>But it's inefficient: Sometimes it's not about extracting the maximum possible dollar amount. Artists like sharing their work with other people. Many of them

>But it's inefficient: Sometimes it's not about extracting the maximum possible dollar amount. Artists like sharing their work with other people. Many of them would gladly do it for free if they could, but charge because they have to make a living just like everyone else. >some kind of auction mechanism is needed to figure out the right price for a ticket. If Louis is happy with what he's making off the tickets, then they're set at the right price. What you're proposing would essentially lock out many of his fans that couldn't afford the "right" price that would be set with an auction system. The traditional problem with intentionally setting an artificially low price is that resellers would buy up tickets, sell them back at market prices, essentially locking out those fans and also reaping the additional profit that the artist was intentionally forgoing. What Louis is trying to do is design a system that locks out the resellers, and in turn essentially turns the ticket selling process into a lottery for those fans that care enough about seeing him to go buy a ticket early. As long as there are more people that want to see him than can fit in the venue, there's no way to make it totally fair for everyone. But the approach he's taking allows him to make an amount he's happy with while keeping the financial cost of getting in at a point that he feels is fair to the fans. It may be inefficient from a pure market standpoint, but, frankly, I think it's going to accomplish exactly what he wants it to.