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Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

arstechnica.com

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Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#41

Post by hnuser123456 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #30
hnuser123456 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that scalpers can buy a significant portion of tickets at initial pricing and artificially drive up demand when the event says they're "sold out". Plus, many events like to set low initial prices to try to get money flowing in earlier, and raise prices closer to the day of the event, which makes them a potential "investment" for people who have no plans to attend.

The demand is the demand. TM should just set the initial price higher. This will discourage scalpers because their return is lower and their risk is higher. Fans will get to see the concert if they are willing to pay. If they aren't, then the price is too high, or the tickets will go to other fans who value them more.

But many concertgoers buy their tickets early specifically to get the discount. The discount over later pricing is a valid marketing tactic. Airlines also raise seat prices closer to the day of the flight to encourage people to buy earlier ahead of time.

If Ticketmaster enjoys such market dominance, they become responsible to prevent widespread misuse of their own platform, lest they become negligent. They are owned by livenation which is a public company.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#42

Post by privatelypublic »

reaperducer wrote: post #32
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #2

There is no reason that event tickets couldn't be sold similarly to airline seats.

There is no reason that event tickets couldn't be sold similarly to airline seats. Charge extra for each armrest. Charge extra for priority entry to the venue. Charge to bring in a purse. Charge to sit next to your family. Charge for adequate leg room. Earn points that become worth less and less as they accumulate.

Sounds like you haven't been to a venue in a while. Your snark is reality for everything but loyalty points.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#43

Post by Zigurd »

101008 wrote: post #33

I love going to concerts and love going to sport events. Ticketmaster is awful, but most of the ticketing platforms are. I always talked with fellow friends how we would love to start a new startup for this, for selling tickets, a fair one, etc. But of course people in the industry wouldn't want it. Really a shame, because it would be one of those cases where I'd be working on somethign that excites me so I would giv…

Not investable until Ticketmaster/Live Nation is broken up and the venues sold off.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#44

Post by mandevil »

Zigurd wrote: post #8
rtkwe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expand on what you mean by that?

You can't resell a plane ticket. You can get a credit or cancel the purchase depending on the airline's terms. But there is no secondary market in plane tickets. If you show up at the airport and your ID doesn't match the name on the ticket, the ticket is invalid.

That is a (relatively) new thing, however- at least in the US. Prior to the September 11th security reforms there no ID checks against tickets, and you could resell them. This was so commonplace that one US airline (People's Express) back in the 1980's did all their tickets paid in cash after you boarded. They had no idea who would be on a flight at all until the boarding started!

(You can see this in the spoof movie Airplane II: The Sequel from 1982, where our hero boards the Lunar Shuttle buying a ticket from a scalper.)

So this policy is younger than Google.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#46

Post by [deleted] »

KumaBear wrote: post #16
pavel_lishin wrote: post #6

We bought $700 tickets to see a show we really wanted to see, but ended up being unable to make it. We tried selling it on Ticketmaster, where you can in theory set your own price, or accept their "best offer". Our best offer was somewhere in the neighborhood of $150, and given that it was the night of the show, we accepted it. We paid $54 per ticket in "processing fees" when purchasing, and paid $50 in more "process…

Solution that might be anti user friendly. Tickets are bought and assigned to a persons name at time of purchase. They can only be refunded at cost and resold at cost to buyers. Release of tickets refunded shall be reposted for resell at a random time after attempting a refund. This will however allow people to pay for bots that will purchase tickets on their behalf. But I believe a verification system can prevent th…

[deleted]

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#47

Post by saaaaaam »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #12

Not in any way to defend Ticketmaster's unscrupulousness, but my undergraduate university used TM for the student football tickets and we had none of the unfairness, which leads me to agree with the sentiments that TM is actually following the will of the artists / event managers. At school, we could sell our tickets to other students gray-market, and just "transfer" them for "free" in the TM app without issue. They…

The FTC lawsuit specifically alleges that Ticketmaster deceived both consumers and artists.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#48

Post by solumos »

vlucas wrote: post #27

There is no business that I hate more than TicketMaster. In 2016, the OKC Thunder were making a playoff run. They just advanced to the finals and tickets were set to "go on sale to the public" at 10am on a certain day. I signed up for an account, got logged in, etc. and kept refreshing the page around 10am that day, card in hand to buy. The second that time elapsed, all tickets were sold out . Yet somehow thousands o…

Ticket brokers control 85%+ of the market. The problem is that they’re completely insulated from any scrutiny by the platforms (Stubhub and Vividseats actively work with larger ticket brokers as well). Punishing Ticketmaster doesn’t really change that dynamic.

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#49

Post by rstupek »

fnordlord wrote: post #35
zer00eyz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NO Scalping has existed since forever. The thing was it was local promoters + local sales (aka criminals) who would get tickets from management (yes thats the artists management) and kick the money back to the artist if they were lucky (if not the management kept it). Now TM owns the venue, they are the promotor, they are the manager(to an extent) and have full control of the tickets, and the secondary market. The ar…

By the reasoning of "Now TM owns the venue, they are the promotor, they are the manager(to an extent) and have full control of the tickets, and the secondary market." I would think the artist is 100% at the mercy of TM rather than in on the game. With that kind of control, why would they share with the artist?

Without the artist there's nothing to sell?

Re: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

#50

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

quickthrowman wrote: post #36
leakycap wrote: post #4

Hard to care what happens to a company like TicketMaster. As you build your company, ask yourself how they ended up like this. Do you think the founders had this outcome in mind when they started (everyone hating them and seeing them as an evil money grab)? They probably started with a different ethos. A good reminder that what we do can change - we need to instill our values into the basics of everything we build, o…

I go to a few concerts a year and enjoy them, but the only Ticketmaster concert I’ve ever been to was last year. I paid $115 each (with fees!) for good floor seats to see Weezer, Dinosaur Jr, and the Flaming Lips in 2024. The multi hundred or multi thousand dollar event tickets are insane, I’d never pay that much for a concert. I am lucky to have local independent music venues (First Avenue in Mpls, they own a few lo…

I regularly go to smaller local venues to see shows. It usually costs ~$40, but even there the tickets are sold by Ticketweb, which of course is owned by Ticketmaster. It's cheaper, but it's impossible to get away from the evil empire.
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