Why? Yeah, this drives up the price, but so what? People won’t buy above their high point. (Okay, creating additional scarcity might make them value tickets more, but that applies to everything.) If attendence is a right, why sell tickets in the first place? Why not just hand them out and ask for donations/sell goodies/get funding from charities? Or sell them but have a tax to give the poor free tickets, as in ancient Greece? Sweet Ricardo, what has become of us?
The ticket brokering industry is created as part of a conspiracy on the part of concert promoters. Promoters prefer to slightly (and often grossly) underprice a show and guarantee an instant sell-out rather than have to deal with the uncertainty of perfectly pricing a show such that it sells out at the door.
Seriously, all the antagonism fans have towards ticket brokers is 90% misplaced and instead should be directed towards reforming the system that is not intended to put tickets in the hands of fans at the price they want to pay.
That sounds like rational individual action by the promoters, not a conspiracy. They want to be sure their concerts will sell out and price them accordingly. In so doing, the total takings may be lower than at a price that only just fills the hall, but in return they get a visible sign of success. The difference in takings is what they choose to pay to buy this advertising. Or less than this if they also get part of the takings of official resellers.
This isn’t the only possible arrangement—they could adopt the airlines’ method of selling tickets cheap a long way in advance and ramping up the prices as the date approaches. Or sell them by auction, or by lottery, or anything else. I am not seeing much of a problem in underpricing for direct sales and allowing a secondary market. A concert that sells out has, by definition, put tickets into the hands of as many fans as possible.
Where there are both official resellers and laws against private reselling, presumably the laws are to protect the official resellers’ monopoly, paid for by the industry and passed under the pretence of yielding to the demands of fans. That would be something in need of reform.
This isn’t the only possible arrangement—they could adopt the airlines’ method of selling tickets cheap a long way in advance and ramping up the prices as the date approaches.
A puzzle: why don’t event organizers sell tickets in advance as in the airlines’ model? More generally, why don’t they practice more price discrimination, especially given the professed aim of underpricing tickets (favoring their poorer but still dedicated fans)? Does the less concentrated nature of the event/venue industry make a difference?
I am not seeing much of a problem in underpricing for direct sales and allowing a secondary market.
It’s just occurred to me that this is the way that IPOs work. A company going public wants its offering to sell out promptly, to get the money it went public to raise. A consensus value is established in subsequent trading, and if the people who bought into the initial offering see their holdings immediately bump up in value, they’re happy too.
A low cost, and a “first come, first serve” system seems to reasonably favor those who have a genuine interest in attending. I’m sure there’s probably better systems for that, but neither of your suggestions seems to accomplish the goal of distributing a limited resource (tickets) to those who would get the most benefit from them.
A minimal barrier to entry (say, a $10 ticket) weeds out those who have lots of time, but no real interest in attending—otherwise the tickets would probably routinely get wasted by those who snagged them for free, but had low odds of actually attending the event.
A high barrier to entry (say, $200 per ticket) weeds out those who have low income, regardless of their interest in attending.
A random lottery doesn’t favor anyone, and thus those who are going for a whim have equal chances to those who have been dying to see The Really Good Band Reunion Tour ever since they heard about it in 2005.
Off the top of my head: $200 per ticket, free tickets if you have low income and fill appropriately annoying paperwork as a barrier to entry. (Or the latter only regardless of income.) Or a random lottery plus scalping (those who don’t want to attend all that much selling to hardcore fans).
Scalpers want to avoid finding themselves with unsold tickets. (Though maybe they don’t, if it makes sold tickets much more expensive.) If it frequently happens then scalping benefits neither scalper nor customer, so there’s a paternalistic reason to ban it.
Edit: Actually, scratch that—sell tickets and the right to resell them separately.
(those who don’t want to attend all that much selling to hardcore fans).
You’re still assuming that “fan of the band” correlates with “rich”. Hardcore fans can still be poor.
$200 per ticket, free tickets if you have low income and fill appropriately annoying paperwork as a barrier to entry.
This require more bureaucratic overhead and administration. Then there’s the hassle of figuring out what percentage of tickets get reserved for the low-income, and the social outrage on both sides regardless of what ratio you decide on. Then there’s the outrage from low income people being asked to do pointless paperwork just to prove they really love the band.
Potentially solvable, but what benefit does this give you that makes it worth those transitional costs?
You’re still assuming that “fan of the band” correlates with “rich”.
No, just that fans are willing to spend more (so I’m assuming the lack of a strong negative correlation). I don’t mean to be crass, but being able to afford more things is sort of the point of being rich. (I keep getting those ideas for schemes where you pay a fixed percentage of your income.)
Yeah, okay, my suggested solutions suck. My outrage actually came from banning (and disapproving of) scalping. But I was wrong, it isn’t a “selling is legal, that’s protecting a monopoly” situation. The right to sell the right to attend isn’t the right to attend. But it shouldn’t be a banned commodity, it should be sold as well by the organization that sells the tickets (at prohibitively high prices if they hate scalping).
Given the existence of ticket resellers, I’d assume it’s possible for a retailer to mark tickets as “approved for resale”, although I’d expect the nuances vary by jurisdiction. Certainly, plenty of concerts charge sufficiently to exclude a large portion of people due to income, so the goals outlined above are moot for at least some concerts. Certainly, I’d support the ability of retailers to sell “scalping rights” or not at their own discretion.
I don’t mean to be crass, but being able to afford more things is sort of the point of being rich.
I’m quite aware of the privileges of wealth. I’d assume the point of this sort of social policy is to offset exactly that...
Why? Yeah, this drives up the price, but so what? People won’t buy above their high point. (Okay, creating additional scarcity might make them value tickets more, but that applies to everything.) If attendence is a right, why sell tickets in the first place? Why not just hand them out and ask for donations/sell goodies/get funding from charities? Or sell them but have a tax to give the poor free tickets, as in ancient Greece? Sweet Ricardo, what has become of us?
The ticket brokering industry is created as part of a conspiracy on the part of concert promoters. Promoters prefer to slightly (and often grossly) underprice a show and guarantee an instant sell-out rather than have to deal with the uncertainty of perfectly pricing a show such that it sells out at the door.
Seriously, all the antagonism fans have towards ticket brokers is 90% misplaced and instead should be directed towards reforming the system that is not intended to put tickets in the hands of fans at the price they want to pay.
That sounds like rational individual action by the promoters, not a conspiracy. They want to be sure their concerts will sell out and price them accordingly. In so doing, the total takings may be lower than at a price that only just fills the hall, but in return they get a visible sign of success. The difference in takings is what they choose to pay to buy this advertising. Or less than this if they also get part of the takings of official resellers.
This isn’t the only possible arrangement—they could adopt the airlines’ method of selling tickets cheap a long way in advance and ramping up the prices as the date approaches. Or sell them by auction, or by lottery, or anything else. I am not seeing much of a problem in underpricing for direct sales and allowing a secondary market. A concert that sells out has, by definition, put tickets into the hands of as many fans as possible.
Where there are both official resellers and laws against private reselling, presumably the laws are to protect the official resellers’ monopoly, paid for by the industry and passed under the pretence of yielding to the demands of fans. That would be something in need of reform.
A puzzle: why don’t event organizers sell tickets in advance as in the airlines’ model? More generally, why don’t they practice more price discrimination, especially given the professed aim of underpricing tickets (favoring their poorer but still dedicated fans)? Does the less concentrated nature of the event/venue industry make a difference?
Perhaps people who plan a long time in advance aren’t fun to have in the audience.
It’s just occurred to me that this is the way that IPOs work. A company going public wants its offering to sell out promptly, to get the money it went public to raise. A consensus value is established in subsequent trading, and if the people who bought into the initial offering see their holdings immediately bump up in value, they’re happy too.
A low cost, and a “first come, first serve” system seems to reasonably favor those who have a genuine interest in attending. I’m sure there’s probably better systems for that, but neither of your suggestions seems to accomplish the goal of distributing a limited resource (tickets) to those who would get the most benefit from them.
A minimal barrier to entry (say, a $10 ticket) weeds out those who have lots of time, but no real interest in attending—otherwise the tickets would probably routinely get wasted by those who snagged them for free, but had low odds of actually attending the event.
A high barrier to entry (say, $200 per ticket) weeds out those who have low income, regardless of their interest in attending.
A random lottery doesn’t favor anyone, and thus those who are going for a whim have equal chances to those who have been dying to see The Really Good Band Reunion Tour ever since they heard about it in 2005.
Off the top of my head: $200 per ticket, free tickets if you have low income and fill appropriately annoying paperwork as a barrier to entry. (Or the latter only regardless of income.) Or a random lottery plus scalping (those who don’t want to attend all that much selling to hardcore fans).
Scalpers want to avoid finding themselves with unsold tickets. (Though maybe they don’t, if it makes sold tickets much more expensive.) If it frequently happens then scalping benefits neither scalper nor customer, so there’s a paternalistic reason to ban it.
Edit: Actually, scratch that—sell tickets and the right to resell them separately.
You’re still assuming that “fan of the band” correlates with “rich”. Hardcore fans can still be poor.
This require more bureaucratic overhead and administration. Then there’s the hassle of figuring out what percentage of tickets get reserved for the low-income, and the social outrage on both sides regardless of what ratio you decide on. Then there’s the outrage from low income people being asked to do pointless paperwork just to prove they really love the band.
Potentially solvable, but what benefit does this give you that makes it worth those transitional costs?
No, just that fans are willing to spend more (so I’m assuming the lack of a strong negative correlation). I don’t mean to be crass, but being able to afford more things is sort of the point of being rich. (I keep getting those ideas for schemes where you pay a fixed percentage of your income.)
Yeah, okay, my suggested solutions suck. My outrage actually came from banning (and disapproving of) scalping. But I was wrong, it isn’t a “selling is legal, that’s protecting a monopoly” situation. The right to sell the right to attend isn’t the right to attend. But it shouldn’t be a banned commodity, it should be sold as well by the organization that sells the tickets (at prohibitively high prices if they hate scalping).
Given the existence of ticket resellers, I’d assume it’s possible for a retailer to mark tickets as “approved for resale”, although I’d expect the nuances vary by jurisdiction. Certainly, plenty of concerts charge sufficiently to exclude a large portion of people due to income, so the goals outlined above are moot for at least some concerts. Certainly, I’d support the ability of retailers to sell “scalping rights” or not at their own discretion.
I’m quite aware of the privileges of wealth. I’d assume the point of this sort of social policy is to offset exactly that...