6 ms·

I stopped using ticketmaster years ago, but it seems like a reverse auction would be the best way. Start each ticket at $500. Every X minutes, knock the price

I stopped using ticketmaster years ago, but it seems like a reverse auction would be the best way. Start each ticket at $500. Every X minutes, knock the price down by Y percent.

dbbk 8y ago
So only rich people should be allowed to see major artists in concert?
- Spivak 8y ago
  I mean artists are free to reserve discounted tickets for fans and sell them fcfs but they would be intentionally losing money by doing so. Sometimes this is a good choice because you don't want to make your fans mad. It's just a system where people are incented to pay the most they're willing to. Pay before your price and you lose money, pay after your price and you risk the show being sold out.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    Except it wouldn't be intentionally losing money. Long term fans are what make a band the most money - they buy tickets and merch, and albums (games, movies, etc). By cashing in on big gigs and maximizing the sales for those tickets an artist would potentially be giving up a lot more long tail revenue, and possibly killing their fan base altogether. Maximizing long term profitability is often not the same as maximizing short term revenue.
    - saosebastiao 8y ago
      There's an easy way to charge market prices and have them be lower. You can raise supply by playing more shows. And if a band values its long term fans, they should have an interest in getting as many people into their shows as possible. Just stay an extra night or two and play another show.
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  No. Rich people can allready afford a scalpers price, and dont really care if their tickets are 500 dollars or not. In capitalism, high demand and limited stock means that you (as a seller) should set the price as high as you can, while selling all stock. If you set your price lower, you're loosing potential income
  - dwiel 8y ago
    Sometimes people have interests other than or in addition to maximizing revenue.
    - thecatspaw 8y ago
      Sure. Ticket master though?
      - jtmcmc 8y ago
        that's what makes this so shitty - promoters are setting the prices initially and ticketmaster is trying to remove their choice by removing all the stock and reselling it at the maximum possible price
- F_r_k 8y ago
  The alternative is what ? Someone buys them all and it's the same all over again ? Or you put some safeties in place and only the fastest ones can have a ticket
  - dbbk 8y ago
    Well, I think the alternative is the fan-to-fan resale service Ticketmaster is already preparing to launch (in the UK at least) https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/ticketmaster-resale https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/ticketmaster-resale
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Use some of the extra funds to give away some free seats to fans.
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    I think identifying which fans are worthy of free seats is a very hard problem - particularly if using an online system.
- paulcole 8y ago
  Who's saying this about Tesla cars or other luxury goods?
- anon12341234 8y ago
  That's already the case you inbred hick.
- x220 8y ago
  It would make the artists (and venues) more money, meaning that they could make more concerts and seats.
yardstick 8y ago
How about everyone that wants to buy a ticket enters a free lottery and at the end of the week, winners are randomly selected and they then get to buy tickets. Any unsold tickets are then made available to the general public after the winners had a chance to look. This is how the London 2012 Olympics worked, and it meant you didn’t have to try be refreshing your browser like mad the minute the tickets were released.
- slouch 8y ago
  This is how the band Phish runs presales.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  How do you prevent scalpers from stuffing the lottery with thousands of entries?
  - hesk 8y ago
    You need to show ID when entering the event that matches the ticket. This is how a popular music festival does it in Germany to prevent scalping. There is no way to transfer tickets to other persons. Instead you can refund tickets up to a week before the festival which then go back into the lottery.
Timmah 8y ago
What if there was a "cash back" rebate available inside the venue? So TM sells each ticket for $1000, and you get $500 back once you get inside? This would make it very expensive for scalpers to be left with extra tickets. There would still be the problem of preventing people from claiming multiple rebates but I think that's solvable.
- ascorbic 8y ago
  That would mean the only people who could buy tickets are that who can afford to tie up hundreds of dollars for months.

I stopped using ticketmaster years ago, but it seems like a reverse auction would be the best way. Start each ticket at $500. Every X minutes, knock the price down by Y percent.

dbbk 8y ago

So only rich people should be allowed to see major artists in concert?

Spivak 8y ago
I mean artists are free to reserve discounted tickets for fans and sell them fcfs but they would be intentionally losing money by doing so. Sometimes this is a good choice because you don't want to make your fans mad. It's just a system where people are incented to pay the most they're willing to. Pay before your price and you lose money, pay after your price and you risk the show being sold out.
- onion2k 8y ago
  Except it wouldn't be intentionally losing money. Long term fans are what make a band the most money - they buy tickets and merch, and albums (games, movies, etc). By cashing in on big gigs and maximizing the sales for those tickets an artist would potentially be giving up a lot more long tail revenue, and possibly killing their fan base altogether. Maximizing long term profitability is often not the same as maximizing short term revenue.
  - saosebastiao 8y ago
    There's an easy way to charge market prices and have them be lower. You can raise supply by playing more shows. And if a band values its long term fans, they should have an interest in getting as many people into their shows as possible. Just stay an extra night or two and play another show.
thecatspaw 8y ago
No. Rich people can allready afford a scalpers price, and dont really care if their tickets are 500 dollars or not. In capitalism, high demand and limited stock means that you (as a seller) should set the price as high as you can, while selling all stock. If you set your price lower, you're loosing potential income
- dwiel 8y ago
  Sometimes people have interests other than or in addition to maximizing revenue.
  - thecatspaw 8y ago
    Sure. Ticket master though?
    - jtmcmc 8y ago
      that's what makes this so shitty - promoters are setting the prices initially and ticketmaster is trying to remove their choice by removing all the stock and reselling it at the maximum possible price
F_r_k 8y ago
The alternative is what ? Someone buys them all and it's the same all over again ? Or you put some safeties in place and only the fastest ones can have a ticket
- dbbk 8y ago
  Well, I think the alternative is the fan-to-fan resale service Ticketmaster is already preparing to launch (in the UK at least) https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/ticketmaster-resale https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/ticketmaster-resale
cwkoss 8y ago
Use some of the extra funds to give away some free seats to fans.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  I think identifying which fans are worthy of free seats is a very hard problem - particularly if using an online system.
paulcole 8y ago
Who's saying this about Tesla cars or other luxury goods?
anon12341234 8y ago
That's already the case you inbred hick.
x220 8y ago
It would make the artists (and venues) more money, meaning that they could make more concerts and seats.

yardstick 8y ago

How about everyone that wants to buy a ticket enters a free lottery and at the end of the week, winners are randomly selected and they then get to buy tickets. Any unsold tickets are then made available to the general public after the winners had a chance to look. This is how the London 2012 Olympics worked, and it meant you didn’t have to try be refreshing your browser like mad the minute the tickets were released.

slouch 8y ago
This is how the band Phish runs presales.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
How do you prevent scalpers from stuffing the lottery with thousands of entries?
- hesk 8y ago
  You need to show ID when entering the event that matches the ticket. This is how a popular music festival does it in Germany to prevent scalping. There is no way to transfer tickets to other persons. Instead you can refund tickets up to a week before the festival which then go back into the lottery.

Timmah 8y ago

What if there was a "cash back" rebate available inside the venue? So TM sells each ticket for $1000, and you get $500 back once you get inside? This would make it very expensive for scalpers to be left with extra tickets. There would still be the problem of preventing people from claiming multiple rebates but I think that's solvable.

ascorbic 8y ago
That would mean the only people who could buy tickets are that who can afford to tie up hundreds of dollars for months.