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How to sell tickets fairly

barnabas.me

341–350 of 363 posts

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#341

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…

> The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and you want everyone to have the same level of access regardless of their background is a lottery. After centuries of failing to manipulate natural market forces, I don’t understand why people continue to think it’s possible. All that a lottery does is incentivize everyone to participate, even those who have no interest in going. Then a secondary market will…

I fear that if there is hundreds of thousands of dollars in demand pressure on getting some rich guys in, the chain will break somewhere. Maybe they'll bribe the entrance staff, or someone sells access to a VIP guest list, but it's bound to happen eventually.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in the world discriminates against some class of people. Taylor Swift is optimizing for "verified fans" - i.e., people who will actively share how big of fans they are. It's just good business, because she's developing a lifetime customer base. Someone will need to attend the "final tours" she gives when she's 60, 70, 80. Also, Taylor Swift fandom is one of the most mainstream fandoms I can think of - ther…

I don't see how it's any better than discriminating against poor fans though via selling the tickets at market price.

It's better for the fans since they get more content with less money, with the tradeoff of some personal information.

Since the band and ticketing partner are not in the ad business and want to build long term, I expect that limited personal info to be much less likely abused than what the typical social network site does with even more sensitive data (yet, most people seem to agree trading those off to for free news of the Kardashians in their feed, so what do I know).

At the limit, any kind of price discrimination needs some type of information to execute, you can't subsidize completely anonymous fans because market forces will quickly close that loop and we are back to square 1. For example, a confidential association between my name and a record/stream purchase for the purpose of a substantial ticket discount in the future seems like a good compromise to me.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Improve" how? And for whom? You have 400,000 people wanting to see a Taylor Swift concert each night in a venue that seats 80,000 (or whatever the actual numbers are). Lots of fans are going to be disappointed, shut out, denied access under any plan you implement or any laws you pass. Further, denying market forces to dictate prices results in an economic loss to Ms. Swift. You can twist "the market" all you want bu…

You sound like a pagan worshipper in Ancient Greece, commenting on the sacrifices we must make for the gods on Mount Olympus. I’ll try to respond in the rigid language of the mythical Homo Economicus. If Taylor Swift could control the ticket booking process herself, she could choose which of those 400,000 fans got tickets, instead of being forced to accept those who make TicketMaster the most profits. She can go for…

It's not about worship, it's acceptance of the natural order, which you seem to want to deny.

As far as your points, she did try to choose which fans got tickets -- the sale was a "pre-sale" to fan club members who has pre-registered, not the general public.

You are asking to have it both ways. TicketMaster is not the problem, it is the result of decades of influencing the market, the way you'd want it, such that it appears that tickets are available and affordable while in reality, it helps artists and venue owners maximize their revenue. It functions so well, it won out over all other competitors and consolidated its grip on the industry.

You want to eliminate TicketMaster? Simply be willing to sell tickets purely by supply and demand, the way the stock market works. I can buy 1000 shares of AMZN for less commission than a single concert ticket (and AMZN will never be sold out, the market will always "respond to demand" -- your words), because there's no artificial "influence."

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I once had a company put me in an async queue for months to wait for my brand new gadget. I wish Sony had done the same with the PS5. https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/21/23020823/sony-direct-play...

90 mins after the article was posted it was updated with “sold out”. Was this not a real long-term queue?

There was initially a queue to get in the queue. I personally entered the PS Direct queue around October 2021 and was able to purchase one in January 2022.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like a pagan worshipper in Ancient Greece, commenting on the sacrifices we must make for the gods on Mount Olympus. I’ll try to respond in the rigid language of the mythical Homo Economicus. If Taylor Swift could control the ticket booking process herself, she could choose which of those 400,000 fans got tickets, instead of being forced to accept those who make TicketMaster the most profits. She can go for…

It's not about worship, it's acceptance of the natural order, which you seem to want to deny. As far as your points, she did try to choose which fans got tickets -- the sale was a "pre-sale" to fan club members who has pre-registered, not the general public. You are asking to have it both ways. TicketMaster is not the problem, it is the result of decades of influencing the market, the way you'd want it, such that it…

You really believe in capitalist realism and this is not a bit? It's honestly really difficult to tell.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about worship, it's acceptance of the natural order, which you seem to want to deny. As far as your points, she did try to choose which fans got tickets -- the sale was a "pre-sale" to fan club members who has pre-registered, not the general public. You are asking to have it both ways. TicketMaster is not the problem, it is the result of decades of influencing the market, the way you'd want it, such that it…

You really believe in capitalist realism and this is not a bit? It's honestly really difficult to tell.

That's a terribly lame cop-out. Argue a position, disprove my points, say something substantial... or get lost.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really believe in capitalist realism and this is not a bit? It's honestly really difficult to tell.

That's a terribly lame cop-out. Argue a position, disprove my points, say something substantial... or get lost.

ok, prove it's a lame cop out.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#348
post #154

The proposed idea is a technical one that doesn't work for the promoters or artists or venues. The promoters want to know very early whether the venue is the right one for the number attending and whether to upsize, add dates, or even to go the other way to a smaller venue. The time to book a venue is very long... So they need as complete data as they can about sales as early as possible (they would love if 80% of th…

> [T]he idea that "I have more money and deserve more to have a ticket over someone that doesn't have as much money" is antithetical to the thinking of every artist I've ever worked with. The problem is, with a limited supply of tickets you’re going to draw the line somehow whether you want it or not. Price sets the barrier explicitly. Attempts to avoid using that (e.g. in various social welfare programs all over the…

Why not have a random draw?

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression you can run arbitrary code in the blockchain?

Not even close. You are very much limited by what each chain's VM allows. The bitcoin VM is extremely limited. The EVM lifts most of those limitations. All of the VMs have a fee you pay based on the complexity of your program, too. You are also limited in what cryptography you can do because all of the data involved has to be public - so no private keys can be involved in that computation if you want them to stay pri…

Why wouldn't you associate the NFT with a contract that automatically changes its "owner"/controller when you pay it, forwarding the payment to the previous owner and deducting a percentage of the fee to send to a fixed address?

I'm assuming the Ethereum chain; the Bitcoin VM is primitive by comparison.

Re: How to sell tickets fairly

#350
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system proposed in this post has the advantage of correctly pricing every seat individually without anyone having to put in multiple bids. The people buying earlier are paying the highest price and get to choose the best seats. Those buying later would pay less but the good seats would already be taken. A Vickery auction would not, I think, lend itself to that kind of price discovery.

Good point, but you could address that by splitting up the seats into multiple auctions depending on the quality of the seats. People could even bid "conditionally" for multiple sections, and once bidding closes you resolve the separate auctions in order from best to worst. If a person with multiple bids gets a good seat, their bids in the other sections get cancelled. Seems to me that this could have very similar re…

People don't want to do complex bidding schemes. Even Vickery auctions confuse people - look at how eBay has to call their Vickery auction "automatic bidding" to alleviate that confusion.

A threshold effect could certainly exist, that would be one issue with that scheme.

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