8 ms·

I was having the same question. Original situation: tickets are priced too low, and sell out almost immediately, with scrapers buying much of the tickets, then

• exq 4y ago
  Do you have a source for the last sentence?
  • kolbe 4y ago
    I think he's using logic.
  • lesuorac 4y ago
    The secondary market is sometimes the primary market. John Oliver did a bit on this awhile ago on how artists will get large blocks of tickets that they immediately put onto the resale market. Has a nice benefit of the show being almost immediately sold out plus doesn't it has slightly better optics since its not as obvious the venue/artist is "reselling" the ticket for a multiple of the "original" cost. https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY?t=1023 https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY?t=1023
• nicoburns 4y ago
  You can ban resale (except at face value), and enforce this technologically. Some people are doing this already.
  • notch656a 4y ago
    How will you prove whether it was resold at face value or not? I could see a 'refund' and then it replenishes on the website, and then ID verification to use it. Like refundable airline tickets with a fixed price.
    • brianwawok 4y ago
      Yah you just force ID and you can trade back your ticket. Only get refund if they resell it.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • batty_alex 4y ago
      Names get associated with a ticket and they refuse entry if you bought a scalped ticket. You’re told to ask for a refund from the scalper
  • daniel_reetz 4y ago
    Yep. I'm using a no-good horrible app called "DICE" to access smaller venues here in LA. One of the simple tricks is that they don't show you the ticket until just before the show. Can't be seen, can't be sold.
    • Tsiklon 4y ago
      Interesting - I actually like the experience of using DICE here in London, UK. The UX I thought is pretty neat, presenting me with the artists I’ve told them I like to listen to. I thought the ticket experience is pretty cool too.
      • daniel_reetz 4y ago
        I don't think any app holding my tickets should also request my entire address book and other data to give me those tickets. Otherwise it's kinda sorta fine.
        • Tsiklon 4y ago
          On iOS that’s entirely optional. But that’s a very valid position. I also detest when apps do this.
    • lancesells 4y ago
      I've used DICE in NYC and Berlin. I like the app.
    • varenc 4y ago
      I hate Dice. Mainly because of their instance of getting your phone number and requiring their phone app to use your ticket. But almost every time a venue is selling tickets on Dice I've discovered that they're also for sale on Resident Advisor (https://ra.co/ https://ra.co/) for ~5% cheaper. And RA let's you get PDF tickets.
  • thunky 4y ago
    > You can ban resale (except at face value) In this scenario, the band+seller are leaving money on the table again.
    • nicoburns 4y ago
      And this is a problem why?
      • thunky 4y ago
        This of it like this: scalpers are currently taking money away from artists. Banning ticket resale would prevent scalpers from profiting, but does nothing to help the artists capture the money they've been missing all along. You may or may not consider that to be a problem.
    • unethical_ban 4y ago
      Some bands prioritize access to their shows for all incomes over maximizing profit.
      • thunky 4y ago
        How do they do this, free shows?
        • relaxing 4y ago
          Yes.
          • thunky 4y ago
            That's nice, but not really relevant to the thread.
        • unethical_ban 4y ago
          Are you being serious? By setting the price to something acceptable to them and not tolerating scalpers who try to push the prices up.
• akudha 4y ago
  Life is too short and there are big problems to deal with - my grocery bill went up by 25% in the last couple of months, and my salary is still the same. My rent went up by more than 9% this year. I don’t feel bad for people dropping hundreds, thousands of dollars to watch a band or a comic. I don’t feel bad for TM either - they are a monopoly. The Whole situation is just terrible. Same for sports events Me - I’m happy watching my favorite artists on YouTube or buying their singles or MP3s wherever available.
  • lancesells 4y ago
    I agree with you and food and shelter are way more important but culture is important. I live in NYC and it's very easy for me to see artists I listen to for ~$35 every other night of the week. I can easily skip big, expensive acts and not really be missing out on anything. But there are many people living in an area that don't have an opportunity to see smaller acts and only get access to stadium type shows in the closest major city. It's a shame people are missing out on culture due to monopolistic greed. You'll never remember the time watching an artist on YouTube but you would certainly remember going to their concert. The same as sports.
    • thunky 4y ago
      There aren't enough seats at these events to make it possible for everyone that wants the cultural experience to have it. If you accept this as true, how do you propose tickets are distributed, if not to the highest bidder?
      • akudha 4y ago
        I don’t have an answer to your question. That said, if every experience is sold to the highest bidders, only rich people can experience these events, isn’t it? Maybe I am just old - what is so special about these events anyway? Everything is expensive, it is super crowded, everyone around you is sweaty, many drunk/high…
        • thunky 4y ago
• mschuster91 4y ago
  > Current situation: tickets are priced at market value thanks to dynamic pricing, so they no longer sell out instantly And that means that ordinary working class people can't afford a lot of concerts any more. Entertainment only for the rich elites, bravo.
  • stonemetal12 4y ago
    They couldn't go anyway considering the only way to get a ticket was to pay a scalper the 2k now going to the artist. Economics would suggest making it affordable to average joes means staying in town for a while and doing 15 shows instead of 2.
  • Karsteski 4y ago
    Well we can go to concerts. Just not the expensive ones.
  • eropple 4y ago
    You're right, and this is the thing that's frustrating about the conversations here--I guess I'm not surprised that this is an audience that doesn't get it. A lot of music acts, even popular ones, were broke as hell for a long time. It is reasonable and, I think, actively laudable to want folks who are not of the Patagonia-jacket class to be able to see them live for a reasonable price. There is a point where decent people can go "y'know, I make enough money" and not seek to squeeze out every ounce of blood from that stone; those same decent people can find it objectionable that other people attempt to do so on top of it. Not everything must be profit-maximized. Sometimes things like "bringing joy" might actually be more valuable. And even if you are a meat-variant paperclip maximizer, there's obvious value into getting people who do not make onewheel-through-San-Francisco money into your music or your art. The people who currently make that money are usually older and will eventually age out. I still go see certain 90's bands every time they roll through in no small part because I saw them as a kid and I think they're fun.
    • benji-york 4y ago
      I think I am in total agreement with your comment and I have another angle to add for your consideration: Assume someone wanted to sell highly sought-after tickets for less than the market clearing (profit maximizing) price—as you suggest. Lowering the price will increase demand (because more people can afford them). We now have more demand for the tickets; how will that demand be expressed? Will some people stand in line for days to get the tickets? Is that a form of payment that some people can "pay" more easily that others because they are "richer" in disposable time? Will some people write software to shave milliseconds off of their ticket-buying reaction time? Is that a form of payment that some people can "pay" more easily than others because they have the requisite skills? Will some people pay others to do the above (or something similar)? It seems to me that these are all forms of payment and that the total payment (in currency or otherwise) will approximate the market-clearing price in pure currency from the other scenario. What do you think?
• pedrogpimenta 4y ago
  I think the premise is wrong because: - "tickets are prices too low": What do you mean by "too low"? Is the price that's set by the people involved low? Or is it what they think the value of the ticket is? - Can you imagine if bananas were now $50 per banana? I mean, if there was only ONE company selling them, it would actually probably have already happened. So that would ultimately be the "market value".
  • anoonmoose 4y ago
    What's the price of a GPU- the MSRP or the current bid for the only one available on eBay? In my opinion, it's the value I can actually buy the thing for.
    • pedrogpimenta 4y ago
      Key difference: > the only one available vs > all the tickets since day one
      • anoonmoose 4y ago
        I don't think there's a difference there. If there are no GPUs available for MSRP and dozens or hundreds available for 2-3x MSRP, the price is 2-3x MSRP. Whether it's day one or day N, the price is what you can buy it for that day.
        • matwood 4y ago
          Exactly. And people forget that market prices do not always go up. I've been to quite a few sporting events where I bought scalped tickets day of for less than face value. Tickets have expirations like options do. No seller wants to be still holding tickets when the event starts.
        • pedrogpimenta 4y ago
          That's not what we're comparing. > If there are no GPUs available for MSRP and dozens or hundreds available for 2-3x MSRP. If you want to extrapolate, it should be > Last year's $100 model has been selling for $500 on ebay. The new one would cost $110 but because of that, we'll now price it $550, because people pay for that. But hey, if you agree with that, you agree with that. I don't.
• mattgreenrocks 4y ago
  The crux of it is this change was implemented at a time when people are already being squeezed five ways from Sunday by everything else. It may feel more fair that the fastest clickers win and ticket prices don't change (and many people don't get them) versus the fastest clickers get the cheapest tickets and other people have to pay 2-5x as much.
• MrPatan 4y ago
  Everybody understands economics. Everybody pretends not to when it's in their benefit.
• trynewideas 4y ago
  > Fans are furious! Fans who remember when Ticketmaster didn't have a vertical monopoly on arena tours are furious at how everything they warned other fans or the industry about 20 years ago came boringly true. Fans who had a slim chance of affording a $60 ticket that they had a slim chance of actually buying under the old model are furious because now they have a zero chance of affording any ticket to any in-demand show. Fans who could always afford and always bought $250 tickets, whether through resellers under the old model or first parties under the new model, are less angry but still have complaints about how Ticketmaster is still as bad 20 years into selling tickets online at the actual ticket sales motion - carts getting dumped out before the end of the transaction, timeouts due to overloaded infrastructure, bad venue experiences. (Resellers could actually exchange money for goods and services about as well as or better than TM, and when the tickets were legit they actually got you into the venue 100% of the time.) All three face the same core problem - Ticketmaster's monopoly makes their lives worse. Artists _who are big enough for TM to pay attention to_ are about the only typically shorted party who like how this played out. The rest of the industry is basically locked out with few or no alternatives depending on the market.
• unethical_ban 4y ago
  Some bands don't want to maximize their profits. Shocker: Some artists want people of all incomes to enjoy their work. But allowing scalpers/TM to do pure market pricing can fuck over the ability for a lower-middle income person to see these kinds of shows that to them might be the equivalent cost of a weeklong vacation. Therefore, the idea (which should be at the discretion of the artist and only the artist, to hell with TM) is "charge an affordable price and ban scalping". Scalping can be controlled by technology; making sure any resales/transfers of ticket ownership go through the ticketing agency and only for the original price.
• polio 4y ago
  I think it's worth mentioning that price is only one way to allocate the scarce resource. What strikes me as better socially and for the liveliness of the audience is to offer discounts to the top 25% of fans, as determined by Spotify or Apple Music, and then let the free market fill in the rest. Some balance of this would let regular fans get a shot while also maximizing revenue for the other block of tickets.