 of 487 posts
If tickets can be scalped with a markup, doesn’t that mean the original sale price is below market value? Maybe we should just be happy that we have a chance to buy below market value.
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And in turn Ticketmaster is the scapegoat that shields the artists from blame. The primary service that Ticketmaster provides is to protect the artist's reputation while ensuring as much money as possible gets made per event.
But don’t artists get less because scalping happens? That is, if they priced tickets higher to start, there would be more revenue going to the artists and less going to middlemen.
People look at high prices as "the seller is just greedy" even if they're arguably justified by the demand. If you can just relist those Taylor Swift tickets you bought at face value on Ticketmaster, they are "sold" as far as Swift herself and her record label are concerned but Ticketmaster can make extra money and presumably pays a kickback to Swift and her label. If she ceases to be the "current thing" and demand massively drops for her concerts to the point that face value is overpriced, the scalpers are left with the losses.
Sometimes scalpers do lose money. Anybody who thought Playstation VR2 was going to be high demand like the PS5 lost a ton of money getting rid of that thing below face value. Likewise, if you try to scalp tickets to an Inter Miami game on the assumption that Messi is going to be playing and it comes out that he actually won't be because he got hurt playing the last place team on the Wednesday before a Sunday game[0], you're the one who ends up losing money from the unsold ticket not the soccer teams. Which is why nobody selling high demand goods or services really cares that much about stopping scalping.
[0]: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12546567/...
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If you tied tickets to names and required ID at the venue (allowing refunds in case you couldn't make it), this wouldn't work and scalping would basically end overnight. The fact that neither Ticketmaster nor the performers nor the venues has ever taken this simple step is the proof that it's not in their interest to do so. Note that events where the promoters are actually interested in having people show up instead…
I agree, but Devil's advocate, consider 1) when buying for young kids. Minors don't always have ID and are rarely expected to have them in public. 2) when you buy for a group. You may not have everyone's ID on hand at once, and it makes it harder for honest friends to get tickets together. You don't need to sit together at PAX.
Have a day or two window to assign the names to the tickets. Sure it is a small window for scalpers too but not really enough to make it work properly (and you could still force at least one of the tickets to be locked to a name at the moment of sale)
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But don’t artists get less because scalping happens? That is, if they priced tickets higher to start, there would be more revenue going to the artists and less going to middlemen.
Raising the face value of the tickets would eliminate scalpers but at the expense of reputation. That's why Sony and Microsoft didn't just raise the cost of the PS5 and Xbox Series X during the 2 years or so when they were sold out everywhere and only available through scalpers or if you were lucky enough to buy one at face value. People look at high prices as "the seller is just greedy" even if they're arguably just…
They could rise the face value, but sell the first say 80% tickets at considerable discount (so that the price matches what the ticket costs today). Although perhaps this could also tarnish their relation with fans, who want to see their idols as "pure" and not commercial entities they are.
I think there’s a massive point which gets missed on this question… A lot of these tickets get resold on the platforms themselves. If a reseller buys the ticket, and then sells it again to the end user, Ticketmaster gets paid twice. This point results in at least hundreds of millions in revenue. Now, if one of the platforms “cracks down” and makes it harder to buy and sell people will prefer another platform. So plat…
>if one of the platforms “cracks down” and makes it harder to buy and sell people will prefer another platform. 1) what other platform? I'm not too intimate with this, but part of the revolt over the Taylor Swift contrversy came from how Ticketmaster as exclusive use to most of the big venues. That seems to be the other half of the issue not talked about in this article. 2) I thought this issue would be as simple as…
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Or tie each ticket to a name and check ID?
I went to a show from a big DJ at a small venue like this once. Had to buy in person with an ID and they checked IDs at the door. I think it works well at small venues but can’t see this scaling up to arenas and stadiums. The large venues already struggle getting people through the door fast enough.
Some of my favorite bands have done simple things which drastically (but not completely) reduce the levels of scalping. On a previous tour, Wilco made tickets only valid for the original holder with matching photo ID at the door. So I couldn’t sell my ticket. I was able to bring any guest I wanted with my second ticket though. For a while now Phish has done tickets via lottery and all tickets come in the physical mai…
Although apparently it doesn't always fully work. But at least they are trying something:
https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/music/the-cure-ticket...
Why do the organizations putting on events like these leave so much money on the table? Why don't they just charge the market-clearing price themselves, leaving no room for scalpers to make any profit?
Then the view of greed falls on the organization and the artists instead of on scalpers. It also is up in the air of the market value is really what people are paying or if it’s being inflated by scalpers. Some people will pay it but I don’t think it’s an accurate view of what the price should be in that situation. But we saw exactly this with the recent Lorcana release. Local game stores acted like scalpers charging…
Sure thing it makes buying air tickets a lot more stressful, but we do get low cost trips if we plan ahead, or a much-needed last time seat if we can afford it.
Why do the organizations putting on events like these leave so much money on the table? Why don't they just charge the market-clearing price themselves, leaving no room for scalpers to make any profit?
there's no market clearing price in the market for concert tickets. the scalpers would exercise perfect price discrimination if they could.
How do you figure? Are you using a nonstandard definition of "market clearing price"?
> the scalpers would exercise perfect price discrimination if they could.
So what?