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

Why scalpers can get tickets

404media.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 487 posts

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#371

Post by amelius »

iambateman wrote: post #215

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…

> Now, if one of the platforms “cracks down” and makes it harder to buy and sell people will prefer another platform.

Huh, they only have to ensure that the price of the resold ticket is reasonable ...

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#372

Post by TeMPOraL »

diego_sandoval wrote: post #289
kortilla wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people involved in business or politics have reputation risk and can’t be seen “letting loose”. See the Dean Scream.

Meanwhile, Steve Ballmer: "Developers, developers, developers, developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers!!! Yes!!!"

That's the difference between being almost, but not quite at the top, vs. actually being there. Dean would've fared differently if he won first, and then did his scream.

But either way, both Dean's and Ballmer's examples are marketing stunts, a calculated performance - that's entirely different to rich people honestly letting loose at a concert.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#373

Post by Fatnino »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #274
iambateman wrote: post #215

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…

Seems to me they could ban resales by making there be a name attached to each ticket. Just like the airlines. You need ID matching your ticket to get into the venue.

No more scalpers.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#374

Post by TeMPOraL »

mattmaroon wrote: post #192
username332211 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason why artists use Ticketmaster. Do you think they are stupid and just hand over ticket distribution to a company that routinely charges 30$ fees to a 40$ ticket? No, artists and producers aren't stupid, they get the most of the money from the Ticketmaster "fees". But when a fan sees a 70$ ticket, they'd may decide Bruce Springsteen (net worth 650$ million) isn't a man of the people. When they see a…

This is not how concerts work, and artists and producers don't get any money from Ticketmaster fees. In most cases, a promoter pays an artist a flat fee to perform. The promoter then markets the show and gets the ticket sales, and Ticketmaster gets Ticketmaster fees. Unfortunately Ticketmaster is owned by LiveNation, and they are far and away the biggest promoter. They sign exclusive rights with large venues. My loca…

> Unfortunately Ticketmaster is owned by LiveNation, and they are far and away the biggest promoter. They sign exclusive rights with large venues. My local 25,000 seat amphitheater has a deal with LiveNation. I can only get tickets to shows there through Ticketmaster.

So mostly what GP said. This is not an accident, and everyone is in on it.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#375

Post by dotancohen »

Analemma_ wrote: post #245
emodendroket wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would just return them to the status quo ante where scalpers sell through third parties.

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…

  > If you tied tickets to names and required ID at the venue
Solution sounds worse than the original problem.

What happens if I want to gift somebody a ticket? What happens if I don't want my name associated in a database for going to a gay artist's show? What happens if my wife is sick on show day so I invite my neighbor instead at the last minute?

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#376

Post by vintermann »

> Private Tabs costs $500 per month. Insomniac costs $400 per month. KPX, a new browser, costs $40 per month.

This is good evidence that Ticketmasters' defenses actually work, and scalpers have gone over to selling scalping as a get-rich-quick scheme. (It's also of course extremely dumb to pay for). An inevitable step in the lifecycle of any grift.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#377

Post by amelius »

cdchn wrote: post #282
nomilk wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this recently, and came up with two possible reasons: 1. The enjoyment of attendees can be partly dependent on the enthusiasm of other attendees. Consider the extremes: an audience entirely comprised of people who hardly know the artist, but can afford it Vs an audience comprised of only die-hard fans, irrespective of their ability to afford a ticket. The first has a flat atmosphere, the second,…

Guess if you don't use a streaming music service you're SOL seeing an artist you look. This is such a Hacker News suggestion.

If some idea is 99% ok, then it's really HN-like to burn it down because of the 1% that's possibly not ok.

As if everything in our society is 100% ok.

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#378

Post by TeMPOraL »

jackson1442 wrote: post #201
ajb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one reason is that it would let venues in for a lot more work to properly check everyone's ID. At an airport, Homeland Security pays for that part Both venues and airlines normally segment the market by how good a seat you get.

At Hamilton shows, ticketmaster used the payment card as the ticket, you simply swipe the card used to buy the tickets at the entrance and it pulls it from that data. Seems like a fair compromise, assuming it’s actually secure.

And kills the ability to give someone tickets as a gift?

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#379

Post by TeMPOraL »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #101
ChadNauseam wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be what TicketMaster is doing, right?

The theory seems to be that they give the money to the venue instead of the artist, which causes the artist to not have to pay for the venue. Which is totally different, as you can imagine.

Indeed. And don't let the discontent and trouble-makers confuse you with smart-sounding phrases, like "money is fungible".

Re: Why scalpers can get tickets

#380

Post by TeMPOraL »

Nursie wrote: post #354
fps-hero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every action directed at making tickets more affordable will have the opposite effect of making scalping more profitable. Im amazed that a reverse auction style approach hasn’t caught on, when you are capacity limited it seems nearly optimal for extracting profit and kills the ticket scalping business model.

Not every action. Some festivals avoid it by requiring ID to be linked to the ticket and banning resale (though they may allow refund). It’s funny, but “extracting maximum profit” isn’t the only motivation some people have in life. Especially when it comes to cultural events.

> It’s funny, but “extracting maximum profit” isn’t the only motivation some people have in life.

[citation needed]

More seriously though, it's true that people - arguably most people - have other motivations than purely materialistic ones. But, like every market, cultural events are a dynamic system. It follows a trajectory over time.

Slightly more greedy people have better outcomes than slightly less greedy ones. The least successful get filtered out. Iterate that over time. What results do you expect?

And yes, this is a general argument of why the market first makes things better, then makes them all go to shit. And it is confirmed by real world. Exceptions involve some factors that counteract the dynamics described above. Do you see such factors at play in entertainment event industry? I don't.

Post reply on HN