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Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

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Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#371

Post by ssl-3 »

9rx wrote: post #332
ssl-3 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's just arbitrage. They're just profiting from the difference between the cost of the item and what people are willing to pay for an item. Simple market economics, right? As should be obvious: Since it can be explained by capitalism and we even have a nice neat concise word with which to describe it, then there's nothing to hate there. /s > It's much the same as why wholesalers sell to Walmart for pennies on…

> They instead buy truckloads of tickets at retail prices Clearly that's not true. Retail charges what the consumer is willing to pay. If the tickets were sold retail there would be no consistent arbitrage opportunity. There may have been some point in history where artists tried to sell retail, which may be the source of your confusion, but nowadays these tickets are purposely sold below retail value so that they ca…

>> And unlike a manufacturer like Proctor & Gamble (with zero or very limited direct-to-consumer sales), the combination of venue, artist, and ticket broker (eg Ticketmaster) is already equipped to handle direct consumer sales. They're quite good at doing so and their entire business model revolves around maintaining this ability.

Read that again.

Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do, from the same retail outlets that you or I also buy from.

They then raise the price.

The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me.

(And to be very clear: I don't give a fuck if scalping adds value to the artist, the venue, the scalper themselves, or any entity other than myself. You can keep trying to persuade me to believe that I am motivated by something other than my own self-interest, but you'll just be wasting your time.)

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#372

Post by 9rx »

ssl-3 wrote: post #371
9rx wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They instead buy truckloads of tickets at retail prices Clearly that's not true. Retail charges what the consumer is willing to pay. If the tickets were sold retail there would be no consistent arbitrage opportunity. There may have been some point in history where artists tried to sell retail, which may be the source of your confusion, but nowadays these tickets are purposely sold below retail value so that they ca…

>> And unlike a manufacturer like Proctor & Gamble (with zero or very limited direct-to-consumer sales), the combination of venue, artist, and ticket broker (eg Ticketmaster) is already equipped to handle direct consumer sales. They're quite good at doing so and their entire business model revolves around maintaining this ability. Read that again. Scalpers buy tickets at the same ( retail ) price that you or I do, fr…

> Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do

The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules.

> The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me.

The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a show that cost five million dollars, which is presumably the appeal. If the risk was all on her shoulders, why would she take the risk? There'd be no incentive to. That would be insane, frankly.

I mean, I'd personally much rather watch some unknown artist in a dingy bar that can't find a market that is willing to buy tickets, but if you're attending performances where these retailers are prevalent and tickets are worth thousands of dollars I expect you are going to be disappointed if it is no different than a dingy bar experience. The five million dollar spend is necessary to appeal to the audience. Ain't nobody dropping five million big ones for no reason...

And, well, if you are like me and don't care about those big shows then scalpers aren't even involved. They aren't touching tickets from small time, unknown artists even with a ten foot pole. In that case, sure, there is no positive value to you if you have no interest in seeing Taylor Swift in the first place, but in that case Taylor Swift herself doesn't provide positive value to you either, so who gives a shit?

> You can keep trying to persuade me

Of what benefit would there be in persuading you? You're not going to find any. This might be the most hilariously out of touch thing I've read on HN yet.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#373

Post by ssl-3 »

9rx wrote: post #372
ssl-3 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And unlike a manufacturer like Proctor & Gamble (with zero or very limited direct-to-consumer sales), the combination of venue, artist, and ticket broker (eg Ticketmaster) is already equipped to handle direct consumer sales. They're quite good at doing so and their entire business model revolves around maintaining this ability. Read that again. Scalpers buy tickets at the same ( retail ) price that you or I do, fr…

> Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules. > The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me. The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift ca…

> The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules.

So that distinction about Wal-Mart was just... resolutely bullshit. You're just here to waste time. Copy.

> The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a show that cost five million dollars, which is presumably the appeal. If the risk was all on her shoulders, why would she take the risk? There'd be no incentive to. That would be insane, frankly.

I do not give a fuck about what artists like Taylor Swift consider to be a risk.

> I mean, I'd personally much rather watch some unknown artist in a dingy bar that can't find a market that is willing to buy tickets, but if you're attending performances where these retailers are prevalent and tickets are worth thousands of dollars I expect you are going to be disappointed if it is no different than a dingy bar experience. The five million dollar spend is necessary to appeal to the audience. Ain't nobody dropping five million big ones for no reason...

Ah. So without scalpers, there would be no reason to perform.

This might be the most hilariously out of touch thing I've read on HN yet. (<-- I like this line. I shall use it here, myself. Thanks!)

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#374

Post by throw1234567891 »

dbbk wrote: post #108
throw1234567891 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some tickets to big gigs coming up and they cannot be resold. On Ticketmaster.

Because it's up to the event promoter if they want to enable it

Sure, it’s still the same Ticketmaster.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#375

Post by xp84 »

9rx wrote: post #233
xp84 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but - I think one could make the case that if tickets were sold via a lottery and non-transferable, the average lottery participant would be a bigger fan of $ARTIST than the average person who can afford the scalped price for a ticket today. Arguably if rich people are just buying the $1000 concert tickets just to flex and take pictures for IG, that's a seat that could be going to a 17-year-old who loves the b…

> The 17-year-old meanwhile may never get to go to a show of any of their favorite bands Back in my day 17-year-olds, especially those who would want to attend concerts, were interested in discovering music. Some of those discoveries would absolutely be artists selling out stadiums where tickets can sell for 10x face value, sure. But some of those discoveries were artists relegated to playing in dingy bars where a co…

I think that's a great question! I however don't know any youths so I have no idea how what we called "The Scene" operates today -- other than it has to have changed a lot, since we had to discover bands by word of mouth or by noticing the bands who opened for the more popular bands. Sure, we had Napster and KaZaA, but we needed to first know what to search for.

Maybe teens today discover bands from the 20% of the time that the "music" credit on TikTok isn't incorrectly " original audio" or from Shazaming what they hear on TikTok. But I agree with you actually that whatever happens with the arena superstars it's a good thing if young fans discover and connect with the smaller acts touring in small venues.

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#376

Post by 9rx »

ssl-3 wrote: post #373
9rx wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules. > The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me. The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift ca…

> The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules. So that distinction about Wal-Mart was just... resolutely bullshit. You're just here to waste time. Copy. > The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a…

> So that distinction about Wal-Mart was just... resolutely bullshit.

No. It's the same market dynamic. Artists with a large market sell their tickets below fair consumer market value for the same reason manufacturers with a large market do. There is tremendous value in letting a middleman buy your product in bulk. Hence why the producer is willing to see the point of value go for a reduced price.

> I do not give a fuck about what artists like Taylor Swift consider to be a risk.

Her fans do, though. It affects their experience engaging with her. If you aren't a fan then it doesn't really matter, does it?

> So without scalpers, there would be no reason to perform.

Not at all. Why respond before giving even a modicum of thought?

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#377

Post by paintbox »

ssl-3 wrote: post #356
EdgeExplorer wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty niche problem compared to the every-ticket-of-every-big-show scalper problem. This affects Also, solvable. Everyone needs an ID that matches ticket or to be accompanied by someone with an ID that matches a ticket purchased in the same transaction (cap number of non-ID tickets per ID ticket, don't let people appearing over 30 in on a non-ID ticket). Then, when buying tickets, allow specifying a named…

That's one problem. I can think of many other instances of other problems. If you cannot do so, then you aren't really following along very well.

How many solutions can you think of?

Re: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans

#378

Post by aczerepinski »

dataflow wrote: post #241
aczerepinski wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real solutions to scalping are to impact supply/demand by increasing supply (extra show in each city) or lower demand (raise prices). As a jazz fan I don’t know much about shows that sell out and attract scalpers, but I’m curious why the artists don’t double prices to cut out middlemen.

> by increasing supply Er, I don't feel like you're thinking of what "supply" means here. We can't clone humans (yet). How many times do you expect a singer to sing in each city in a tour?

Jazz clubs book the same act for a week at a time. If there’s enough demand to fill a stadium for 4 nights in a row for a pop star, that sounds super efficient to me.
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