5 ms·

I was wondering, if ticket resale is a viable business model only because tickets are not priced properly in the first place. What if tickets were sold using a

by krn 4y ago

I was wondering, if ticket resale is a viable business model only because tickets are not priced properly in the first place. What if tickets were sold using a reverse auction system[1] instead? For instance, tickets could start at $1000 and then go down by $1 every hour until the minimum price set by the promoter is reached – or all the tickets are sold out. This way, even if resellers bought a huge number of tickets, it's possible that they wouldn't be able to resell them for a large enough profit to cover the risk. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction

scrollaway 4y ago
Optimal pricing for event tickets is undesirable.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  (Follow-up) It's kinda exhausting reading here through comment after comment of armchair "entertainment venue economists" imagining how to maximize the profits for a single event, all the while forgetting the circumstances leading to event tickets being underpriced. Circumstances such as the fact events are generally a part of tours, that the artists likely want a diverse audience, that event sales have side effects on future sales and marketing, etc etc. Not specifically targeted at you, krn, but is it really so far-fetched to think that artists did think about the fact they'd still have sold out venues at a higher price point? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence
  - krn 4y ago
    > [...] imagining how to maximize the profits for a single event No, I am not interested in maximizing profits. I am only interested in eliminating resellers. > Circumstances such as the fact events are generally a part of tours, that the artists likely want a diverse audience, that event sales have side effects on future sales and marketing, etc etc. That's exactly my point: if currently tickets are grabbed by automated systems and resold for much higher prices, none of these goals are reached by the artists.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Your answer is to become the reseller and charge more putting the reseller out of business? Now you have increased profits short term and increased risks. And only rich fans can attend. This works for some stars and against other star'a brand. A popular answer is requiring the purchaser to show id to get in with obvious drawbacks. Rising prices would lose the cool fans and make the followers who can afford less likely to want to go.
      - krn 4y ago
        > Your answer is to become the reseller and charge more putting the reseller out of business? No, that's what the promoter should do. > Now you have increased profits short term and increased risks. And only rich fans can attend. This works for some stars and against other star'a brand. No, it's doesn't have to be this way. Price could start at $1000, but the minimum could be as low as $50. Yes, the rich fans would get their tickets first, but after the first 50% tickets are sold, all the remaining tickets could cost $50. This way, at least theoretically, all the rich fans would get their tickets directly, and the resellers would go out of business.
        ztrww 4y ago
        > all the remaining tickets could cost $50. What makes you think there would be any remaining tickets? I mean I don’t see how this system could increase the availability, it would only allow the event organizers to get all the surplus that goes to the resellers now. Also having a fair and transparent system would likely only increase the number of bidders driving up the price even more.
        krn 4y ago
        > What makes you think there would be any remaining tickets? Again, there could be a rule, that after the first 30-50% tickets are sold, all the remaining tickets are sold at the base price (let's say, $50). It's just a trick to force resellers out of business: because there is a limited number of people who can afford to buy tickets at heavily inflated prices.
klabb3 4y ago
Pricing had lots of factors and you don't want to lock pricing to a specific model only to solve this problem. Why not design such that simply prevents reselling? From the article: > What’s more, fans won’t be able to resell their tickets [...] This works great for air travel so why not concerts as well? The reason it's not common must be because of collusion or side business with scalping services (which we know that e.g. ticket master has done). Checking an ID card is easy. > [...] unless they go through the Eventim-distributed website fanSALE This is potentially dangerous. Scalpers can still transfer ownership for an out-of-bounds payment. So this isn't exactly waterproof. Here's how I would do it: - 2 days before release, anyone can sign up to buy tickets. Name and payment details are required and put in escrow or on CC hold (weak rate limit). They are put in an unordered set (no bot advantage) - at release time, assign tickets those in the set until you run out of tickets. - create a queue for the remaining tickets. The unlucky ones who didn't get tickets in the former step are moved to the queue (again in random order). Others can also join the queue, but this time order is maintained, for fairness[1]. - You can leave the queue anytime and get your escrow money back. In this case, you cannot choose who will get your ticket, it goes to the person who is first in line. This doesn't solve all intricacies like group bookings, different kinds of tickets etc, but that should be solvable without breaking this scheme. [1]: Technically you can just keep the unordered set, but you cannot just make returned tickets available suddenly, because of bot advantage)

by krn 4y ago

scrollaway 4y ago

Optimal pricing for event tickets is undesirable.

scrollaway 4y ago
(Follow-up) It's kinda exhausting reading here through comment after comment of armchair "entertainment venue economists" imagining how to maximize the profits for a single event, all the while forgetting the circumstances leading to event tickets being underpriced. Circumstances such as the fact events are generally a part of tours, that the artists likely want a diverse audience, that event sales have side effects on future sales and marketing, etc etc. Not specifically targeted at you, krn, but is it really so far-fetched to think that artists did think about the fact they'd still have sold out venues at a higher price point? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence
- krn 4y ago
  > [...] imagining how to maximize the profits for a single event No, I am not interested in maximizing profits. I am only interested in eliminating resellers. > Circumstances such as the fact events are generally a part of tours, that the artists likely want a diverse audience, that event sales have side effects on future sales and marketing, etc etc. That's exactly my point: if currently tickets are grabbed by automated systems and resold for much higher prices, none of these goals are reached by the artists.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Your answer is to become the reseller and charge more putting the reseller out of business? Now you have increased profits short term and increased risks. And only rich fans can attend. This works for some stars and against other star'a brand. A popular answer is requiring the purchaser to show id to get in with obvious drawbacks. Rising prices would lose the cool fans and make the followers who can afford less likely to want to go.
    - krn 4y ago
      > Your answer is to become the reseller and charge more putting the reseller out of business? No, that's what the promoter should do. > Now you have increased profits short term and increased risks. And only rich fans can attend. This works for some stars and against other star'a brand. No, it's doesn't have to be this way. Price could start at $1000, but the minimum could be as low as $50. Yes, the rich fans would get their tickets first, but after the first 50% tickets are sold, all the remaining tickets could cost $50. This way, at least theoretically, all the rich fans would get their tickets directly, and the resellers would go out of business.
      - ztrww 4y ago
        > all the remaining tickets could cost $50. What makes you think there would be any remaining tickets? I mean I don’t see how this system could increase the availability, it would only allow the event organizers to get all the surplus that goes to the resellers now. Also having a fair and transparent system would likely only increase the number of bidders driving up the price even more.
        krn 4y ago
        > What makes you think there would be any remaining tickets? Again, there could be a rule, that after the first 30-50% tickets are sold, all the remaining tickets are sold at the base price (let's say, $50). It's just a trick to force resellers out of business: because there is a limited number of people who can afford to buy tickets at heavily inflated prices.

klabb3 4y ago

Pricing had lots of factors and you don't want to lock pricing to a specific model only to solve this problem. Why not design such that simply prevents reselling? From the article: > What’s more, fans won’t be able to resell their tickets [...] This works great for air travel so why not concerts as well? The reason it's not common must be because of collusion or side business with scalping services (which we know that e.g. ticket master has done). Checking an ID card is easy. > [...] unless they go through the Eventim-distributed website fanSALE This is potentially dangerous. Scalpers can still transfer ownership for an out-of-bounds payment. So this isn't exactly waterproof. Here's how I would do it: - 2 days before release, anyone can sign up to buy tickets. Name and payment details are required and put in escrow or on CC hold (weak rate limit). They are put in an unordered set (no bot advantage) - at release time, assign tickets those in the set until you run out of tickets. - create a queue for the remaining tickets. The unlucky ones who didn't get tickets in the former step are moved to the queue (again in random order). Others can also join the queue, but this time order is maintained, for fairness[1]. - You can leave the queue anytime and get your escrow money back. In this case, you cannot choose who will get your ticket, it goes to the person who is first in line. This doesn't solve all intricacies like group bookings, different kinds of tickets etc, but that should be solvable without breaking this scheme. [1]: Technically you can just keep the unordered set, but you cannot just make returned tickets available suddenly, because of bot advantage)