As I remember, the economic concept of "efficiency" has a pretty narrow meaning: The market for a commodity will reach an equilbrium at the most efficient state

As I remember, the economic concept of "efficiency" has a pretty narrow meaning: The market for a commodity will reach an equilbrium at the most efficient state if prices are allowed to change freely (a free market). An efficient outcome is defined as being an outcome that maximizes the surplus value when the surplus of each individual transaction is summed. The surplus value of a transaction is the difference between the lowest price a seller would accept and the highest price a buyer would pay. The strongest negotiator will take a bigger share of the surplus. Even if the surplus is split unfairly on many transactions, the market is still said to be efficient if it meets the above definition. Louis CK's ticketing idea is a pretty unique case because in some ways tickets are easily fungible and lend themselves to this traditional economic analysis. On the other hand, if Louis ck decides he's only doing 50 shows at mid sized venues, and prices are 45 dollars, as long as all tickets sell the market is actually perfectly efficient. Louis has no more product to sell. If he could have sold the same amount of tickets at $65 all that means is that fans are taking more of the surplus, as opposed to scampers. Even though there might be way more fans than tickets, the market is at an efficient equilibrium because Louis CK's supply curve has become totally inellastic at $45.