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> [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 ar
by mananaysiempre 4y ago
> [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.
- manholio 4y agoThe 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 4y agoHow exactly do fans prove their loyalty?
- Spivak 4y ago* 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 4y agoAnd what of fans that don't use a streaming service but buys their music instead?
- adolph 4y agoYou 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 4y agoAll 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 4y agoDoesn't this discriminate against fans that would not like to share their personal info. or who don't condone to this kind of tracking?
- dqpb 4y ago> 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.
- gljiva 4y agoWhy not have a random draw?