3 ms·

How does that follow? The PAX organisers are "artificially" keeping down the price of tickets by controlling supply and fighting scalpers. If instead the aucti

How does that follow? The PAX organisers are "artificially" keeping down the price of tickets by controlling supply and fighting scalpers. If instead the auction allowed potential attendees to pay more for their tickets, then those tickets would end up going to attendees that pay far above the original price - as is already true for scalped tickets. The percentage of tickets which are scalped is not a direct function of the demand on tickets.

qsort 6y ago
Because if a ticket is traded at $X, it means that there exists someone who believes it is worth $X or more. PAX is effectively offloading the additional cost to the excluded audience, by either denying a ticket they would be willing to buy, or by making them pay more than they would have. If the fraction of the scalped tickets is low, then it means that the fraction of people who are willing to buy a ticket at a price much higher than the going price can't be that large. If tickets were sold at $1, you'd certainly see A LOT more scalping going on, wouldn't you? This would in turn imply that the global outcome wouldn't be that different. People who really want a ticket get one either way, and people who kinda want a ticket benefit from the more fair allocation system.
- ivanbakel 6y ago
  >If tickets were sold at $1, you'd certainly see A LOT more scalping going on, wouldn't you? Not necessarily - you're discounting the effectiveness of anti-scalping measures. (And moreover, scalpers are always incentivised to scalp as many tickets as possible, because they are then put in the situation of controlling the market price with reduced supply, so that they can jack up prices). If in fact anti-scalping works effectively, then the market price of the ticket in a fair auction can be completely independent of the original price it was sold at. If demand is high enough, you can even have people who can only buy tickets because of the fixed price - if even 20% of customers are willing and able to pay far above the retail price for a ticket, they would in an auction snap up all the tickets, because PAX is oversubscribed by 5-to-1.

qsort 6y ago

Because if a ticket is traded at $X, it means that there exists someone who believes it is worth $X or more. PAX is effectively offloading the additional cost to the excluded audience, by either denying a ticket they would be willing to buy, or by making them pay more than they would have. If the fraction of the scalped tickets is low, then it means that the fraction of people who are willing to buy a ticket at a price much higher than the going price can't be that large. If tickets were sold at $1, you'd certainly see A LOT more scalping going on, wouldn't you? This would in turn imply that the global outcome wouldn't be that different. People who really want a ticket get one either way, and people who kinda want a ticket benefit from the more fair allocation system.

ivanbakel 6y ago
>If tickets were sold at $1, you'd certainly see A LOT more scalping going on, wouldn't you? Not necessarily - you're discounting the effectiveness of anti-scalping measures. (And moreover, scalpers are always incentivised to scalp as many tickets as possible, because they are then put in the situation of controlling the market price with reduced supply, so that they can jack up prices). If in fact anti-scalping works effectively, then the market price of the ticket in a fair auction can be completely independent of the original price it was sold at. If demand is high enough, you can even have people who can only buy tickets because of the fixed price - if even 20% of customers are willing and able to pay far above the retail price for a ticket, they would in an auction snap up all the tickets, because PAX is oversubscribed by 5-to-1.