[HN Gopher] How to sell tickets fairly
___________________________________________________________________
How to sell tickets fairly
Author : barnabask
Score : 191 points
Date : 2022-11-19 02:12 UTC (20 hours ago)
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| alar44 wrote:
| It's straight up supply and demand. I have no idea why anyone is
| surprised why scarce goods are expensive. Their is no solution.
| Idk unless you want to socialize entertainment or something. Give
| out entertainment credits.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I have a very valid question: if this method was used to sell
| tulips in XVII, how it can be patented in 2020?
| underyx wrote:
| > Two buyers might try for the same exact seats at the same
| moment, but that is much less likely in a slow single-bid auction
| like this
|
| Well except that everyone would try to grab the very last ticket,
| which would be the cheapest.
| patmcc wrote:
| The obvious fix to bots and scalpers is just to not allow ticket
| transfers - you give your name when you buy the ticket and show
| your ID at the door. Why this isn't the current process is left
| as an exercise to the reader.
| googlryas wrote:
| Because people drop out last minute and might want to take a
| different friend.
| kodt wrote:
| I've been to events that do this and if someone can't make it
| tough luck. But it prevents scalping at least. Every system
| has pros and cons.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Better solution is to just price the tickets higher.
| Scalpers are only taking advantage of arbitrage. This
| requires a bit of complex demand estimation up front
| though.
| iambateman wrote:
| This was the point of the article. Or at least, how to
| reduce the arbitrage incentive without the complex demand
| estimation.
| kodt wrote:
| That prices out more fans who can't afford it though,
| something that some artists are trying to avoid.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I don't see why they would outweigh the fans who want to
| make last minute changes?
|
| In any solution there are those who get the short end of
| the stick.
| googlryas wrote:
| A lot of artists don't want to perform in a venue with 20%
| empty seats
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I went to a concert that requires you to match your ticket,
| but allowed you to sell tickets on a site they control for
| the face value. I think the buyer has to pay a transaction
| fee as well.
|
| I got the tickets by signing up and they took my credit card,
| and charged me when I was next in line and someone had
| tickets for sale. It was pretty neat, though I suspect I
| lucked out because a bunch of people sold their tickets when
| they announced vaccines would be required (September 2021).
| bscphil wrote:
| "I will sell you this ticket on the marketplace for
| $facevalue if you will paypal me $500 - $facevalue"
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| There was no market place. Just fifo queues of people
| willing to buy tickets, and tickets for sale. that
| constantly works its way down to atleast one of them
| being 0.
|
| I signed up for the main concert and a few of the after
| parties, and over the next month I got emails saying I
| had purchased tickets for the various events.
| bscphil wrote:
| If that's the case then it doesn't solve the problem of
| wanting to take a different friend, unless there are
| plenty of tickets available.
| llamataboot wrote:
| And if you get sick or if you don't know if you can go but want
| to?
| [deleted]
| iopq wrote:
| I wasn't able to go to a convention because my girlfriend
| already bought plane tickets to Las Vegas. If I weren't able to
| sell the ticket, there would be no way for me to recoup the
| cost
| notyourwork wrote:
| Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem but if you
| bought steaks from a butcher and you came home to find that
| your girlfriend already prepare dinner?
| iopq wrote:
| In the system that I can resell my ticket I don't have a
| loss, in a system where it's by name I can't
|
| I believe it should be auctioned anyway, so that the people
| with the highest desire to go can put their money towards
| it. This is the most practical solution to the problem -
| the organizers get paid what the tickets are worth, anyone
| who wants to go knows how much the tickets will go for,
| scalpers become futures traders
| kodt wrote:
| Ok but what about someone with not much money, but time.
| They may be willing to camp out for several days
| (certainly desire there) but would lose out to someone
| with money who can easily afford it.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Quoting GP, "Shit happens? Lots of things have the same
| problem."
|
| If bands want to lower ticket prices then they can play
| in bigger venues or more days. Play until you don't sell
| out. Supply and demand.
| Jarwain wrote:
| The problem here is when artists want their tickets to go
| to any fan, and not just fans who have a lot of
| disposable income.
| notyourwork wrote:
| No ones buying your resold steak from the butcher. Life
| happens but that's a minority use case. Not the example
| to design around.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Not a great analogy; one "shit happens" situation has real
| physical reasons behind it that can't be changed, the other
| is simply procedural.
| musicale wrote:
| Some venues do this, but it does slow down entry (though during
| the pandemic some venues where checking IDs anyway along with
| covid test results, etc..)
|
| AXS requires that you use their app and it must be logged into
| the account that purchased the tickets. The QR codes need to be
| refreshed before entry and expire in 60 seconds.
|
| This presumably requires scalpers/bots to create an account per
| ticket purchase, and there is probably a limit on the number of
| accounts that can share the same payment method and address.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| AXS allows them to resell on their own platform, so "the
| account that purchased the tickets" doesn't have to be the
| one that _originally_ purchased the tickets.
| musicale wrote:
| Yes, it includes resale on its own platform. As I noted,
| I'm not sure this prevents scalping, but it seems like it
| would require bulk scalpers to create a large number of
| accounts, and presumably it allows AXS to take a cut and to
| monitor it.
|
| Also I believe they limit the resale markup to 10% above
| the face value. This seems good for buyers and fair to
| sellers, and it may also reduce the profit for scalpers.
|
| I imagine they could also ban resale of tickets for certain
| shows if they wanted to.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| You can also transfer tickets on their platform, so even
| if there's a cap you can go off-platform for payment and
| "transfer" (aka sell) through the platform
|
| AXS is really not invested in trying to stop scalpers,
| they do all this to defeat double use of tickets.
| musicale wrote:
| I remember Green Day doing a local show where you had to pay
| cash at the door.
|
| This seems to address botting, though scalping organizations
| can still pay people to stand in line (and presumably take a
| cut when they are paid to give up their spots.)
|
| Personally I think this approach helps out kids who have time
| to wait in line but don't necessarily have the money to pay
| huge markups and fees from the secondary market.
| malermeister wrote:
| To prevent scalping, one could just write the name of the
| person on the physical ticket at purchase time and then check
| ID at the entrance.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Indeed, maybe with a more bulletproof implementation though
| (eg. you must show the same driver's license, enforced via
| matching the pdf417 on the back at purchase and entry)
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The simple solution to getting fans rather than grifters is
| to make the tickets cost something other than money. Time is
| a nice obvious cost element to add.
|
| If only we could channel that time more productively (and in
| a more palatable way) than having people wait in line.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Sounds analogous to mining cryptocurrency with proof-of-
| work.
| culturedsystems wrote:
| Taylor Swift did do something a bit like this this for a
| previous tour - you could get early access to the ticket
| sales by doing various kinds of fan activities, including
| buying physical copies of her records, watching videos, and
| posting on social media [1]. People were kind of mad about
| it, although I think in part that was because the "fan
| activities" that gave you the best chance to get tickets
| were the ones that also involved buying things.
|
| [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/31/bad-
| blood-is-t...
| udia wrote:
| How would you measure/trade time? Other than with the
| approximation of using money.
| diiaann wrote:
| I went to Roland Garros and this is how they did it. You also
| were allowed to return the ticket to the pool and the event
| resold it at face value.
| foresto wrote:
| "Papers, please."
|
| How could it be done without invading privacy?
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Remove the reason why showing your papers is a privacy issue
| in the first place.
| musicale wrote:
| I'm not sure it can be easily.
|
| However, many venues were already checking ID for over 18/21
| shows and also covid test results during the pandemic.
|
| Also regular buyers already have to provide contact and
| payment info (usually very personally identifiable.)
|
| Some venues have tried to fight scalping by requiring
| presentation of the card used for payment - though obviously
| that disadvantages cash buyers and scalpers can still use
| burner cards which they provide with the ticket.
| stevefan1999 wrote:
| zero knowledge proof
| [deleted]
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I'm not sure "privacy preserving" is enough of a selling
| point.
| judge2020 wrote:
| This is what newer Pearl Jam concerts do - they sell on
| Ticketmaster, but made a deal where you can't transfer the
| tickets to anyone else, and must present a Photo ID upon entry
| to the venue with a name that matches the name on the billing
| address.
| glandium wrote:
| So, you can't offer tickets?
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| Ticketmaster collects a "service fee" when you resell on their
| app
| littleJeck wrote:
| Australia has a few "major events" laws aimed at preventing the
| worse of scalping. They mostly require that any reselling not
| be more than a fixed percentage of the original resale price (I
| think it's 20% from memory). While not perfect, it does prevent
| the insane ticket prices.
|
| This is all managed through an offical resale partner with
| ticket tek and ticket master. You can only transfer tickets
| officially though the site, with options to do it for no (or
| low) charge if you're sending it to a mate.
|
| I've used the service quite a bit, picking up tickets on the
| day of an event. I've had some wins buying tickets for ~30% of
| the original price, but also plenty of times paying slightly
| over the original price or I've missed one event as there were
| no available tickets. It's just something I've come to expect
| for the flexibility it provides.
|
| I think the majority of people use this service rather than
| trying a third party as it's official, easy for the seller and
| no one wants to support insane scalpers.
|
| The only problem I've seen with the system is events can elect
| to not allow reselling on the platform till the event is sold
| out. This can prevent people recouping their losses if they
| can't attend the event, and stops me from potentially getting a
| small deal.
| justinlkarr wrote:
| In New York State, it is illegal to prohibit the transfer of
| tickets, which complicates most obvious approaches to stopping
| scalpers. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ACA/25.30
| bombcar wrote:
| This appears to mainly apply to season tickets and
| subscription-based tickets, at least at first glance.
| justinlkarr wrote:
| Look at paragraph (c), a little pro-reseller nugget buried
| in an otherwise very consumer friendly law. That paragraph
| is the reason obvious anti-scalping practices can't work in
| one of the US's largest live event markets.
| judge2020 wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken, this[0] seems to be a commentary on the
| law. As I understand it after having read that article, the
| law seems to be in an effort to encourage reselling by the
| regular person in case of travel/event plans changing, while
| introducing fines to prohibit egregious scalpers. However, it
| seems it's just some fines for these activities, and I can't
| find any case where scalpers were convicted and fined under
| this statute (but maybe my Google-fu is weak).
|
| 0: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art
| ic...
| justinlkarr wrote:
| Ice is the old practice of producers (aka rights holders)
| or box office staff taking tips to make tickets available
| to resellers. This is illegal and is not common anymore.
| The era of computerized ticketing has made it much harder
| to do.
| dboreham wrote:
| John Mayer did shows here in Montana with that model. People
| still drove to the venue to get their paper tickets then handed
| over to their saplees.
| buro9 wrote:
| The proposed idea is a technical one that doesn't work for the
| promoters or artists or venues.
|
| The promoters want to know very early whether the venue is the
| right one for the number attending and whether to upsize, add
| dates, or even to go the other way to a smaller venue. The time
| to book a venue is very long... So they need as complete data as
| they can about sales as early as possible (they would love if 80%
| of the tickets that will sell can be sold in the first week - as
| then they can quickly make a decision about whether this is the
| right venue and if more dates are needed).
|
| The artists want to enable as many fans to get in as possible,
| including young and poorer fans... Who tend to be more
| evangelical about an artist and drive their growth more and
| ultimately are more loyal and spend more over the lifetime of
| being a fan. They are poorer but more sticky. The artists also
| want to play to as full a venue as possible as that is the best
| atmosphere.
|
| The venues want to have surety in their bookings (see the
| promoter dilemma as to whether to change venue) and for the
| capacity to be as close to full as possible as they will make
| more revenue from bar and food sales than from pure ticket sales.
|
| All of these... All of them... Are not solved by the technical
| solution proposed except when it doesn't matter... When you're
| absolutely sure you're going to sell out. In which case you also
| don't need to change anything or invest in anything new because
| you're going to sell out anyway.
|
| There are solutions that can threaten the current model... But
| this blog is not one of them.
|
| In fact, the idea that "I have more money and deserve more to
| have a ticket over someone that doesn't have as much money" is
| antithetical to the thinking of every artist I've ever worked
| with.
| timenova wrote:
| I agree that the idea may not be the best for promoters,
| artists or venues, however, in my opinion, it's the worst for
| buyers, specially those who cannot spend a lot of money.
|
| The process of purchasing a ticket will induce a lot of anxiety
| in the purchase process. They don't know the lowest price they
| could buy the ticket on, before it gets sold out. They have to
| pick a price and hope that it is available when the price
| reaches that value eventually. Many people may decide to go
| above their limits just to get tickets of popular concerts,
| decreasing their disposable income unnecessarily.
|
| In theory this process sounds wonderful and exactly like an
| economics textbook envisions a free-market purchase, but I
| don't think buyers will enjoy this process. There are lots of
| other factors to consider in the purchase process apart from
| economics and API rate-limiting. I don't have a better solution
| to add for this though.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > [T]he idea that "I have more money and deserve more to have a
| ticket over someone that doesn't have as much money" is
| antithetical to the thinking of every artist I've ever worked
| with.
|
| The problem is, with a limited supply of tickets you're going
| to draw the line somehow whether you want it or not. Price sets
| the barrier explicitly. Attempts to avoid using that (e.g. in
| various social welfare programs all over the world, but also
| throughout the late Soviet consumer economy) have usually ended
| up instituting a different, implicit barrier that may seem less
| outrageous on the surface but at the end of the day is not that
| much better: networking or bribery skills, amount of time to
| spend standing in queue or refreshing the website (frequently
| turned back into price by various enterprising people--I wonder
| if the US Consulate in Moscow realizes the reduction in visa
| interview capacity a couple of years ago had as its main effect
| funnelling applicants' money to a small, untaxed, and
| technically illegal industry of bot programmers).
|
| If you're trying to extract as much money from each customer as
| possible (as airlines and other "discriminating monopolies"
| do), those additional barriers might be intentional. Otherwise
| they don't seem that much better than the original money one--I
| _guess_ you could claim the most passionate fans will be able
| to buy cheap tickets that are sold out in hours (one possible
| barrier) but you're automatically cutting off people who can't
| afford the necessary time off work to monitor the sale as well,
| for example.
|
| I don't like this. But I don't see a workable economic
| mechanism that can do substantially better, either.
| dqpb wrote:
| > implicit barrier that may seem less outrageous on the
| surface but at the end of the day is not that much better
|
| Not better at all, in fact.
| manholio wrote:
| The model that works is to build relationships with fans and
| afford them privileged access, and sell everything else at
| market clearing prices.
|
| Ticketmaster tried too offer that through a "verified fan"
| route, but it failed under the weight of its own monopolistic
| ineptitude. Whoever cracks the fan management+ticketing
| service and offers it to bands will have an incredibly strong
| moat.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| How exactly do fans prove their loyalty?
| Spivak wrote:
| * Link your Spotify and see that the listening history
| for the artist goes back a while.
|
| * Require names on tickets and verify them at the door.
| Then for fan checking see if they've been to shows in the
| same scene.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| And what of fans that don't use a streaming service but
| buys their music instead?
| adolph wrote:
| You may fax your proof of purchase and box tops to the
| customer service line and send check only with a self
| addressed stamped envelope to Tempe, AZ
| manholio wrote:
| All kind of models are possible: associate your social ID
| and prove you've distributed band related content early
| in their career; associate multiple past purchases - for
| things like merchandising, fan specials, behind the
| scenes etc. etc.
|
| The main theme is giving band and labels tools to
| maintain and curate this relationship with the fanbase,
| and only then add ticketing on top of it. If you have a
| certain mass and sign multiple names from the same genre,
| you can leverage that data to "migrate" say Green Day
| fans to some new alternative/punk band and offer them
| discounts, under the assumption this could build strong
| preferences for that band in the future.
|
| Instead of maximizing present ticket revenue and
| "burning" a band's current fanbase, you maximize career-
| wide earnings, fan number and impact. That's a kind of
| moat that's unbeatable.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Doesn't this discriminate against fans that would not
| like to share their personal info. or who don't condone
| to this kind of tracking?
| telotortium wrote:
| Everything in the world discriminates against _some_
| class of people. Taylor Swift is optimizing for
| "verified fans" - i.e., people who will actively share
| how big of fans they are. It's just good business,
| because she's developing a lifetime customer base.
| Someone will need to attend the "final tours" she gives
| when she's 60, 70, 80. Also, Taylor Swift fandom is one
| of the most mainstream fandoms I can think of - there's
| little risk of a severe reputational risk for admitting
| it.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I don't see how it's any better than discriminating
| against poor fans though via selling the tickets at
| market price.
| dqpb wrote:
| > "I have more money and deserve more to have a ticket over
| someone that doesn't have as much money"
|
| The "free market" is the closest thing we have to a
| meritocracy. It's also the only mechanism we have for
| decentralized decision making.
| [deleted]
| stevage wrote:
| If you're selling Taylor Swift tickets with a floor of $20 you
| are definitely selling out any venue.
| [deleted]
| cbsmith wrote:
| Little known secret: Ticketmaster has an auction system for
| selling tickets (I believe it has actually built more than
| one). No one uses it.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| If you are sure to sell out you want to invest in such a system
| as this is the best way to extract maximum money from your
| fans. You still have a chance to sell out in the first days for
| multiple time the usual price. This system is not used as it
| will be seen very negatively by fans.
| buro9 wrote:
| My point on artists is that maximising value extraction isn't
| their priority.
|
| I worked in the industry for almost a decade, had 2 record
| labels, and signed a number of bands that became famous (for
| some definition of that) as well as worked with bands that
| were famous (for any definition of that)... so I have some
| experience here even though that experience has aged a bit.
|
| Artists are balancing revenue now, with future growth, with
| record sales, with drawing in new fans, with taking the tour
| to as wide a representation of their fanbase as possible...
| and it really truly isn't as simple as "charge the highest
| price possible".
|
| Far better models can be seen in sales of things like the
| Glastonbury Music Festival (real identity required, but
| administered by See Tickets) and Dice ( https://dice.fm/
| which allows fan to fan resale ).
|
| Those are better because 1) they limit the ability of
| scalpers, and 2) the fan-to-fan resale also allows
| flexibility (less need for thundering herd, as there are
| always people who cannot attend and now they can safely and
| respectfully sell to their peers).
|
| Both processes generate a vast amount of data on the sales
| process, as well as the resale process - which better informs
| promoters of venue sizing and ticket pricing in the future.
| Both are good platforms for future evolution of fan-to-fan
| resale in a way that can enable more of the value to be
| returned to the artist whilst balancing the other criteria
| well. What they do is provide promoters with richer data,
| which allows promoters to make better sizing and venue
| decisions earlier.
|
| To the separate questions elsewhere in the thread as to how
| to tackle Ticketmaster, the answer is to not fight them in
| their space... i.e. to not sell tickets for venues under
| their exclusive control. Here you see Dice succeeding as they
| focused on major nightclubs, including Ibiza super clubs...
| they're selling larger venues than most rock venues, on a
| daily or weekly basis... outside of Ticketmaster... with more
| revenue going to the venue, artist and promoters despite the
| ticket price only having increased a few % points.
| Ticketmaster control some large venues... but think of
| festivals, smaller venues, theatres, nightclubs...
| Ticketmaster really only are present for a small number of
| super-sized venues, more of the industry exists outside the
| Ticketmaster venues than in it. Don't go for the red ocean
| market, go for the blue ocean market (
| https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/tools/red-ocean-vs-blue-
| oc... ).
|
| Data and time create a fairer market... not exclusive venue
| control or making people pay as high a price as possible.
| dsincl12 wrote:
| Never heard of the Blue Ocean Strategy before. Super
| interesting read, thanks for mentioning it.
| andreysolsty wrote:
| Dice is fantastic. Another thing they do is allow you to
| join a waiting list for sold out events. People who have
| bought tickets and want to return them can return them to
| the waiting list (and people on the waiting list will get a
| notification offering them a few hours to purchase the
| newly returned ticket). If someone on the list buys it they
| are refunded.
| BeniBoy wrote:
| Counterpoint: Dice is terrible. Sure it makes sense for
| bigger artist that will sold out, but for most it is not
| necessary and it forces you :
|
| - To have a smartphone
|
| - To give out your phone number
|
| - To create an account
|
| The worst? You can't even resale the ticket if the event
| is not sold out! Usually if I'm unable to attend a
| concert, I'll put my ticket up for sale for half the
| price, but with Dice, you just wasted money on empty
| seats. Great.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Ticketmaster is in the news because they had trouble with
| sales for the upcoming Taylor Swift tour. I have trouble
| believing that they are worried about changing venues (I
| expect they chose the largest available in every case) or
| selling the shows out.
|
| And the number of shows is a decision that is taking into
| account a lot of factors that aren't reaching as many fans
| as possible. That's fine, no artist owes their fans
| anything, but the goal rather obviously isn't to maximize
| attendance opportunities.
| buro9 wrote:
| OK, so let's take that one specific example.
|
| Taylor Swift is huge, a megastar. She has a fanbase in
| the millions. She doesn't want to tour endlessly as it is
| exhausting and impedes upon a family life and seeing
| friends. So... a big tour, but big venues.
|
| Her fanbase is all ages, but probably veers towards teens
| and those in their twenties as she went mega-big after
| 1989 was released (in 2014).
|
| The vast majority of the fanbase are younger, and
| therefore poorer (wealth is accumulated over time, and
| the cost of living crisis hits the young
| disproportionately).
|
| Because the fanbase is so large, the minority with wealth
| could afford to purchase every ticket under a dutch
| auction and the vast majority of her fanbase wouldn't
| stand a chance.
|
| Taylor Swift is famed for doing things for her fans,
| getting them in to gigs, visiting in hospital, sending
| messages to console... and basically having empathy and
| caring for them.
|
| Can you even imagine the headlines on every front page as
| teens and twenty-year olds are priced out by older people
| who are wealthier... and the immense damage that would
| cause to a brand curated and sculpted over the past
| decade or more.
|
| In this specific instance... Taylor Swift would consider
| the proposal in the article to be the worst possible
| thing she could do. It would still be flat-out rejected.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Except extracting as many dollars as possible _isn't_ the
| goal. Many bands try to keep their tickets affordable.
|
| The solution is to break up Ticketmaster. The companies they
| gobbled up handled this fine. Imperfectly, sometimes shoes
| sold out in minutes, but the prices and the fees were fair,
| and Will Call can wipe out the scalpers.
| alar44 wrote:
| kjrose wrote:
| How does will call wipe out scalpers? I have never heard
| that before. I would love to hear the explanation.
| [deleted]
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Check IDs before handing over the tickets. Cuts resale to
| in line at the event, which tanks the efficiency of the
| resale market.
| pyrolistical wrote:
| There will still be scalpers but now they will be
| committing fraud. At the end of the day there will still
| be a large number of real fans who will be pissed will
| call rejected their ticket.
|
| The fans will need the smarten up and learn the rules.
| That would take time
| kjrose wrote:
| For music or artist based shows I agree.
|
| However this could work really well for sporting events. The
| Leafs usually sell out all of their tickets and a good number
| to scalpers, having at least a more legit way to buy tickets
| for a game would be helpful
| silvestrov wrote:
| There is the old trope that McDonalds is primarily a real
| estate business.
|
| In the same line of thinking, you could say Ticketmaster is a
| "scape goat" business so the artists and venues can get max
| profit while still coming of as innocent angels.
|
| It is now all Ticketmaster's fault. Venues and artists are
| innocent.
|
| This would explain why you can't fix it: where would the
| scapegoating go? When you have larger demand than supply, then
| prices will always be high. And when venues + artists prefer
| full venues, then demand must be higher than supply.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Seems like it's not so simple to say that ticketmaster is
| getting artists/venues max profits. If you look at how much
| money could be made by scalping (before it became harder),
| that was money people would have potentially paid to the
| artist/venue instead.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I guess I see the entertainment industry in two tiers. There
| are the mega-stars like Taylor Swift, etc. that occupy one
| tier, and then the majority off smaller artists, up and
| coming artists that represent the lower, if you like, strata.
|
| Perhaps you are describing, and perhaps the author are
| tackling the upper strata. For myself, I swore off big venues
| decades ago. If I am unable to set my beer behind the monitor
| speaker, I'm not going.
|
| I wonder if the lower strata could use a kind of "artists
| coop" to manage ticket sales. All smaller venues (bars and
| the like) could participate, all smaller artists could as
| well.
|
| I think more artists would handle selling their own tickets
| if it was easy to do. In that way the artists are served (of
| course) and presumably they will do what is best for their
| fanbase.
|
| Connecting artists and venue owners with a web portal,
| allowing ticket sales to fans via the same site shouldn't be
| heavy lifting for a lot of the readers on HN.
| swores wrote:
| > _Connecting artists and venue owners with a web portal,
| allowing ticket sales to fans via the same site shouldn 't
| be heavy lifting for a lot of the readers on HN._
|
| The tricky part isn't making the website, it's persuading
| enough people on both sides of the equation that your
| business is a better option compared to alternatives.
|
| And despite the situation with Ticketmaster it's not like
| they're literally the only tool available in a market
| waiting for a second option - there's already lots of much
| smaller ticket-selling options that you'd be competing
| with, ranging from single person PHP websites you can host
| yourself to companies with significant traction in their
| niches that are like Ticketmaster just much, much smaller.
|
| That's not to say that an idea like yours couldn't succeed,
| but the fact that lots of people could do the coding
| doesn't make it a likely, or easy, business to make
| successful.
| makestuff wrote:
| Yeah pretty much any big tech company could spin up a
| team to launch a ticket purchasing website in a year or
| so that could handle the traffic.
|
| For example, Amazon always loves adding benefits to
| prime, if they thought they could break into the ticket
| market they would do it in a heartbeat. Same with Spotify
| or Apple. If these massive corps cannot break into the
| market then why would some startup be able to?
| lotu wrote:
| Ticketmaster if I recall correctly has even stated this in
| its shareholder meetings. Artists can even get a share of
| Ticketmaster's fees.
| CPLX wrote:
| But it is all their fault. They're an obviously illegal
| monopoly that was allowed to thrive during our multi-decade
| experiment with not enforcing antitrust laws.
|
| If artists literally ALL wanted to hire a scapegoat that rips
| off fans then sure. But many don't. The fact that there's no
| other alternative is WHY it works.
|
| Also there's no such thing as "venues and artists" since they
| own the venues too. Which is another part of the overall
| problem.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The problem with Ticketmaster is the same as any
| consolidation play. If you let a middleman control the
| wholesale and retail side of the transaction, you're gonna
| get a bad deal.
|
| The solution is really simple, but the government no longer
| has the regulatory ability to do anything. You segment the
| distributor function from the retail, and end up with a bunch
| of retailers running volume driven low margin sales channels.
|
| Ticketmaster brilliantly positioned itself as distributor,
| retailer and supplier for resale. So they have an exclusive
| on a venue, get a fee for the sale, get a seller commission
| for the resale, and a buyers fee for the resale. They "own"
| the customer and the venue.
| sixo wrote:
| They also, iirc, act a bit like a specialized bank for
| venues, by paying for contracts up front (and I think I
| read also loaning money directly?) in exchange for the fee
| upside in sales and resales later. Venues want as much
| revenue as they gdt to come in as close to on sale date as
| possible. So it's "every sufficiently large company sells
| financial services", too.
| zwkrt wrote:
| In a transaction of the style of musical performances, I
| think it's inevitable that an entity like Ticketmaster
| would begin to exist. The issue is that we have a many to
| many to many relationship between fans, artists, and
| venues.
|
| In database design when you have such a pattern it is
| common that you'll have a new table to maintain the complex
| relationship. It doesn't make sense for venues to sell
| tickets because each artist has their own tour through many
| venues. Selling tickets for a tour becomes a hassle as many
| venues would have to coordinate. To complicate things,
| opening acts often switch during the course of a tour.
| Conversely, it doesn't make sense for artists to sell
| tickets because the process of coming up with the ticket
| price and negotiating with the venue and handling
| transactions and returns , etc. is not their core
| competency.
|
| This is why promoters like Live Nation exist--to bridge
| this gap and take on the capital risk necessary to put on a
| large tour. They aren't necessary but their value to venues
| and artists (the business owners) is palpable. For Taylor
| Swift to go on a world tour, an amount of centralized
| coordination makes it much easier and much less likely to
| end in financial ruin.
| dsalzman wrote:
| Make it a lottery. A toy example, instead of selling 10,000
| tickets that sell for $1000 sell 500k "lottery" tickets for $20
| each. A lucky 10,000 get to the concert. The artist/venue makes
| the same amount. Everyone gets a chance at seeing the artist for
| a reasonable price. Would work for very popular artists with
| young fans like T Swift. Lottery tickets would need to be non-
| transferable as well.
| [deleted]
| function_seven wrote:
| Non-starter. Fans would hate the uncertainty, and most of them
| would end up spending $20 and getting nothing for it.
|
| Also you have to navigate gambling laws in all the different
| states, provinces, and countries you're selling in.
|
| And you also lose the freedom to bring a different friend if
| your original date drops out.
|
| The Dutch Auction idea in the article is actually really simple
| and cuts out the complexity that comes with transfer limits,
| ID-must-match rules, etc.
| romdev wrote:
| John Oliver had an expose of all the things I already knew about
| how corrupt Ticketmaster is.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Y7uqqEFnY
| justinlkarr wrote:
| Northwestern University uses (or used) a version of this for
| their basketball team, which they call "Purple Pricing".
|
| https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2022/10/25/sports-ticket-...
| https://hbr.org/2013/05/any-business-trying-to-sell
| mrozbarry wrote:
| This isn't to be argumentative, but life isn't fair. This article
| discusses how to make buying a Taylor Swift ticket fair,
| meanwhile there are much larger social issues, like homelessness.
| I'm not a concert guy, and all the more power to those who do
| enjoy it, but it's absolutely a luxury to those that want to go.
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| Is the algorithm proposed fair in that sense? I'd argue it
| isn't anyway.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I have an idea. Hire a bunch of lobbyists to advocate legalizing
| scalping, then allow the biggest monopolist ticketing middleman
| to setup the largest resale marketplace.
|
| Then, we act surprised when "hackers" somehow are able to defeat
| the anti-bot systems and resell (with another set of fees) bulk
| quantities of tickets on said resale marketplace.
| mosseater wrote:
| An NFT solution to ticketing seems like it would be trivial given
| how NFTs operate already. One ticket could be verifiably owned by
| one person. If that person wanted to resell the ticket, there
| could be restrictions on how much they could sell it for. If bots
| can't make a profit there's no use in buying out all the tickets.
| It would also decentralize the space. Sure you need a marketplace
| for the NFT tickets, but that could easily be a open source
| software suite that the venues themselves host. Gas price will
| probably be a lot less than ticketmaster fees.
|
| Honestly it seems like the biggest problems here are that
| Ticketmaster in particular has a huge sway in the current venue
| and artist market, having contracts that require an artist or
| venue to exclusively use their ticketing system.
| bigjump wrote:
| This is what https://www.get-protocol.io/ are doing.
|
| " Tickets become tradable digital collectibles (NFTs), with a
| variety of awesome possibilities for fans & event organizers."
| tigrezno wrote:
| NFT are the solution to this problem.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| NFTs actually can't algorithmically restrict transfer prices or
| algorithmically take fees. The fee taking that happens today is
| done by an exchange as a courtesy to the "artist."
|
| This is one of the limitations of the NFT model.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| I was under the impression you can run arbitrary code in the
| blockchain?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Not even close. You are very much limited by what each
| chain's VM allows. The bitcoin VM is extremely limited. The
| EVM lifts most of those limitations. All of the VMs have a
| fee you pay based on the complexity of your program, too.
|
| You are also limited in what cryptography you can do
| because all of the data involved has to be public - so no
| private keys can be involved in that computation if you
| want them to stay private.
|
| Take the example of transaction fees on sale of NFTs. A lot
| of NFT creators wanted to be able to take X% of the sale
| price of NFTs as an ongoing royalty. Here's how that might
| have to happen if you did it algorithmically:
|
| 1. You initiate an NFT transfer that requires the creator's
| signature to be processed
|
| 2. You pay a fee to the creator and provide proof of the
| purchase price to get them to sign the transaction
|
| 3. The creator signs your transaction, completing it
|
| This step involves trusting the creator to do (3). You
| cannot automatically do (3) without the creator's private
| key being on-chain.
|
| Note that if it were a flat fee, there would be no problem
| - the transfer transaction would be able to auto-deduct the
| ETH from your account and move it to the creator's, but the
| variable fee creates problems.
| poopsmithe wrote:
| YES! I love this concept. The big clock featured in the post was
| described in a Tom Scott video[1] earlier this year. It's the
| Royal FloraHolland's flower auction in Aalsmeer. Fascinating to
| see how it worked then and how it works now. Same concept, just
| computerized and accessible remotely by bidders.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAdmzyKagvE
| littleJeck wrote:
| I could imagine the Dutch auction would only change the strategy
| of scalpers, besides being a massive money grab for artists,
| venues and ticket master.
|
| The strategy for scalpers now appears to be get in as fast as
| possible and buy as many tickets as they can. But if we can
| assume the event will sellout completely and there is sufficient
| demand (e.g. Taylor Swift which I think I read would need to do
| 900 concerts to meet the initial demand) then scalpers could
| still win. Scalpers would just need to set a desired amount of
| tickets to buy and attempt to buy them at the last possible
| moment. They will get the tickets for the cheapest price for the
| event and could then sell them for a markup.
|
| I think people would buy the scalpers tickets since they may have
| been waiting to see how low the prices can get, or they are able
| to obsess over remaining ticket numbers like a bot could and just
| missed out.
|
| The only benefit I could see to the Dutch auction is it increases
| risk to scalpers by making them pay larger prices and get the
| last pick of seats, but only for events with allocated seats. So
| maybe instead of half the tickets for an event being scalped,
| they may only have the risk appetite for 10% of the tickets.
| fredophile wrote:
| Some artists and promoters are already doing a money grab and
| hiding behind scalpers to do it. For big shows, a portion of
| the tickets may be removed from retail sales entirely and go
| straight to websites that are used for scalping tickets [0].
| This let's artists be seen as offering tickets at reasonable
| rates while getting closer to market rates.
|
| [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-
| go...
| iopq wrote:
| Or, you release tickets for auction starting from 6 months prior
| slowly. Whatever the auction price is, that's what they are sold
| for. Start with the best seats, then the auction results might
| inform buyers how to bid on the next seat.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Burning Man-style ticket sale systems require a lot of extra
| workflow features, like a waiting room, ticket claim, raffle
| selection, identity confirmation. They have multiple phases of
| sales where the price increases. They have hardship tickets, if
| you can prove you simply can't afford the normal price.
|
| Resale for above original value is not allowed, and if you're
| reported the ticket may be forfeit and original seller banned.
| You can transfer a ticket to another person using their ticket
| management system, and I imagine you could also "sell back" your
| ticket to be given away at the box office as hardship tickets.
|
| Most people do buy as many as they can and sell or give away the
| extras to their friends or people on forums looking for tickets.
| While controversial, it is nice to go to an event with your
| friends, and it does feel like you're helping strangers who are
| interested enough that they hunt around on forums for a ticket.
| woeirua wrote:
| Or you could just be like Garth Brooks and keep adding shows
| until they no longer sell out. Boom, problem solved.
| duped wrote:
| There are not enough stadiums in America for Taylor Swift to do
| this
| [deleted]
| musicale wrote:
| Adding shows seems like the best response if it's possible.
|
| More work for the artist though, and for the mega-popular
| (Taylor Swift atm) it might be hard to schedule enough shows.
| mertd wrote:
| It can be less work if they have to travel to less towns in
| total.
| judge2020 wrote:
| They/she added more shows after the initial announcement[0],
| but they're still in insanely high demand.
|
| 0: 11/1 email with 27 show dates, then 11/4 additional 8 show
| dates, then 11/11 an additional 17 dates.
| Apreche wrote:
| Talk about fair distribution all you want, it doesn't matter.
| People who buy tickets are not the customers of Ticketmaster.
| Ticketmaster does not have any incentive to implement any system
| that better serves the people who actually attend ticketed
| events.
|
| The customers for Ticketmaster are venues. That's the only party
| that Ticketmaster cares to please. Of course Ticketmaster wields
| their monopoly power such that venues have little choice but to
| go with them. But even if they did not do that, Ticketmaster
| serves the interests of the venues very very well.
|
| If you want to defeat Ticketmaster with a market solution, you
| can't do it by creating a Ticketmaster competitor. No matter how
| good it is, venues can't be swayed. You will have no customers.
| The only market solution is to own venues. As a venue owner you
| could refuse to renew with Ticketmaster and use any other system
| you wanted.
|
| Of course, if you do that, good luck booking anyone to perform in
| your venue. It better be a big famous one that they can't ignore.
| ljw1004 wrote:
| In what sense is this solution "fair"? What definition of
| fairness is being used?
|
| This seems like a solution where rich people get the good things
| and poor people don't. I wouldn't call that fair.
|
| In a democracy, everyone has an equal weight, an equal say, in
| the governance of the country. We often call that fair, or
| sometimes just.
|
| In capitalism, every dollar has an equal weight, an equal say in
| what gets produced or built or done.
| dojomouse wrote:
| In the case of transferable concert tickets that's already the
| 'solution'. Even if someone 'poor' is lucky enough to beat the
| odds and buy a ticket under the current system at the initial
| offer price, they still have the same opportunity cost to weigh
| up - it's just they're deciding whether to resell their ticket
| and realise a gain, or go to the concert and forfeit the gain.
|
| This proposed system would be fairer in that it would at least
| deliver whatever the maximum amount a rich person is prepared
| to pay to the artist, rather that some scalper intermediary.
| Those at the lower end of the willingness-to-pay spectrum are
| no worse off, except to the extent that you think they're
| disproportionately lucky, disproportionality motivated (which I
| accept is possible), or are themselves looking-to/willing-to
| scalp tickets.
|
| It also seems however that it'd be pretty trivial to just
| prohibit resale of tickets and require ID at the venue.
| Artists/promoters might make less money but it'd preserve
| equality of access and largely eliminate scalping.
| wskish wrote:
| Here is the system that the Grateful Dead developed to bypass
| Ticketmaster BITD:
|
| https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/gdead/faq/tickets.html
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's a trivially solvable problem to engineers because it's not
| an engineering problem. They want all the hype and rush. It's
| become a piece of culture to "wait in line."
|
| I once had a company put me in an async queue for months to wait
| for my brand new gadget. I wish Sony had done the same with the
| PS5.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > I once had a company put me in an async queue for months to
| wait for my brand new gadget. I wish Sony had done the same
| with the PS5.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/21/23020823/sony-direct-play...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 90 mins after the article was posted it was updated with
| "sold out". Was this not a real long-term queue?
| conductr wrote:
| The psychology of people waiting and wanting to give relatively
| large sums of money away is absolutely what's being optimized.
| The proposal from author is quite the opposite as it encourages
| waiting or leaves you wondering if you overpaid as a consumer.
| Probably not the psychology that's best for business.
| punnerud wrote:
| In Norway you are not allowed to sell the tickets to a higher
| price, than the listing price.
|
| You can actually go through with the buying from a third party,
| and demand a refund for the additional price afterward (and keep
| the ticket)
| ripe wrote:
| Yes, I think this kind of price-reducing auction would work and
| would be fair and not user hostile.
|
| For Taylor Swift's tickets, I wonder what the starting price
| would need to be at a typical Northeast venue like Gillette
| Stadium...
| e-clinton wrote:
| This model assumes that everyone is just sitting around paying
| attention to your concern tickets. If I see your prices are
| $2000/seat, I will just find somewhere else go spend my $300.
| bo1024 wrote:
| I think this is great if your goal is to clear the market at a
| competitive price. But a lot of artists want to sell tickets
| below market price. That makes the problem a lot harder. The
| obvious thing to do is have a lottery, but it's hard to stop
| people from using multiple identities (especially scalpers).
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| > But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price
|
| And I want to experience being a dragon, unicorn, billionaire,
| etc. We can want impossible things, but ignore reality at our
| own peril.
|
| You can't "beat" the market, you just force the market
| underground (black market, scalpers). The market ALWAYS pays
| what it can afford. If demand is greater than supply, and
| someone is willing to pay more for it, refer to Economics 101.
| blowski wrote:
| The market! The market! The market! This invisible beast
| which controls everything for all eternity!
|
| There are always ways of influencing the market. Taxes,
| subsidies, regulations, advertising. It requires imagination,
| but let's not feel ourselves enslaved completely to the
| invisible hand of the new leviathan.
| listenallyall wrote:
| "Influencing the market" is just a way of introducing
| unenforcable or ineffective rules, or unintended
| consequences. You want to tax resale of tickets at above
| face value at 100%? Sure. Now enforce it. I mean, it's been
| illegal in many states for a while now anyway.
|
| Back in the day, before the web, anyone who wanted a ticket
| at face value could get one. You just had to wait in line.
| For a long time. And back then, people said that system was
| unfair, because wealthy people could afford to take the day
| off of work, while poor people couldn't. Or wealthy people
| could simply pay other people to wait in line for them. And
| the wealthy people realized, hey, the limit is 8 tickets
| but I'm going with just a group of 4... I can buy all 8 and
| sell 4 to people at the end of the line for a profit. And
| they did! And so waiting in line became fruitless, unless
| you were really, really, really early, because all the
| wealthy people (scalpers) would buy the max number of
| tickets and the show would sell out fast. Now we have the
| internet and nobody has to wait on a line, everyone can log
| in at the exact moment, but people once again say this is
| unfair.
|
| The idea that you can somehow ignore, heavily influence, or
| override the free market in concert tickets is nonsensical.
| blowski wrote:
| So we can influence the market for travel, healthcare,
| education, military, environment, food, children's toys,
| etc. But not for tickets to watch Taylor Swift?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Seems a bit of a weird question.
|
| Considering how often it's discussed on HN what the
| unintended effects are of regulations on healthcare,
| education, and environment.
|
| I would wager more than 5% of posts that got more than
| 100 comments in the last 5 years have discussions about
| that topic.
| blowski wrote:
| There are three categories of criticism being mixed up
| here.
|
| 1. You cannot influence the market, it will always revert
| to form.
|
| 2. You can influence the market, but in doing so, you
| will cause too many damaging side-effects.
|
| 3. You should not influence the market, because it's
| morally wrong to do so.
|
| The first comment was very much in category 1, but now it
| sounds like category 2.
|
| The problem with category 2 arguments is that they
| pretend any solution must be perfect with no side-effects
| or we shouldn't do it. Clearly, it's a trade-off - even
| if there are negatives, if they are outweighed by the
| positives, it's worth doing.
|
| Thus, if it's possible some mixture of regulation, tax
| and subsidy can prevent monopolistic behaviour, it's
| worth at least discussing.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Well 2. is only a subset of 1., on a long enough time
| scale, as all human 'influences' will vanish too.
|
| Animals, even plants, experience market forces to some
| extent. So I would say 'You cannot influence the market
| over millions of years, it will always revert to form.'
| blowski wrote:
| Within the next million years, I predict we'll find
| different solutions. For now, I'll focus on the next few
| decades.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The point is that there always exists a market clearing
| price for everything, which can be modified temporarily
| via human action, but not forever.
| blowski wrote:
| If we can improve things during that timeframe, great
| (perhaps phrased better as "In the long run, we're all
| dead anyway"). And by the time we reach the end of that
| timeframe, the context will be different.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In Denmark it's illegal to resell tickets above the
| original price.
|
| Occasionally you see "crate of beer 1000DKK comes with
| free Taylor Swift ticket" but it's rare.
| deanc wrote:
| It's really easy in many European countries to prevent identity
| abuse. In Finland there is a system called "strong
| authentication" where you log in with your bank. It's directly
| tied to your social security number and banks do a very strict
| job of identifying you in person before you open your accounts.
| It works and I've not heard of anyone gaming this system. It's
| used by the banks themselves, the government, tax office etc.
|
| This is the solution. Strong authentication into a lottery.
| dqpb wrote:
| Lotteries aren't fair.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| How come?
| [deleted]
| dwild wrote:
| I don't understands how that system would help, can't you
| have multiple bank accounts? Except if all the banks transfer
| some strong common identifier like the social security number
| (and that sound pretty dangerous to share). Open 5 accounts
| in 5 different banks (I'm pretty sure you could even do it
| all at the same bank), and there you go... you will exist,
| but Ticketmaster would have no idea whether you are 5
| different deanc or all the same one.
| deanc wrote:
| Your identity is tied to your account at the bank, not your
| bank accounts. It's simply a way to identify you are an
| individual. It is tied to your SSN, and there are very very
| strict requirements to gain access to this provider (it is
| run by a branch of government).
| cortesoft wrote:
| > This is the solution. Strong authentication into a lottery.
|
| I really don't like using a lottery, because it assumes that
| everyone who wants to go to a particular concert has the same
| level of desire to go.
|
| A lot of people might just kind of want to go, while for
| others going is the most important thing in the world. With a
| lottery system, each of those people have an equal chance of
| getting to go. It seems unfair to me.
|
| I want a system that allocates tickets to the people who want
| to go the most. I know an auction type system isn't
| completely fair, since some people have more money than
| others, but it least it has some semblance of trying to
| distribute tickets to people who want to go the most.
| tromp wrote:
| > I want a system that allocates tickets to the people who
| want to go the most.
|
| I can't think of a better way to measure desire than
| willingness to spend a long time waiting in line. So
| perhaps sell the more expensive lottery tickets online
| (with some proof of unique identity), and cheaper lottery
| tickets at the venue itself (still tied to identity) on a
| single day a few months in advance.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > who want to go the most.
|
| And then there is the difference in means. I barely want
| to go to tswift, but it's no skin off my budget. My
| friends 15yo daughter is dying to go but its like 100% of
| her income for the next 3 months.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > I can't think of a better way to measure desire than
| willingness to spend a long time waiting in line.
|
| Doesn't this have the same problem as using money? Some
| people have a lot less time to wait in line, just like
| some people have a lot less money to spend on tickets
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price.
|
| IMO artists should stop trying to sell below market and instead
| move the market by increasing supply. TSwift tickets wouldnt
| sell for $1000 a ticket if she played 3 nights... It's also a
| contradictory goal to what basically everyone else in the
| industry cares about (eg vendors, venues, crews etc).
|
| Perhaps for super super stars like tswift she'd literally end
| up playing 24/7/365 ... But for a lot of artists additional
| nights would really change the curve.
|
| I'm curious how alternatives might effect elasticity, something
| like simulcast at theaters for less than live in person?
| jzwinck wrote:
| Sell a fraction of tickets at higher prices (perhaps via
| auction) ahead of time, and sell the rest at the door. Scalpers
| cannot pretend to be multiple people if they have to enter the
| venue and pay.
|
| The known-price door tickets set a bound on the value of
| advance tickets, with the latter having a premium for certainty
| of getting in. Younger people with less money will place less
| value on certainty (they can wait in line at another concert).
|
| Scalpers can still buy advance tickets and scalp them, but they
| have reduced pricing power because buyers might rather take a
| chance at $50 door tickets than pay $500 to a scalper. And
| there may be less bad press about tickets costing $500 if most
| of them are sold at the door for $50.
| pas wrote:
| sell low price vouchers, require ID for them, make them
| refundable in 90+ days or in person with ID only
|
| set up a membership/trust/reputation system for fans and/or
| frequent venue goers (eg. locals), and if they actually show
| up to gigs, then you can reduce the refund wait time for
| them, etc.
| danuker wrote:
| These are called Sybil attacks.
| matwood wrote:
| > But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price.
|
| Then do more shows. If the goal is to satisfy as many fans as
| possible across all economic spectrums, then more shows is the
| only answer.
| judahmeek wrote:
| If they want to sell tickets below market price, there's not a
| good solution.
|
| If they want some people to be able to buy tickets below market
| price, then they could use some form of scholarships.
| iambateman wrote:
| I like the idea of demand pricing as a way of increasing access
| but I don't think it would work in practice.
|
| Too many people would be thrown off by the falling price, and
| want to wait. Friends who bought earlier than other friends feel
| like suckers for spending more money on the same thing.
|
| Lastly, what we call scalping _is_ a service to the ticket-buyer.
| The scalper is providing a market for the ticket at a price which
| is agreeable to the buyer. Dads love to complain about the "high"
| price of a ticket while they stand in line for $15 popcorn.
| Meanwhile, scalpers effectively do the work described in the
| article by adjusting prices very quickly based on actual demand.
| As an event gets close to starting, unsold inventory drops
| precipitously in price until it's sold.
|
| The reason scalping has a bad reputation is that most
| entertainment pricing is set well below the actual value of the
| event.
| onion2k wrote:
| Starting at $2000 for a concert where demand outstrips supply to
| the point where people will pay $4000 to a ticket scalper just
| means the minimum ticket price will be $2000. All the tickets
| will still sell out immediately. The audience will be entirely
| made up of wealthy people, or people who are willing to break the
| bank to see Taylor sing.
|
| The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and you
| want everyone to have the same level of access regardless of
| their background is a lottery. Tell people what the price is, let
| them apply for tickets, and sell to people at random. Scalping
| can be stopped by not allowing people to transfer tickets to
| other people - people should get a refund in full and their
| tickets get resold to other people in the lottery if someone
| changes their mind.
|
| The obvious problem with the lottery approach is that it entirely
| fails to maximize profit.
|
| Personally, if I was selling tickets, I'd just not sell them
| "fairly". Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Just want to support this - and agree that the implication is
| the people who don't implement this are the artists (or
| managers) themselves who, y'know, like money.
| aetherson wrote:
| I think the point is, you start at the maximum price you think
| any significant number of people will pay. If that's $4000,
| it's $4000.
| detaro wrote:
| If you want your marketing signaling to be "this artist is
| for rich people, normal people have no chance to see them
| anyways", sure. Many probably don't want to do that - indeed
| the strength of the lottery system is that it does signal the
| opposite.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| No, they would also advertise the descending nature of it,
| so if they book a big enough venue, there won't be that
| much demand at $4000 to sell it out. So the price will
| descend down to more affordable levels.
|
| Of course if the biggest venue isn't big enough to do that,
| then that's more of a problem of the local facilities, or
| the artist's decision to play in an area with inadequately
| sized venues.
| detaro wrote:
| I don't think "avoid playing in places without mega-
| venues, because otherwise our self-choosen pricing policy
| will make us look bad" is a particularly clever approach.
| (not to mention that doing so will drive up the price for
| events in places with such mega-venues)
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| People accept the logic that smaller facilities = more
| restricted capacity = higher prices in pretty much every
| other context.
|
| A Ferrari dealership has to turn away the vast majority
| of folks who want to test drive their cars, a B&B, or
| boutique hotel has to turn away customers, or price rooms
| very highly, on a busy weekend, etc.
|
| They are still very popular regardless.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You can of course have a hybrid -- where say 75% of the
| tickets are lottery, the rest are insanely high priced.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| This doesn't sound very true to me. My guess is that there are
| a much smaller number of people willing to pay $4k to a scalper
| for tickets and the price reflects the small supply of scalper
| tickets.
| itake wrote:
| How is that any different from the current system? The current
| system randomly selects web browsers to add tickets into the
| cart.
|
| The scalpers have more lottery tickets than everyone else (via
| bots).
|
| I guess the main difference is to not allow ticket transfers?
| sopooneo wrote:
| The _perception_ of profit maximizing ticket sales at each
| event will hurt total profit of the artist over their career.
| Morgawr wrote:
| This is actually how they do it in Japan. They love the lottery
| system and as a customer it's honestly a huge pain in the ass
| but once you see the kind of scalping and sleazy tactics that
| go on overseas you kinda start to appreciate it.
|
| There's a few ways it is implemented and not all artists/venues
| do all of these but things I've seen are:
|
| - Priority purchase for "fan club" registered members. Most
| artists have a LINE group fan club with a yearly subscription
| (like $50 or whatever), then if you are in this group, you get
| priority access to that artist's events. This means if you're a
| "real" fan you get to access tickets before everyone else.
|
| - Lottery system based on price "bands". I've seen a few
| artists let the fans decide how much they want to pay based on
| tiers. Months before the event, the artist will send out a
| survey with price ranges you can choose (only one) like: $10,
| $15, $30, $50, $90 and then seats will be allocated based on a
| priority level as a self-chosen value. So if there's 5 people
| who chose $90, 10 people who chose $50, 30 people who chose
| $30, 200 people who chose $15, and 1000 people who chose $10,
| if the venue can only host 250 people then 5 + 10 + 30 + 200 (=
| 245) people will get in at their price, and only 5 remaining
| people will get in at $10 price point.
|
| - Totally random lottery based on "waves". X people will apply
| to wave 1, and out of those X people let's say only 70% will
| get chosen. Then the artist/venue decides on a more
| approachable size and might host a second wave, another X
| people will apply to that second wave (including the previously
| excluded 30%) and another 70% will get chosen, then repeat
| until the venue is full or the artist decides they cannot host
| more events. Those who don't get chosen have to suck it up and
| try again another time.
|
| It's far from perfect, and as I said it can be extremely
| frustrating, but it has its good sides too.
| matwood wrote:
| > Personally, if I was selling tickets, I'd just not sell them
| "fairly". Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.
|
| Agreed. Tickets are a luxury item. The only fix is for the
| artists to do more shows. Obviously this is hard on the
| artists, but I wonder if they could do short term residencies
| in a place like Vegas? If Taylor Swift played every other night
| for 3-6 mos. in a fixed location, it seems like everyone could
| eventually see her show if they wanted. Fans would probably
| spend less than 2-4k each even accounting for any travel.
|
| I also don't find the lottery method 'fair' either. Random yes,
| but not necessarily fair if a person can only see a show on a
| certain date and doesn't win the lottery.
| qeternity wrote:
| > The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and
| you want everyone to have the same level of access regardless
| of their background is a lottery.
|
| After centuries of failing to manipulate natural market forces,
| I don't understand why people continue to think it's possible.
| All that a lottery does is incentivize everyone to participate,
| even those who have no interest in going. Then a secondary
| market will engage in actual price discovery and you're left
| with the current system.
|
| There is really no way to beat the system. Prices are what
| people are willing to pay. I'm not sure how any other system is
| fairer? Let's say I'm a middle class Taylor Swift mega fan and
| save up for years to drop $4k on a ticket. Instead, we move to
| a lottery system and I don't get picked. I want to go way more
| than most people, as evidenced by the amount I'm willing to
| pay. But now I don't get to go. How is that fair?
| yardstick wrote:
| > All that a lottery does is incentivize everyone to
| participate, even those who have no interest in going. Then a
| secondary market will engage in actual price discovery and
| you're left with the current system.
|
| How would the secondary market work if you have to put
| peoples names on tickets upon buying the ticket. No renames
| allowed (bring your name change deed poll and old and new IDs
| I guess). Can't make the concert? Tickets can be refunded for
| the original price (maybe minus a token handling fee), and
| the ticket goes back into the next lottery sale pool.
| cbsmith wrote:
| My name is Chris Smith.
|
| Solve that.
| fragmede wrote:
| Maybe it'll let you go on a free trip round the world!
| https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-30530070
| yardstick wrote:
| Name and date of birth
|
| Edit: Also Chris Smith is still a very limited sales
| opportunity compared to everyone. Plus Chris would be
| going alone assuming their partners name was not listed
| correctly or partners name didn't have a ticket matching
| that too.
|
| Hamilton already does something similar with having to
| present your ID plus the credit/debit card used for
| booking and the names must match. See
| https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/hamilton/terms.html
|
| The flaw in Hamilton is it's only the name of the payer,
| but if multiple seats in one booking, those additional
| seats could still be on sold so long as the scalper
| escorts them into the theatre.
|
| Solved by requiring names and dob for all ticket holders.
| No changes allowed. Mistakes (wrong name or dob) must be
| refunded and tickets back to lottery.
| fragmede wrote:
| Not so hilariously for people this applies to, but the
| combination of name and DOB _still_ isn 't actually
| unique either. I'll skip rewording it and just leave this
| link
|
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
| programmers-...
| yardstick wrote:
| It doesn't need to be absolutely unique though. It just
| needs to make the secondary market infeasible. I would
| argue that only being able to re-sell tickets on the
| secondary market to "Chris Smith" is going to result in
| essentially no ticket scalping.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.
|
| Exactly. High demand and low supply means not everyone gets to
| see Taylor Swift. That's life. I don't see the issue.
| sopooneo wrote:
| I believe the problem is that fans perceiving a "that's life"
| sentiment from Taylor Swift will hurt her total long term
| profit.
|
| And that's in addition to Taylor Swift, personally, wanting
| non-elites to share in the show experience, which I have no
| proof of but happen to believe
| tromp wrote:
| How about an auction of lottery tickets where the price is fixed
| but the probability of winning increases over time? Still
| identity verified so that each person can buy only one ticket and
| if they win they must attend themselves.
| e12e wrote:
| Meh. I like the Fusion Festival raffle system better.
|
| Allow people to sign up to buy, optionally as a group (all/none
| "win") - then randomly assign "purchase rights".
|
| The main downside might be the need for ID checks to verify no
| scalping.
|
| https://tickets.fusion-festival.de/faq/#faq-12
| timpetri wrote:
| I feel like Dice.fm already solved this. You can buy an
| untransferable ticket and if you cant go, you simply return it to
| a wait-list of people who have signed up. You get your money
| back, and they pay the same price. Maybe there are some
| transaction fees involved but overall this eliminates the ability
| for someone to buy just to sell?
| zelienople wrote:
| It's not the ticket system that is broken; it's the people.
|
| The problem with stadium tours is that 95 percent or more of the
| seats are awful. They provide an extremely poor concert
| experience.
|
| The sound is very bad for most of the audience. Many
| technological innovations in stadium sound have tried to address
| this, but the underlying physics has been resistant to an
| acceptable solution.
|
| The visuals are even worse. An enormous fraction of the audience
| cannot resolve the headliner on stage as a result of the size of
| the performer and the distance to the viewer. The visuals then
| devolve to the viewers ability to see an enormous television
| screen.
|
| So why would anyone want to go to a stadium show, if not for the
| visuals and the audio?
|
| It comes down to human competitiveness. Bragging rights.
| Ingesting mass media nonsense about how a product or experience
| will make one feel, and then disgorging it to a peer group as a
| method of creating an artificial distinction between the "haves"
| and the "have-nots".
|
| Taylor Swift, in particular, has been a genius at creating
| hysteria among her fans. They have ingested the idea that, if
| Taylor is in town, and you are not there, then you are a resident
| of the outer, miserable, darkness.
|
| The truth, however, is that if you attend a stadium show, the
| only positive aspect is that you "were there". You will not see,
| hear, or in any meaningful way, experience the object of your
| hysteria. You will be packed into a seat with a group of
| strangers also experiencing a mass-media induced mental
| derangement.
|
| The foregoing may lead you to believe that I am not a fan, but
| you would be wrong. My opinion was formed by the experience of
| going to all the Taylor Swift stadium tours, up to a certain
| point.
|
| What changed was that I stopped fighting Ticketmaster at one
| point. I opted out and did not buy a ticket. However, I still
| wanted to go to the show. All seats were prohibitively expensive
| on the secondary market; good seats, even more so.
|
| There were two shows in my city on subsequent nights. The first
| night, I watched prices on the scalper sites and I discovered
| that, in the last few minutes before the start time of the show,
| prices for even the best seats tumbled dramatically.
|
| This was simple economics; unsold seats are a cost that subtracts
| from overall profit. It makes sense to dump them for any amount,
| even at a loss.
|
| The second night, I waited until the price for a single front-row
| seat fell below the original price of the least expensive seat
| anywhere. I bought it, printed my ticket, and went to the show.
|
| This was a transformative experience because I was literally a
| few metres from the stage. I could get out of my seat and stand
| by the barricades and see and hear as if the show was at at my
| neighbourhood folk club or an open mic night. I then turned
| around, with Taylor directly behind me, and I could see the view
| of a packed stadium waving lights and singing along, just like
| what those on stage would see.
|
| I learned the difference between what the few who had the money
| or influence to obtain the best seats experience, and what the
| great majority of stadium show concert-goers endure.
|
| I was cured. I have never, since that day, had any desire to
| attend a stadium show or buy a ticket for a standard seat in any
| large venue.
|
| Unfortunately, it isn't really practical to educate a significant
| fraction of fans by demonstrating this.
|
| Maybe there is a technological solution, though. If we could
| arrange for people to have a feed from a front row observer in
| fully immersive VR, we could perhaps recreate enough of the
| experience that the rush to purchase a grossly substandard
| product would diminish.
|
| There are probably significant economic forces that would oppose
| this (Ticketmaster, obviously) because education is often the
| enemy of mass-market driven capitalism.
|
| The longer-term solution is probably to recognize that the innate
| social behaviour of humans has been exploited to our total
| destruction by those who would hoard all wealth for themselves,
| and to begin another great eugenics experiment: breeding
| selfishness, conflict and the tendency to self-destructive herd
| behaviour out of the human genome, But that is beyond the scope
| of this discussion.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Is Taylor Swift that good? I must be very old.
| jethkl wrote:
| Yes. "As of 2022, Swift has broken 84 Guinness World Records,
| of which 13 times she broke her own record or regained it, and
| 74 remain unbroken." [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations...
| jethkl wrote:
| Weird that this got downvoted. In response to "Is ${artist}
| that good?", I link to an objective list of awards and
| accolades showing that ${artist} is very good at their job.
| Compare Swift's success against the Beatles, Dolly Parton
| [1,2] or anybody else, and it's a very strong showing. If you
| don't like the art, that's a completely different matter. But
| in the sense of whether Swift is good in the way that matters
| here, the answer is clearly, "Yes."
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominati
| ons...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominati
| ons...
| wombat-man wrote:
| - Digital only tickets - By default, the tickets are not
| transferrable. Use your app on your phone to get in. - You can
| pay a fee to make tickets transferrable/scalpable. - The fee
| increases as more tickets are sold with this option (set ceiling
| on max number of tickets with this option sold)
|
| So okay, you want to scalp tickets, you have to pay more and
| people who don't want to transfer pay less.
| StingyJelly wrote:
| I don't like that idea. First, personally, I'll rather pass
| than install that app.
|
| Second, it would need to heavily rely on device fingerprinting
| and obfuscation to give scalpers hard time trying to modify the
| app. Software protection will likely fail anyway when both
| scalpers and people buying from them have aligned interests.
| Even if the software protection holds, the price of second-hand
| phones may be too low compared to price of the tickets, so the
| "transferability fee" has a practical ceiling, especially since
| the phone can be sold again afterwards.
| wombat-man wrote:
| really? I already use axs and ticketmaster apps for tickets.
| Are you using pdfs or something? The app is nice because it
| rotates the barcode every minute, and idk how else you'd
| achieve that. I guess a webapp could work.
|
| I don't think you need to rely on device fingerprinting, just
| make sure they're logged into their ticketing account. You
| might see people start to sell accounts with single/pair
| tickets but that just sounds like a pain, and we could
| mitigate it if it becomes a problem.
| Marsymars wrote:
| That works in one sense, in that it reduces demand overall.
|
| I used to go to lots of shows; any time there was a show I was
| interested in, I'd check the online used goods marketplace 2-72
| hours in advance and see if I could get tickets below face
| value. Often I could. Sometimes I couldn't, and I wouldn't go
| to those shows.
|
| As the result of the move of big shows to digital-only tickets,
| I've just stopped going to big shows. I just go to local venues
| where I can pay in cash on entry.
| stevage wrote:
| Interestingly a major band I saw last night, Crowded House, just
| came out against any kind of demand driven pricing, and forced
| TicketMaster to refund all premium ticket charges.
| the_mungler wrote:
| Why not have a big closed auction? Everyone has a week or so to
| submit how much they are willing to pay for a ticket. Once the
| auction closes, sort by price and take the number of seats
| available. Everyone pays the minimum price that still fits in the
| seats available.
|
| I'm imagining a large scale Vickery auction, sorry if I'm not
| explaining super well. Everyone pays the same, but people get a
| price they think is fair.
| pabzu wrote:
| As far as I know all the auction mechanisms are equal[1], in
| the sense that: 1. the items are assigned to the same bidders
| (paying the same) 2. the revenue of the auctioneer is the same
|
| In that sense you could chose the system that fits you the
| most. I personally think that selling tickets via auction is
| indesirable for other reasons.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_equivalence
| elil17 wrote:
| The system proposed in this post has the advantage of correctly
| pricing every seat individually without anyone having to put in
| multiple bids. The people buying earlier are paying the highest
| price and get to choose the best seats. Those buying later
| would pay less but the good seats would already be taken.
|
| A Vickery auction would not, I think, lend itself to that kind
| of price discovery.
| the_mungler wrote:
| Good point, but you could address that by splitting up the
| seats into multiple auctions depending on the quality of the
| seats.
|
| People could even bid "conditionally" for multiple sections,
| and once bidding closes you resolve the separate auctions in
| order from best to worst. If a person with multiple bids gets
| a good seat, their bids in the other sections get cancelled.
|
| Seems to me that this could have very similar results as the
| dutch auction method, but each ticket is more fairly priced.
| Your ticket costs the same as the next guy, assuming they
| have a seat in the same section as you.
|
| Edit: also, as mentioned somewhere else here, you're likely
| to have a threshold where everyone wants to buy once they see
| available seats start to disappear, causing a kind of "bank
| runoff" where everyone rushes to buy tickets all at once,
| putting us back where we started.
| billyt555 wrote:
| Ticketmaster could have done everyone a huge favor by simply
| staggering the sales for separate dates a bit and not trying to
| sell tix for every show all at once.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| I don't get what this has to do with combating scalping. This is
| just a new auction game to play. It levels the playing field for
| a time, as all new games do, but the scalpers will eventually win
| it.
|
| In this case the game is to find X where X is the percent of
| concert goers willing to pay scalpers. Then you buy the bottom X%
| of tickets for the current price and list them for more money.
| This is easy to do because the auction site tells you the number
| of remaining tickets.
|
| Since there's no supply of auction tickets left, scalpers can now
| set the price. And since they paid the lowest price out of any of
| the ticket holders, they hold all the power.
| mabbo wrote:
| The idea is that everyone willing to pay more than $X for
| tickets bought their tickets before the scalpers can buy it for
| $X.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| X isn't the price in my solution it's the percent of concert
| hopefuls who will hold their nose and pay a scalper. Once
| there's exactly that many tickets left, there's no point
| running the auction anymore. Scalpers should use their bots
| to completely buy up all remaining tickets, as they do now,
| and then set them for a higher price on the secondary market.
|
| Buying the first 1-X% tickets nearly guarantees you will pay
| more than the scalp price except for a thin band right before
| X where the prices are within the scalper's margin.
|
| Basically this system only beats scalpers if everyone is
| richer than scalpers, which most concertgoers are not. If
| you're rich you might like the sound of this new system on
| paper but it's actually cheaper for you to stay with the
| current system and buy all your tickets on the secondary
| market.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Wait, they didn't choose to buy a ticket at the price the
| scalpers got (plus epsilon), so why would they pay more
| when the scalpers come around with a ticket?
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Cuz the auction ran out of tickets so the price starts to
| climb as scalpers monetize FOMO. Regular purchasers don't
| know what the scalpers think X is for this particular
| concert. Even if you knew X, all you could do is try to
| buy a ticket right before the remaining quantity reaches
| X which guarantees you paid more than the scalper, but
| maybe not more than the scalper's resell price.
|
| X is the moment scalpers buy up the remaining market and
| set their own prices now that they control the supply.
| They know many other ticket holders can't compete with
| them since they paid more money for their ticket.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Regular purchasers would learn to not try to game the
| auction like that any more. In the scenario you
| described, they are only losing out on tickets because
| they are getting greedy and trying to buy them for less
| than they think those tickets are worth.
|
| The point of auctions is that the right strategy is to
| bid to your price, not to try to guess what other people
| think the price should be. That's why they work.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Again, X is not a price it's a demand level (for scalper
| tickets). Everyone can 'bid their price' and scalpers
| will still buy out the bottom of the auction and take
| control of the pricing.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Those hypothetical scalpers will indeed have control of
| the pricing, but they will have no customers willing to
| pay what they have paid, because all customers willing to
| pay more will have already bought tickets.
|
| In theory, there may have been holdouts who wanted to get
| a better price, as you are suggesting, who then turn to
| the scalpers. Those holdouts are either (a) irrational
| for not bidding the price they were willing to pay or (b)
| not actually willing to pay whatever price the scalpers
| want to get.
|
| By taking this strategy of picking a demand level X and
| buying out all the tickets once the supply is below that
| level, scalpers are virtually guaranteed to lose money.
|
| For most goods, there is no demand that is independent of
| price.
| langsoul-com wrote:
| This isn't fair to those who can only afford standard priced
| tickets.
|
| It will maximise profits, but is not fair.
|
| Other platforms do waves, split across time zones. That would
| distribute the load to prevent crashes.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The current system isn't very fair to those people either.
|
| Professional scalpers act like high frequency trading firms
| (some HFTs are ticket scalpers), and employ tens of thousands
| of dollars worth of computer equipment to get those seats
| before the poor rubes who hoped for standard priced tickets.
|
| By contrast, an auction system actually levels the playing
| field by removing the technological advantage.
|
| They don't have to run a Dutch auction specifically, other
| kinds of auctions exist too.
| wanderingbort wrote:
| I will start to sound like a broken record soon but blockchain
| has provided a wealth of information about "fair" distribution
| games and their downfalls.
|
| The NFT summer of 2021 saw first come first serve distros gamed
| by parties with superior network positioning.
|
| Dutch auctions (from the article) strongly favored the wealthy
| buyers not fans or parties who "pay" with other things of value
| like their time.
|
| Lotteries were easily games by sock puppets.
|
| Lotteries with "strong" identity verification created grey
| markets for identities. Think about mechanical Turk but peoples
| task is to get a lottery ticket and remit the winnings.
|
| People tried social credit systems where participating in
| community activities like discords earned you the spot in line.
| Again, services arose to farm these spots.
|
| Fascinating microcosm of human behavior.
|
| I agree with commenters that suggest refundable non-transferable
| tickets however, for goods this scarce where a secondary market
| is valuable, I don't think we have a simple good solution.
| TarasBob wrote:
| The process needs to be modified slightly. Everyone should end up
| paying the same amount for the ticket in the end. Those who
| bought early should not be penalized. When the the last ticket is
| sold, everyone should pay the same price as the last ticket. So
| when you buy early, you are just indicating the _Maximum_ price
| you are willing to pay.
|
| There should also be an option to automatically place a bid once
| the price reaches a certain level.
|
| That's the most fair way to auction off a bunch of identical
| things.
|
| Another modification I would add to this is that let's say 20% of
| the tickets should be sold for very cheap using a lottery system.
| So that not only the richest people could go to the concert.
| TarasBob wrote:
| The mechanism should also include the possibility of figuring
| out the optimal venue size in advance. I'm not sure what's the
| right way to modify it in order to accomplish this goal.
| TarasBob wrote:
| Also, if the artist doesn't want to maximize their profits
| through this auction mechanism, the extra money received should
| be donated to charity.
| Euphorbium wrote:
| Interesting how there is absolutely none of this problem in
| Europe, as tickets are tied to an ID and there is no reselling or
| scalping.
| dottedmag wrote:
| In Estonia, Germany, Malta or Iceland?
|
| I have never had a ticket tied to ID anywhere in Europe.
| leejo wrote:
| We attended a few gigs in Italy this summer. Two of them we
| bought tickets first hand, they were indeed tied to a name with
| ID required. Was ID checked? Nope, of course not. One was a
| medium sized venue (3000), one a stadium, and one small (c.
| 300).
|
| Tying to an ID is a nice idea in principal...
|
| Another gig we bought tickets second hand, the seller had to go
| through the original site to return their tickets and then we
| could purchase them (I wrote a script to poll the site to find
| available tickets as they had sold out quickly). Did they check
| our IDs? Nope, of course not.
|
| Requiring ID and having to return the tickets to the original
| site for resale is probably the optimal solution. But in
| reality if IDs are not checked it pretty much falls apart.
| whall6 wrote:
| As an artist, connect with your top listeners on Spotify / Apple
| Music and give them a onetime use link to buy $20 tickets and
| allocate the rest of the tickets by auction.
| hluska wrote:
| Pearl Jam tried to beat Ticketmaster. At the risk of sounding
| like the big fan I am, if Eddie Vedder and co. (at their
| commercial peak) can't beat Ticketmaster, I'm not convinced that
| software can.
|
| I've been pasting this Rolling Stone link since I was in my
| teens. I can't believe how old I am...
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki...
| glitcher wrote:
| Fugazi is a great example, although not as popular they refused
| to charge more than $5 for their shows. I saw one in a small
| venue and it was raw and in your face and just awesome. They
| also didn't want anything to do with merchandising, insisting
| that if you wanted a Fugazi shirt then go make your own!
| glitcher wrote:
| Arpeggiator track:
|
| https://youtu.be/14UBxTCPwjw
| TylerE wrote:
| The other big thing Fugazi did was completely ignore the
| traditional venue system.
|
| They'd rent out bowling alleys, Elks Lodges, places like
| that. Hauler their own PA and lights around
| ssttoo wrote:
| Recently I went to see PJ with a friend. I had the tickets but
| I was going to be late so tried to transfer one ticket. Nope,
| not allowed. Both of us had to be there with my app. If I
| wanted to sell it I can but not to a person. I can just release
| it back at the original price and no fees. So PJ are still
| fighting the good fight and TM plays along. Unfortunately most
| artists don't have PJ's influence, so probably not an option
| for everyone to set the rules.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| What about a system where only some fraction of the ticket
| sale has to present matching ID?
|
| Example 1: Limit of 6 tickets per purchase. I buy 6 tickets,
| I invite 5 friends. I show ID at the door and it doesn't
| matter which 5 friends I bring with me.
|
| Example 2: Same deal, but instead we're allowed 1 "flex"
| ticket in case someone backs out. Or some proportion allowed
| as flex.
|
| Obviously this still allows scalping, but it seems less
| attractive for a scalper to have to attend with the people
| they're scalping to. Especially if you make 50% of the group
| show ID.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Example 1
|
| This is how it works, only the primary purchaser has to
| show id. You can bring anyone in but you have to show up
| together, so if you do pay a scalper/reseller then they're
| at least also a PJ fan and you'll be walking in together.
|
| > Example 2
|
| With the PJ tickets, you actually can sell them, but you
| just get a refund and they're released back into the ticket
| pool on ticketmaster.
| [deleted]
| musicale wrote:
| I think I can live with the approach of banning transfers but
| still offering refunds.
|
| Seems like it would make deter scalpers since they'd have to
| show up at the concert or provide you with a fake ID which
| might not work.
| de6u99er wrote:
| Yeah, screw scalpers!
| izacus wrote:
| It just replaces one scalper with another. Why the heck
| do you want to allow TM to double scalp you with fees
| just to give a ticket to your friend or family?
| darkwater wrote:
| And TM can get twice the commission!
| glitcher wrote:
| Curious how was the show? Had you seen them previously and if
| so how did it compare?
| pbreit wrote:
| The transfer limitation is specifically to mitigate scalping.
| What would you prefer?
| yehSooBit wrote:
| Ticketmaster is a logo that represents decades of deal making
| with venues to achieve the status quo.
|
| The only way to defeat it is a RICO case brought by the Federal
| government, as venues, artists (not all, but many), are
| collaborating behind closed doors to enable it.
|
| I gave up on big acts long ago because of TM and stick to local
| bars and local bands. Relativity and all that; I'm in a major
| metro with many cover bands that nail the vibe of the original
| and novel acts; not lacking options here. YMMV
| neilfrndes wrote:
| I too feel that cover bands nail the vibe of the original. I
| live in a metro, but I've had a hard time figuring out when
| and where cover bands play. Some bands don't even have a
| website.
|
| How do you find out when a cover band of your favorite artist
| is playing in your city?
| pas wrote:
| ask around in the relevant communities (underground clubs,
| other relevant venues, zines, pubs)
|
| usually you end up with a few Facebook links
|
| not ideal, but eventually you will know which cover bands
| are even worth looking out for, and where they would play,
| so you can monitor sites of the venues
| pbreit wrote:
| "beating" ticketmaster is pretty easy: play at venues that are
| not locked up by TM.
|
| But TM really isn't that bad. There's always going to be a
| problem when demand far exceeds supply. If you went with pure
| supply/demand sales rich people would buy all.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Do you go to a lot of shows? Ticketmaster is very bad.
| Abusive even. Regardless of demand.
| fivre wrote:
| TicketMaster has used their market dominance to be display
| incompetence in customer service with no consequences.
| Emailed me a "make sure to have your tickets at the show, we
| mailed them" the day of, sending me into a panic because I
| hadn't received them. Support was something like an hour-long
| queue to maybe chat with someone in the Philippines with no
| info, so I said fuck it and bought another ticket will-call
| in a nicer section--the show in question wasn't something I'd
| likely have the opportunity to see again for at least a
| decade.
|
| Got to the venue to discover that I now had two will-call
| tickets, since that's how I'd originally purchased the first
| one, but TicketMaster somehow broke that record on their end.
|
| Never encountered that level of bullshit from any of the
| smaller providers. TicketWeb was great when I lived in a
| market where they were the majority and Eventbrite is fine
| AFAIK. But now I live in a major market and TicketMaster is
| the only option for all but the smallest venues. What are you
| gonna do if you don't like them, anyway? Buy out the venue
| yourself?
| paxys wrote:
| You underestimate Taylor Swift fans.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Why can't they beat them? Advertise your website, people go to
| your website and click the buy button, a form shows up to fill
| their card data. What does Ticketmaster do that is better?
| Don't they have the same workflow?
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Most artists don't want to charge $20, they want to charge
| $200 and blame it on someone else. That is a big part of the
| value proposition for ticket master. And they can allow
| ticket resale so the artist/promoter gets another cut, so
| shows sell out faster.
| mason55 wrote:
| Most major and minor venues have exclusive ticketing
| contracts. You can sell tickets to a high school gym but if
| you want to play anywhere that can handle a real crowd you're
| stuck with the monopoly.
| larsiusprime wrote:
| So it's essentially a real estate monopoly at heart?
| pas wrote:
| more like monopoly on the venue service. (a place where
| you have the permit to organize large group events, so
| proper exits, toilets, accessibility (if required);
| bag/clothes storage, waiting area, permit to sell
| alcohol, staff for all this, sufficient electricity
| connection, HVAC, ability to assemble a stage and the
| frame for lights and the soundsystem)
|
| for example rave organizers in LA can do it in a lot of
| potential warehouses, because they have the staff &
| process to get the permits, setup the tech, cleanup, etc.
|
| but as the gig grows fewer and fewer venues can host it,
| and that's how LiveNation managed to consolidate most of
| the high-capacity venue market
|
| and there is efficiency in vertical integration, for
| everyone involved. what people find atrocious is the lack
| of cost breakdown transparency.
|
| bands and ticketmaster/LiveNation could simply hide
| everything, display just the actual final price and then
| distribute the cash according to their actual contracts
| (which they do anyway)
|
| why they anger the masses with this is completely beyond
| me, but ... after spending a few years on the outskirts
| of this industry, I think they just have bigger problems,
| never really understood UX anyways, nothing forces them
| to do so, aaand it absolutely keeps the conversation on
| them and not on bands/venues, etc.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| So why don't some enterprising well known
| artists/VCs/record labels/ pool together some money to
| build a new large venue, and control the ticketing
| themselves?
| cortesoft wrote:
| > What does Ticketmaster do that is better?
|
| A large war chest with which to pay venues for the exclusive
| right to sell tickets there.
| etothepii wrote:
| While this might maximise the amount of money the organisers get
| for an event it doesn't handle variable fixed costs.
|
| That is I might need no capital at all to run my tour if I sell
| tickets at a highish (but sub-optimal) price early on.
| smachiz wrote:
| What are the variable "fixed" costs? And when are they
| incurred?
|
| This is about revenue maximization, not user enjoyment
| maximization or fairness maximization.
|
| Ultimately I don't think most artists actually want revenue
| maximization - they're probably far more interested in fairness
| maximization in ensuring their fan base of all economic strata
| get to see them live.
| etothepii wrote:
| As in if I know I will make $1m in sales I might choose to
| use better audio equipment.
| etchalon wrote:
| There is no such thing as a "fair" way to sell anything where
| demand vastly outstrips supply.
|
| There are just choices about what resource you want to prejudice
| for: money, time or luck.
| barnabask wrote:
| This really made me reconsider my phrasing, and then the basis
| for my assumption about "fairness". Thank you for your thought
| provoking comment.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| > Shameless plug: I understand how to make and launch exactly
| this kind of system, at least technically. If you want it built,
| please contact me.
|
| I cannot roll my eyes hard enough - if you can, then do it
| already. Why the hell do you need the encouragement?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I think they mean "if you want to pay for it".
| matai_kolila wrote:
| It costs nothing but time to build the service. His hesitancy
| is a red flag for potential partners.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| "nothing but time"
|
| Time is expensive though...
| matai_kolila wrote:
| It is not, not if you can build this system on your own.
|
| Demanding you be paid for your time to build this
| demonstrates you aren't convinced it's a profitable idea,
| which is a huge red flag to potential investors.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I mean, I'm in this exact situation right now and it's
| working great. I wrote a short story about an automated
| farming commune running on open source farming robots.
| But I can't afford to spend years of my life working on a
| problem I'm not getting paid for. Then I met someone who
| dreams of running automated farming robots at his farm,
| and now for four years now he has been paying me to
| develop it.
|
| I've done entrepreneurship, and it's extremely stressful.
| Sometimes people know how to do something but don't want
| to do it unless they're going to get paid directly for
| the labor. Despite all the stories here on HN, this is
| actually fine.
| barnabask wrote:
| Apparently not. Some have already reached out.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| I seriously doubt that.
| barnabask wrote:
| Yep.
| fparlane wrote:
| I wonder if you'd see "bank runs" happen spontaneously as nervous
| fans see the number of available tickets start to drop, causing a
| spontaneous feedback loop.
| the_mungler wrote:
| Hmm, that actually seems quite likely to me.
| projektfu wrote:
| Congratulations, you've found the market-clearing price.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| That's not a bank run or a feedback loop, that's price
| discovery. Exactly the behavior you want.
| jonas21 wrote:
| It seems like this would produce the same outcome as
| Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing. According to this article, fans
| hate it [1].
|
| [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gx34/blink-182-tickets-
| are...
| barnabask wrote:
| Interesting, thanks for the link. Similar outcomes perhaps. I
| guess the difference is that the auction clock is public so it
| may feel a little less arbitrary than an opaque algorithm.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| The biggest problem is ticket scalper. We have developed a ticket
| system with personalized encrypted tickets. When you are not able
| to go the event, you to give your tickets back at us and we will
| refund the money. Because the tickets are personalized and
| encrypted, you can not swap them.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| I don't understand at all why prices aren't raised in these
| severe demand/supply imbalance situations.
|
| Same applies to PS5 etc
|
| There wouldn't be a shortage at all if it were priced
| appropriately. And scalpers just end up capturing that value
| anyway
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Because sports teams and singers need broad audience interest
| to maintain their brand's popularity, which can drive things
| like merchandise sales, future concerts, music streaming, etc.
|
| If they simply sold to the highest bidders, the populace at
| large will stop being fans and they will move onto the next
| entertainer. In the short term, you might make a little extra
| from richer people, but longer term you will fall out of
| popular culture, and the rich will move on or not be sufficient
| in quantity to maintain as profitable of a following.
| googlryas wrote:
| But for many big artists the tickets are sold out immediately
| and it is just scalpers trying to get what they can for them.
| I'd like to know how many people attending a big concert got
| their tix directly vs got resold ones not at face value.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| The scalpers grab most of the tickets at open anyway.
|
| And I doubt that a very large number of fans are concertgoers
| at all. How many football fans actually go to the superbowl?
|
| I looked it up and it's ~80k, while 100M watch on TV. The
| cheapest tickets are ~$5000 dollars
| duped wrote:
| The largest NFL stadium seats about 85,000 people. So you
| can't sell more than that for the single game. Two years
| ago they actually set the record lowest attendance due to
| Covid restrictions - only about 21k were allowed in the
| building. I believe it's the first SB to ever sell below
| capacity, and you'd have to go back to the second world war
| to find an NFL championship that did the same.
|
| Also, music is fundamentally better live. Football is not.
| I say this as an avid fan of both who attends both live.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| There's a difference between "the odds are against you" and
| "nope, sorry". Even if those odds are extreme.
| s3000 wrote:
| There is always the option to change the odds for fans.
| E.g. offer cheap tickets for members of the fan club and
| last minute tickets to fans who post the most convincing
| appeals on social media.
| dqpb wrote:
| This argument makes no sense. A stadium excludes the same
| number of fans regardless of your selection criteria.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Yes, just as a concert does.
|
| Creating hunger games in the ticket buying process doesn't
| change that
| Fezzik wrote:
| They are. Ticketmaster does dynamic pricing now for big shows.
| Accurate pricing is basically inaccessible beforehand; there's
| no chart like in the past with various sections costing
| specific $s. For the Taylor Swift show in Seattle they
| published a range of ticket prices from $49-$199... we paid
| ~$600 for seats in section 131 that were VIP seats by default
| (that also added to the price; but the pricing was totally
| opaque).
| koolba wrote:
| $600 per ticket?
| Fezzik wrote:
| Yup; $600 per ticket.
| musicale wrote:
| There would probably be some backlash for a Taylor Swift
| concert where the whole arena was $600 VIP tickets.
|
| Rolling Stones though? Maybe not.
| Fezzik wrote:
| Seats 10+ rows behind us sold for $2,900 today... concert
| tickets are a crazy business these days.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Can confirm this.
|
| So I got tickets to the Sunday 7/23 show in Seattle and the
| 5/27 show in New Jersey (and would have had seats for the
| 4/29 in Atlanta but my dad's phone was on silent and he
| missed the 2FA code for his capital one card -- I'll have to
| get those from scalpers) and what's interesting is that I got
| floor seats for a VIP package in New Jersey and "regular"
| non-VIP floor seats for Seattle. It was $190 difference after
| fees between shows.
|
| For New Jersey, it was $749 list for floor VIP and then $866
| per with fees. For Seattle, it was $539 list and $650 with
| fees. Getting the LED laminate thing and the other
| collectible stuff isn't worthless but it's not a $200
| upcharge.
|
| But as you said, the whole thing was so opaque, I just bought
| what I could buy. I would've paid more if I'd needed to. A
| friend who is going on 7/22 in Seattle (we were on Zoom doing
| it together) wound up paying $900 after fees for her floor
| seats that were in a differently named (but identically
| featured, perk wise) VIP package, meaning some of them went
| even higher.
|
| So the whole thing was just totally opaque but there wasn't
| even choice for people who were indiscriminate on pricing
| (buying from scalpers aside). It was madness just trying to
| get tickets at all. I needed six seats for 5/27 and I'm still
| not sure how I was able to get six floor seats together, VIP
| or otherwise. After doing the whole thing in three cities
| across two days, every ticket they had available sold,
| regardless of price. If they'd raised prices 50%, I don't
| think it would have changed anything. Some of it is demand
| but some of it is absolutely people buying on speculation to
| try to flip.
|
| Unless an industry connection comes through, I'll wind up
| paying well above list for the Atlanta show I want to take my
| mom to, I know that. My only issue is that
| StubHub/Vivid/others charge at least 50% on top of the resale
| price in fees. So even if I was willing to spend $1500 a
| ticket for 100 section seats (and to take my mom, I would),
| I'd wind up paying another $600 or $700 per ticket just in
| fees. And that's when I get pissed off and start to try to
| wait out the people who bought tickets just to speculate
| until they lower their prices to be more aligned with market
| forces.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Scalpers provide them the service of absorbing demand risk and
| having someone to blame for the gap between perceived and
| market value. (It doesn't _have_ to be scalpers; see also
| Ticketmaster. The point is that it 's valuable to farm this out
| to third parties that everyone can agree to hate on.)
| leni536 wrote:
| So the obvious arbitrage is to scalp their own tickets.
| Capture both the gap and save face, just don't let anyone
| know. /s
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Sometimes promoters hold tickets and put them on the secondary
| market themselves. But they sell tickets to scalpers as a way
| to gaurantee a certain level of profit. Which lowers their risk
| of losing money, especially when spread over a large amount of
| events. The scalper business model is to buy risk from the
| promoter, and then selling the convenience of not planning
| ahead to consumers. Said differently, If promoters try to
| capture maximum value for every ticket, they will risk making
| less money at a slower rate.
|
| That said, I think it might work if they start every sale of
| tickets with an initial high price that reduces on a defined
| schedule. So people with more money to spend can gaurantee a
| spot for themselves, while everyone else waits for the tickets
| to get cheaper.
|
| Edit: ha! I obviously didn't rtfa before my comment.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Yes, or could simply be a live market for the tickets where
| people can put in limit orders etc. Then would converge to
| fair market value quickly and people would still have the
| option to bite the bullet and pay the higher prices.
|
| Though volume/liquidity would be at question, but
| bots/arbitrage would hopefully help there.
|
| If they really want to set artificially low prices and
| prioritize fans over scalpers then they need a queue and a
| process by which they verify the queued person is human. Lots
| of labor involved. Though maybe using SSN (in the US) to
| limit tickets per buyer?
| munk-a wrote:
| Because their product is essentially unpriceable. If the
| concerts were priced by demand their demand would dry up
| considering that instead of forty people wanting to hear jazz
| on a saturday night you've got 30 million people screaming
| their lungs out - the only reasonable market response to this
| is for the pricing to adjust so that only the most wealthy can
| attend but then you'll get an issue where the performer will
| lose mass appeal since they so infrequently perform for
| "regular people" and it will cheapen their brand. It's a weird
| catch-22 and the real honest solution is that recordings are
| the solution to this problem but people still obsess over live
| performances.
| fedeb95 wrote:
| Depends of the definition of "fair". To me, giving away infinite
| free tickets to interested people and then extract with a uniform
| distribution would be fair. Of course you need to provide some
| kind of ID and go at the concert with that. Comes the problem of
| fake ID, but that seems negligible.
| jwithington wrote:
| Worked in the sneaker resales world. Artists, sneaker companies,
| etc., are all aware that the Dutch auction could solve the
| problem.
|
| But they choose not to pursue because of reputational/brand
| damage. It's a shame!
| whartung wrote:
| Back in the day, The Who was presenting "Tommy". First time they
| were doing it live again. The "cheap" tickets were $75. This was
| a smaller venue.
|
| $75 was a bit of money to be sure.
|
| Back then you waited outside record stores to buy tickets. You'd
| line up, and sometime before the sale, they'd come out and hand
| out numbers, say 1 to 100. Then you'd sort by the number. Then
| they'd come out and say "We're starting the line at 37". 37 would
| be the front of the line, everyone else would sort behind that,
| wrapping around at the back. #36 would be the last in line.
|
| When I went to buy Tommy tickets, they were also selling another
| acts tickets.
|
| Since the tickets were so expensive, I went out of my way to go
| to a lower income neighborhood with the hope that there would be
| less folks in line to buy tickets, simply due to the price.
|
| In the end, I got my ticket and the lady behind me did not. If
| they weren't selling the other act, maybe she would have made it.
|
| When the Rolling Stones with Guns and Roses in LA went on sale,
| they gave out wristbands days in advance. My spot in line was
| around the building, the first show was sold out before I got
| there. The seats I did get were basically lousy when I did get
| them. That took an afternoon.
|
| When I went to buy tickets at the venue, they handed out numbers,
| but they didn't scramble them. The numbers were random, but #1
| was first in line. As soon as I got my number, there was a guy
| offering to buy low numbers. I had not doubt he was going to buy
| the 8 ticket limit. He wasn't a fan, he was a professional
| scalper.
|
| U2 tried to sell tickets over the phone in LA, trying to route
| around TicketMaster. It literally disabled the Los Angeles
| telephone system for several hours. You'd pick up the phone and
| not be able to hear a dial tone (I was listening to the modem
| trying to dial in to a client site). It would take up to 30
| seconds to get a dial tone, and good luck getting your call
| through anyway. Total disaster.
|
| Taylor Swift sold out 2M tickets. I don't care what the time
| frame that was in, that's a boat load of traffic. Think not of
| the 2M they sold, think of how many were not sold. I think there
| are few companies that could handle that load, especially
| something as specific as selling seats A29, A30, A31, and A40 to
| Bob Jones. Let's see a paper on that locking problem.
|
| The production company sets the ticket prices, TM sets the
| service fees, if you want to save on service fees, go to the
| venue. I'm not defending TM, they certainly don't need me, but
| it's been an intractable problem for a long, long time, at all
| sorts of levels. If you think TMs fees are bad, try StubHub.
| zetsurin wrote:
| >Taylor Swift sold out 2M tickets. I don't care what the time
| frame that was in, that's a boat load of traffic. Think not of
| the 2M they sold, think of how many were not sold.
|
| Shopify did 3.1M sales per min last year during peek season
| https://www.shopify.com/ca/blog/bfcm-data. There's more
| contention for this use case, but I don't think this is as an
| intractable problem. I do think an alternate model like the
| post proposes would greatly help.
| graup wrote:
| I think randomized queues are pretty fair. You give everyone
| who arrives within a certain time the same chance. This
| wouldn't be too hard to implement as a system either.
|
| Say ticket sales open at 2pm. From 1:45pm, everyone who gets to
| the site gets assigned a random queue number. Then from 2pm,
| users are given access to the ordering system in the order of
| their queue number. We can even limit throughput with that
| (e.g. let in n users per minute).
|
| Ticket sites in South Korea already implement queueing systems
| to control server load. When sales open at 2pm, everyone
| refreshes the page at exactly that time, but the request is put
| in a waiting queue. This can be considered randomized in a way
| (the time someone refreshes the page is somewhat random), but
| I'd like to see the concept of "advance queue building time"
| added to that to reduce the stress of "I have to refresh the
| page exactly at the right moment." Give me a few minutes to get
| to the queue.
| kqr wrote:
| Here's an even simpler method, that's actually more fair because
| it doesn't bias toward those with big pockets or much time or
| technical skill:
|
| Open up for registration. Keep registration open until the date
| of the show. Registration costs the price of the ticket. As the
| show comes close, for as long as there are tickets not sold,
| randomly select some people every day who receive a ticket. On
| the day of the show, refund -- with interest -- the money of the
| people who were never offered a ticket.
|
| I've never understood this obsession with first come, first
| served for extremely limited resources. Due to technical
| limitations it pretty much always turns out to be a lottery
| anyway, and we would save both customers and sysadmins trouble by
| explicitly turning it into one instead.
|
| (Back in the days when it required camping outside the ticket
| office, it instead unfairly favoured those with lots of time on
| their hands, and/or lots of money.)
|
| (I'm assuming "fair" here means that everyone has an equal
| chance, uncorrelated with any other aspect of their life. A
| random selection is the only method that can guarantee this
| property.)
| blowski wrote:
| I need to buy non-refundable hotels, train tickets, childcare,
| plus book time off work. Finding out whether all that's
| necessary with a few hours notice doesn't work.
|
| If you could do something like this for some large proportion
| of the tickets, and give a month's notice, it might work.
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| Hard not to read this as "I have a lot of money. I shouldn't have
| to wait in line with commoners!"
|
| Sorry for the almost political comment but that's how it hit me
| barnabask wrote:
| That was not my intention, sorry. Thanks for your perspective.
| musicale wrote:
| I think one reason why artists don't take the Dutch Auction
| approach is that they want to recruit new fans, including kids
| who might not have much money. They also probably don't want to
| be seen as greedy.
|
| In the absence of some system that prevents resale, scalpers will
| likely still buy up all of the Taylor Swift tickets before they
| drop to a price that is affordable for these less-affluent fans.
|
| The bots will likely still win if they can determine how many
| tickets are left and how fast they are selling.
| mhb wrote:
| I don't see why the Dutch auction doesn't address your
| concerns. The starting price can be higher, the price drop can
| be non-linear and third party software using the concert's API
| can serve customers by providing them with the same information
| scalpers would have.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Did you see the part about selling to kids who don't have
| much money?
| wiseowise wrote:
| They don't buy them regardless, bots already bought
| everything out.
| conradludgate wrote:
| If the kids didn't buy at the time, that means they didn't
| buy them before when the tickets were more expensive. Which
| means that also wouldn't be interested in buying the more
| expensive scalped tickets either.
|
| Put into context: Tickets are $30 - kid doesn't buy them
| next day Tickets are $29 - scaler buys them before the kid
|
| The kid has already decided that $30 is too much. For the
| resale to be worth it, it would need to be more than $1
| gains, but that is more than the kid has already associated
| the value to be
| Cederfjard wrote:
| What if the kid passes at $30 because money is tight,
| they'd prefer to pay $20 and want to try for that, but
| scalpers snatch up all the cheapest tickets before the
| kid is able to. The kid still really wants to go,
| however, and is willing to actually pay the scalper up to
| $40 when push comes to shove, even if it hurts a bit?
|
| Or if they weren't organized enough or able to commit to
| going early on, but still have the purchasing power to
| pay a higher price?
| mhb wrote:
| Yeah, the price/time algorithm for the auction can't
| accommodate every single kid's temporal and financial
| idiosyncracies. Compared to what?
| Cederfjard wrote:
| I was mostly asking because the explanation in the parent
| comment seemed overly simplistic, and to indicate that
| this approach would destroy the scalpers' business model
| entirely. I'm totally open to the idea that this is a
| good solution that would improve on the status quo.
| aetherson wrote:
| Then they learned a valuable lesson?
|
| I mean, this seems like a low stakes operation. Nobody on
| their deathbed is like, "If only that Taylor Swift ticket
| had cost $10 less."
| Cederfjard wrote:
| See my response to your sibling comment.
| bombcar wrote:
| The solution there is to play at more venues, or play at
| more crappier venues.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The scalper can only make profit if he can buy the ticket at
| one price, and later sell it not just at a higher price, but a
| price sufficiently higher to cover the costs of the process
| (advertising, bot development, customer support, transaction
| fees, ...), and the profit needs to be worth both the effort
| and the risk.
|
| In this model, anyone willing to pay more than the scalper paid
| already had the opportunity to buy at the higher price, so the
| only people the scalper could sell to would be people who
| really want to go, are willing to pay a high price, but weren't
| organized enough to actually buy when the ticket was being sold
| at that price.
|
| That will almost certainly limit the profit so much that it
| isn't worth it at all, and even if it doesn't, _anyone who
| plans ahead will be able to get the ticket directly from the
| system_.
|
| In the end, it's an auction system. _Which_ auction system is
| chosen doesn 't matter much economically. You could get similar
| results by having people bid on the available tickets. But
| psychologically, that will alienate fans more than a system
| like this. This only works for shows that will definitely sell
| out though, because otherwise it creates an incentive to wait
| for a lower price, deterring people from buying.
|
| (Your first paragraph remains valid of course.)
| matwood wrote:
| Yeah, people forget scalpers also have downside. When I lived
| in a big city my partner and I would routinely go to sporting
| events by paying _under_ face value on the tickets simply by
| waiting for the event to start. Of course, we had to be ok if
| it didn 't work out, but most of the time it did. Worst case,
| we walk back across the street and watch the game from the
| bar.
| Nursie wrote:
| Yeah this doesn't feel "Fair" to me. It would likely reduce the
| scalping problem, sure, but it also introduces a whole lot of
| "Well this is the price I want to pay, but what if it sells out?
| Should I stretch and pay more?" type feelings.
|
| Maybe scalpers get in around this "stretch" point and then when
| there are no tickets left at all, people realise they really want
| to go and stretch a bit further to buy from the scalper.
|
| As others have pointed out too - this really selects for wealth.
| As someone with a decent income, I might get to go and see all my
| favourite bands, but lower income folks might be priced out of
| the market entirely (which they already are by scalpers to a
| greater or lesser extent).
| allanrbo wrote:
| Or how about a lottery system. You get an email if you win the
| privilege of buying a tickets. Tickets are named and require ID
| check, to prevent scalpers. If you are unable to go, your ticket
| just goes back to the lottery pool.
| judge2020 wrote:
| They had a Verified Fan system to limit how many could purchase
| during a presale, but all that really required was being signed
| up for Taylor's email list and having purchased a Midnights CD
| from her online store.
|
| I think they messed up here by only running one fan presale,
| since it made them predict how many tickets each person with a
| code would actually purchase. They probably underestimated this
| number (eg. from people tagging along with their friend who got
| into the presale), so they ended up selling way more than they
| thought they would. I suspect this because, at one point, I had
| 16k people in front of me for 1 night at Mercedes-Benz[0],
| which is a lot given concert capacity is probably around 50k.
|
| With a two-wave presale (or even "verified fan presale only"),
| you can put out tickets in even smaller waves and continuously
| evaluate how many you're giving out based on demand and order
| ticket quantities.
|
| 0: while the queue-it frontend was set up to hide any number
| above 2,000, the API faithfully showed the actual amount of
| clients ahead of you in line.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > If you are unable to go, your ticket just goes back to the
| lottery pool.
|
| This is tough to enforce unless you have a "1/10th extra fee if
| you don't show up" policy or allow refunds.
| allanrbo wrote:
| Oh yea I meant they go back to the pool and a refund is
| issued. This is of course utopic. Just a dreaming about what
| the most customer friendly and fair system might look like.
| Will probably never be aligned with what maximizes the profit
| of TicketMaster.
| duped wrote:
| Something not talked about here is that there's a finite number
| of seats that can be sold for all the tours in the year.
|
| At a smaller scale, look at Broadway productions. There are 41
| "broadway" theaters in New York, each with between 500-2000 seats
| performing 8 shows each week. Ballparking because I don't have
| the exact numbers, that's a total number of tickets you can sell
| of under about 350,000 tickets for all broadway shows that can be
| sold each year. Even if you include all the touring and local
| productions of shows in cities, there are not enough theaters to
| meet the demand for live musicals and plays (and while locally,
| shows will underperform and not sell out, and there are periods
| of downtime between shows changing, it's still capped).
|
| Now these massive tours are limited in a similar way. There are
| only a few dozen arenas that can seat tens of thousands of people
| year round, and only so many nights they can operate. But unlike
| those shows, a single production team can't "own" a venue for
| months at a time. So they need to tour, which is about the most
| expensive way to get a production of that scale off the ground.
| Moving a production and staffing it throughout a tour is so
| expensive that guaranteeing the endeavor is profitable is still
| difficult - many of the "biggest" tours with sellout crowds
| across the country have been financial disasters.
|
| Basically my point is that the issue isn't just in fairness in
| ticket sales. It's lack of venues. Which makes sense. If we had
| cities operate like Las Vegas, and have venues that put on high
| profile shows for months at a time with residencies, the access
| to the shows might be (paradoxically) improved despite being
| hyper local. If you can guarantee a low risk/profitable
| production and rely on people traveling to the show (which many
| do! look at broadway - people can and do see shows affordably
| with the highest cost being the plane ticket) then the problem
| might be better mitigated. Or maybe not. I'm not an economist,
| but the point is that the supply problem goes a lot deeper than
| people trying to buy tickets at the same time.
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