There are plenty of good reasons for selling tickets at lower-than-necessary prices on a first-come, first-served basis. If tickets were sold at market price (o

There are plenty of good reasons for selling tickets at lower-than-necessary prices on a first-come, first-served basis. If tickets were sold at market price (or auctioned off), they would tend to go to more affluent--and likely then older--customers. If they were sold by lottery, then they would be distributed to random customers. However, ticket sellers want to sell to younger customers who are more likely to become loyal fans, buy merchandise, promote to friends, etc. The low prices help attract younger customers who likely are not as well off, and the first-come, first-serve policy tends to weed out customers who only have a marginal interest (and thus would not serve as loyal fans). This isn't to say that this business model is the best; just to point out that there are more considerations than the volume of tickets sold or fairness in the sales.