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Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

hollywoodreporter.com

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Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#341

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

williamdclt wrote: post #309
makeitdouble wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If an artist is just someone you listen to, you're not the demographic for a feature like this. You can't have several dozens of favorite bands. The idea is to get tickets to the hardcore fans, not the casual listeners.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#342

Post by saghm »

TylerE wrote: post #256
saghm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I bought 100 tickets, sold 20 of them at 10x the value I paid for them, and then ate the rest as a loss, I'm still making a tidy profit, and the artist/venue/etc. still make the same amount of money as if 100 individuals bought them and attended, but there are now 80 fewer people in the audience (edited to add: and potentially 80 people who could have afforded the original price but not the absurd upsell). I don't…

> the artist/venue/etc. still make the same amount of money as if 100 individuals bought them and attended, but there are now 80 fewer people No they won't. The venue now has 1/5th the people buying booze. They're gonna HATE that night.

Fair enough. Unfortunately, as the trials in the recent lawsuits against Live Nation has shown, the venues are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they risk losing the ability to book some of the top artists if they try to switch to a different ticketing platform. At least the way it works right now, the ones who are being partnered with in this promotion that's supposedly helpful in preventing scalping are the ones who are both least affected by scalping and in the best position to force everyone else involved to have to put up with the negatives.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#343

Post by saghm »

Barbing wrote: post #285
saghm wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, I might just be extrapolating from a few of the larger American players in the industry.

Oh could’ve mentioned we’d have to fight so hard for that hypothetical legislation… your point was totally right

I still appreciate your point here too though; when I'm concerned about a hypothetical change in a system ending up negative in the long run, failing to account for existing precedents for mitigation is something I want to be corrected on

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#344

Post by kittikitti »

How many among us are superfans? I know of at least one artist that I am a superfan of, but these systems aren't built to detect us. The fandom's are filled with people who, in reality, hate the artist and just go to concerts for the clout. The type that are Reddit moderator's of artist's snark subreddit. Usually, they buy tickets with mommy and daddy's money.

Spotify is using this to encourage this type of person, a chronically online hater who has too much money and influence, to increase their usage on their app. How many people will this actually help?

I think the image people have in their minds of scalpers is flawed. It's often a coordinated and organized group of "fans" who buy these tickets for "themselves". They are the first one's to criticize scalpers and form the common idea of one (namely, not them, they are certainly not a scalper).

The solution is to stop expecting so much from an artist. These tours and concerts literally shorten their life spans. Live events have lost the plot (the irony of everyone recording a live event). I no longer care about seeing an artist in person. I'm not in the stratospheric class that can do it, nor will I ever be, nor do I want to be associated with the typical concert goer.

I think the better solution would be to create artist communities that are interested in their music. I would love to connect with people who do, but at the moment there are 0 practical options. I'm always stuck with snarky Redditor's who think it's weird that I actually like the music.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#345

Post by etrautmann »

theptip wrote: post #254
etrautmann wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does resale help the artist? By inflating expectations for ticket prices for the next show?

If the artist sells them directly at the market price set by the resale auction, they get more than if they sell at face value.

so this is a price discovery mechanism in an early tranche of tickets?

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#346

Post by gilbetron »

Ok, random scalper prevention scheme:

What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust.

So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket.

If the transfer is between trustworthy people, then the final ticket holder will give the money back to the original person.

There is no incentive to transfer money to the scalper, however. (Especially if scalping is illegal).

This doesn't eliminate scalping, but it significantly reduces it.

Critique?

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#347

Post by crazygringo »

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 ?

Yeah but fan clubs and artist communities are trivial to join with just an email address. Scalpers can just have their accounts join them all.

The point of a listening history is that it's so, so, so much more work to generate one that has been active for years and looks genuine and each one can only focus on a few artists at a time.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#348

Post by gilbetron »

gilbetron wrote: post #346

Ok, random scalper prevention scheme: What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust. So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket. If the transfer is bet…

Hmmm - I think the scalper just adds the escrow amount on to the cost as the purchaser will get it back at the end.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#349

Post by hunter2_ »

gilbetron wrote: post #346

Ok, random scalper prevention scheme: What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust. So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket. If the transfer is bet…

The problem is that it requires not only that the ticketed people (scalpers, show-goers) do something new to prevent scalping, but also that the ticketing people (ticketmaster, etc.) do something new to prevent scalping.

We need a solution that demands only the former, not the latter, because the ticketing people have no incentive to eliminate scalping. It's good for them.

It gets a little confusing because situations like TFA make it seem like the ticketers want to help, and while they might be interested in the goodwill of ensuring that some of the tickets sold go to known actual fans first, they definitely aren't interested in losing the "collect a fee multiple times" aspect of maximizing resale which includes zero-trust transactions.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#350

Post by crazygringo »

gilbetron wrote: post #346

Ok, random scalper prevention scheme: What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust. So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket. If the transfer is bet…

Scalpers will just add $1000 to the price of the ticket. And then you keep the $1000 that gets returned to you.
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