> Scalpers are 100% middle-men who don't add value. The tickets would sell at base cost. All they do is artificially inflate the value of tickets.
Economic theory would say that
1) value, in contrast to price, is personal. Everything has a different value to everyone. For instance, it's a good bet French books have more value to me than to you, because I actually speak that language.
2) inflating value is impossible. Cannot be done
So scalpers inflate the price, not the value. And only because of an inefficient market. Why is a lower price market inefficient ? It's not at equilibrium. That means there are either shortages or oversupply. And indeed : your complaint points out exactly that : a shortage.
The scalpers actually do provide services for that profit :
1) they maintain ticket availability far beyond the original sale
2) they take risk away from the artist (some scalpers even in cooperation with the artist)
(I bet real scalpers would also point out that both of these, the investment and the extended availability involve actual work that needs to be done. As in answering mails, posting stuff online, going out to sell the tickets, ...)
So you're wrong on both fronts. They neither inflate value, nor do they lack services.
And frankly, the only person who can solve this for real is the artist : if they find a way to do enough shows so everyone can watch, that is (obviously) the only way to guarantee everyone can make it. This is not hard, but because of the risk rarely done. Ironically, more and earlier scalping is one of the things that would make it a lot easier for the artist to do this, at least financially. Some artists do this, but perhaps that is more work for less (average) reward for the artist.
Given these incentives, I would expect firstly that artists and venues would scalp tickets themselves, and secondly that all attempts at stomping out scalping will both make the problem worse and merely be a method to guarantee more profit for the designated scalpers. Of course in practice those are also exactly the people who don't want to take the financial risk, and so you'll have pussyfooting all around, lack of conviction, general complaints by everyone, and screwups.