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The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

cr125rider 1y ago
What is it then?
- chmod775 1y ago
  My guess: Empty seats look bad and and pricing fans out of concerts may hurt fan relations, even losing them completely. Also concerts are mainly for the artist to make money. Traditionally they're getting fucked by record labels, making very little on sales of media. Concerts is when you're actually getting paid. It thus being a somewhat less corporate process to decide ticket prices can mean that they just charge as much as they need and want, not as much as they can. Artists are generally considered to be a polar opposite to the "short-term-profit-maximizing" crowd.
adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
I think a significant portion is that artists like leaving money on the table. being perceived as greedy can cause reputational harm significantly greater than the increased ticket revenues that the market will bear.
- dbspin 1y ago
  It's hilarious to read this discussion on HN, because the mentalities of artists and corporate business folks are so different. Artists aren't making a rational decision to reduce reputational damage by keeping ticket prices low. They're employing empathy to imagine themselves in the position of their audience - as music fans themselves first and foremost. Why do people create at all? It's certainly not the most effective route to maximum income. It's a form of connection. Performing is sharing the joy of music and creativity with a group of people who've formed a connection to you through your art. Now while the industry certainly selects for people who do not think this way (i.e.: performers rather than artists), despite itself it's full of artists whose values are not aligned with whatever kind of homo econominicus maximal self interest, war of all against all that pervades here. Source - I'm not a musician, but I am a writer and I've directed music videos for numerous artists over the years. The idea that they're all motivated by the same mechanics as faceless entities like ticket master is silly.
  - vasco 1y ago
    Artists charge what they get told to charge. And ticketmaster owns all the venues so if you want to play anywhere, you're going to list at whatever prices the venue lists artists of your level. Humans are all statistically similar for large cohorts. Artists want money as much as other people, specially the ones playing big venues. First thing to help would be to break up the venue monopoly that ticketmaster created.
    - dbspin 1y ago
      The vast majority, hard to quantify, but I'd guess well over 99% of professional musicians (certainly outside the US) never play a ticketmaster venue. They're not operating at that scale. When they tour it's at smaller venues - there are orders of magnitude more small bars and dedicated venues not owned by ticket master. > Artists want money as much as other people, specially the ones playing big venues. This is exactly the kind of projection I'm referring to. What makes you believe that most humans want as much money as possible - to the exclusion of all other values? Again, difficult to quantify, but I'd suggest a majority of people would put pure wealth lower down on their priority list than health, family connection, social connection, travel, time to spend on interests etc. This goes double for people who've chosen professions rooted in their own creative expression. All else being equal we'll all choose wealth - but if the cost is exploitation, all else will not be equal for most people. It seems clear that you're conflating the microscopic numbers of 'major label' artists playing to vast audiences - effectively as employees of 360 label / marketing companies like Live Nation with the supermajority of professional touring musicians. I'm reminded of the chap I attended college with who sold a salacious story about one of our mutual friends to a tabloid. When we found out this was happening I had a another mutual friend approach him to intervene, but heard back that it was 'too much money to turn down'. Fifteen or so years later this guy is a multi-millionaire who just lost a civil suit (and is under criminal investigation) for fraud and sexual misconduct. Most people do not operate like this - empathy is dimensional.
      - TeMPOraL 1y ago
        > What makes you believe that most humans want as much money as possible - to the exclusion of all other values? Hardly anyone thinks that. But it's not controversial to believe most humans want enough money to not worry about affording the basics. The thing is, most art as a career doesn't even pay that by default.
bko 1y ago
Ticketmaster has it's own resale platform. It's able to double dip. They basically say tickets are relatively cheap and scalpers are the bad guys. They encourage the scalpers. Then they can resell using their own resale platform and they get fees on top of that. The fees on re-sellers are crazy, and they take fees from both seller and buyer. Seller Side: List price: $100 StubHub seller fee (15%): -$15 Seller receives: $85 Buyer Side: Ticket price: $100 StubHub buyer fee (10-15%, let's use 12%): +$12 Buyer pays: $112 StubHub's Take: From seller: $15 From buyer: $12 Total StubHub revenue: $27 So they're making an additional ~27% (on the "true" market price) in addition to the ~25% they charge in the primary market. So if the market price was $200, if they just charged that they would make $50. But instead they'll sell it for $100, make $25 on the primary and an additional $50 when sold in the secondary market. They don't own StubHub but they have their own. In 2017 they opened up TicketExchange which allow the sale and validation of tickets on third-party websites, including StubHub, which they did to capture some of that amount. They get to play like the reasonable party here, the scalpers are taking the heat and they're getting a cut of that. They do other things that's baffling like selling tickets a year ahead of time, which is kind of weird considering very few people, even big fans, would be really on top of buying tickets a year out. It's obviously designed for scalpers. You can easily solve this by having the ticket tied to a name and requiring you to show ID, maybe allow others to dump back at face value, but that would likely be gamed as well but not as easily (you dump your tickets and let someone else pick them up at that exact moment). Or make them non-transferrable but that would greatly reduce the value to fans.
- kbenson 1y ago
  It's much more complicated (and worse) than that. Ticketmaster reserves some seats during sale to be dynamic pricing, which they start higher than normal and then depending on demand and what they see on the secondary market they re-price those as the initial sale or presale is ongoing, just minutes after it starts. Also, promoters, artists and venues might get their own allotment of tickets to do with as they want, likely negotiated in contracts. Those seem to find their way onto secondary markets often as well. > They do other things that's baffling like selling tickets a year ahead of time, which is kind of weird considering very few people, even big fans, would be really on top of buying tickets a year out. It's obviously designed for scalpers. Yes, I've commented on this here before. In some cases it's because tours go on sale at the same time (to generate buzz), and the early events are relatively soon and the last events are quite far out. They also often do release chunks of ticket inventory at later stages. That said, I'm convinced that often brokers are used as a simple way to provide immediate cash and reduce risk. Why would a promoter want to sell out over months when they can sell out immediately and know that regardless of whether the brokers make money (they don't always) they have sold everything and can say the event is sold out and they have cash in hand now and not months from now. I used to work in this industry and there's a lot of shady stuff that goes on, and it's not all on the broker/scalper side. > You can easily solve this by having the ticket tied to a name and requiring you to show ID That's been done for a long time and you can still get around it if the margin is good enough. You just have to either want to go to the event yourself or be willing to one ticket out of the maximum you can purchase as the cost of doing business. You can't really make every seat have a name initially because not everyone actually knows who they're going to invite for sure at time of purchase, so if you want to really make it effective you have to limit the number of tickets per transaction to 4 or less. Even then, people will be incentivized to buy the max and have people go with them to use the extra tickets at cost or more, it may not be brokers but the regular public will do it too. The actual solution for this is fairly simple. It's supply and demand. Play more shows at a location and the ticket prices will drop. Kid Rock has done it for decades at this point. Artists don't like having to put the extra work in for less money (tickets will be cheaper) and don't want to take the risk that the demand won't be there if they book the venue early. That risk is pushed out to brokers.
jdietrich 1y ago
Ticket sales companies and scalpers are holding the bag for everyone else. It is extremely convenient for artists, promoters and venues that ticketing sites will tack on a bunch of extra fees, take the blame for pushing up the price of tickets, then share out most of that extra cash to everyone else in the chain. Scalpers are effectively providing financing for the rest of the industry - it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced, rather than having to bear the cashflow risks yourself. There is of course absolutely nothing stopping a promoter from reserving some proportion of tickets to be sold directly to secondary resellers at substantially above face value, or on an agreed profit-sharing basis.
- theamk 1y ago
  > it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced it's only obvious to "private equity" type people. There is energy in the concerts - and a lot of people go to live shows for that. Otherwise, one would listen to the recording / watch music videos instead - it is cheaper and the seats are nicer too. If the seats are half-empty, or only full of people who are ready to pay exorbitant prices, that energy is reduced... people like concerts less, and eventually those concerts are not sold out anymore. So giving up (or even worse, cooperating) to scalpers is like selling your business to private equity - you get some money, they get some money, and your customers/fans are f*d.
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    This sounds so truthy and yet so lacking in specifics. Any examples come to mind?
  - toast0 1y ago
    >> it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced > it's only obvious to "private equity" type people. I mean, who wouldn't look at their current expenses, look at their future cashflow, and be like hey, it would sure be nice to be paid today for work I'll do over the next year? Venues need deposits (maybe), transportation needs deposits, set builders need materials, marketing needs budget, merchandise production needs to pay vendors, etc. Insurance needs to be purchased. It all adds up to it'd be nice to have ticket sales money sooner rather than later.
immibis 1y ago
It's only mispricing if you take market dynamics, and making the most money possible, as paramount. If your goal is to actually bring fans to your show, you might want a different system. One music festival issues ID-linked tickets using a lottery 8 months in advance. If only the richest people attended, it would actually destroy the festival. And no, they can't hold it more than once each year so that prices drop.
whoisthemachine 1y ago
Sometimes you leave money on the table to increase demand.
tsimionescu 1y ago
Are they mispriced? Or is it just hard to price goods where some people are willing to pay a MUCH higher premium than others? That is, if I can sell 5000 tickets at 10$ or 10 tickets at 1000$, the right price may just be 10$. And trying to find a way to convince those 10 people to pay the 1000$ they were willing to, in a way that doesn't affect my reputation too much, may just be too hard.

cr125rider 1y ago

What is it then?

chmod775 1y ago
My guess: Empty seats look bad and and pricing fans out of concerts may hurt fan relations, even losing them completely. Also concerts are mainly for the artist to make money. Traditionally they're getting fucked by record labels, making very little on sales of media. Concerts is when you're actually getting paid. It thus being a somewhat less corporate process to decide ticket prices can mean that they just charge as much as they need and want, not as much as they can. Artists are generally considered to be a polar opposite to the "short-term-profit-maximizing" crowd.

adgjlsfhk1 1y ago

I think a significant portion is that artists like leaving money on the table. being perceived as greedy can cause reputational harm significantly greater than the increased ticket revenues that the market will bear.

dbspin 1y ago
It's hilarious to read this discussion on HN, because the mentalities of artists and corporate business folks are so different. Artists aren't making a rational decision to reduce reputational damage by keeping ticket prices low. They're employing empathy to imagine themselves in the position of their audience - as music fans themselves first and foremost. Why do people create at all? It's certainly not the most effective route to maximum income. It's a form of connection. Performing is sharing the joy of music and creativity with a group of people who've formed a connection to you through your art. Now while the industry certainly selects for people who do not think this way (i.e.: performers rather than artists), despite itself it's full of artists whose values are not aligned with whatever kind of homo econominicus maximal self interest, war of all against all that pervades here. Source - I'm not a musician, but I am a writer and I've directed music videos for numerous artists over the years. The idea that they're all motivated by the same mechanics as faceless entities like ticket master is silly.
- vasco 1y ago
  Artists charge what they get told to charge. And ticketmaster owns all the venues so if you want to play anywhere, you're going to list at whatever prices the venue lists artists of your level. Humans are all statistically similar for large cohorts. Artists want money as much as other people, specially the ones playing big venues. First thing to help would be to break up the venue monopoly that ticketmaster created.
  - dbspin 1y ago
    The vast majority, hard to quantify, but I'd guess well over 99% of professional musicians (certainly outside the US) never play a ticketmaster venue. They're not operating at that scale. When they tour it's at smaller venues - there are orders of magnitude more small bars and dedicated venues not owned by ticket master. > Artists want money as much as other people, specially the ones playing big venues. This is exactly the kind of projection I'm referring to. What makes you believe that most humans want as much money as possible - to the exclusion of all other values? Again, difficult to quantify, but I'd suggest a majority of people would put pure wealth lower down on their priority list than health, family connection, social connection, travel, time to spend on interests etc. This goes double for people who've chosen professions rooted in their own creative expression. All else being equal we'll all choose wealth - but if the cost is exploitation, all else will not be equal for most people. It seems clear that you're conflating the microscopic numbers of 'major label' artists playing to vast audiences - effectively as employees of 360 label / marketing companies like Live Nation with the supermajority of professional touring musicians. I'm reminded of the chap I attended college with who sold a salacious story about one of our mutual friends to a tabloid. When we found out this was happening I had a another mutual friend approach him to intervene, but heard back that it was 'too much money to turn down'. Fifteen or so years later this guy is a multi-millionaire who just lost a civil suit (and is under criminal investigation) for fraud and sexual misconduct. Most people do not operate like this - empathy is dimensional.
    - TeMPOraL 1y ago
      > What makes you believe that most humans want as much money as possible - to the exclusion of all other values? Hardly anyone thinks that. But it's not controversial to believe most humans want enough money to not worry about affording the basics. The thing is, most art as a career doesn't even pay that by default.

bko 1y ago

Ticketmaster has it's own resale platform. It's able to double dip. They basically say tickets are relatively cheap and scalpers are the bad guys. They encourage the scalpers. Then they can resell using their own resale platform and they get fees on top of that. The fees on re-sellers are crazy, and they take fees from both seller and buyer. Seller Side: List price: $100 StubHub seller fee (15%): -$15 Seller receives: $85 Buyer Side: Ticket price: $100 StubHub buyer fee (10-15%, let's use 12%): +$12 Buyer pays: $112 StubHub's Take: From seller: $15 From buyer: $12 Total StubHub revenue: $27 So they're making an additional ~27% (on the "true" market price) in addition to the ~25% they charge in the primary market. So if the market price was $200, if they just charged that they would make $50. But instead they'll sell it for $100, make $25 on the primary and an additional $50 when sold in the secondary market. They don't own StubHub but they have their own. In 2017 they opened up TicketExchange which allow the sale and validation of tickets on third-party websites, including StubHub, which they did to capture some of that amount. They get to play like the reasonable party here, the scalpers are taking the heat and they're getting a cut of that. They do other things that's baffling like selling tickets a year ahead of time, which is kind of weird considering very few people, even big fans, would be really on top of buying tickets a year out. It's obviously designed for scalpers. You can easily solve this by having the ticket tied to a name and requiring you to show ID, maybe allow others to dump back at face value, but that would likely be gamed as well but not as easily (you dump your tickets and let someone else pick them up at that exact moment). Or make them non-transferrable but that would greatly reduce the value to fans.

kbenson 1y ago
It's much more complicated (and worse) than that. Ticketmaster reserves some seats during sale to be dynamic pricing, which they start higher than normal and then depending on demand and what they see on the secondary market they re-price those as the initial sale or presale is ongoing, just minutes after it starts. Also, promoters, artists and venues might get their own allotment of tickets to do with as they want, likely negotiated in contracts. Those seem to find their way onto secondary markets often as well. > They do other things that's baffling like selling tickets a year ahead of time, which is kind of weird considering very few people, even big fans, would be really on top of buying tickets a year out. It's obviously designed for scalpers. Yes, I've commented on this here before. In some cases it's because tours go on sale at the same time (to generate buzz), and the early events are relatively soon and the last events are quite far out. They also often do release chunks of ticket inventory at later stages. That said, I'm convinced that often brokers are used as a simple way to provide immediate cash and reduce risk. Why would a promoter want to sell out over months when they can sell out immediately and know that regardless of whether the brokers make money (they don't always) they have sold everything and can say the event is sold out and they have cash in hand now and not months from now. I used to work in this industry and there's a lot of shady stuff that goes on, and it's not all on the broker/scalper side. > You can easily solve this by having the ticket tied to a name and requiring you to show ID That's been done for a long time and you can still get around it if the margin is good enough. You just have to either want to go to the event yourself or be willing to one ticket out of the maximum you can purchase as the cost of doing business. You can't really make every seat have a name initially because not everyone actually knows who they're going to invite for sure at time of purchase, so if you want to really make it effective you have to limit the number of tickets per transaction to 4 or less. Even then, people will be incentivized to buy the max and have people go with them to use the extra tickets at cost or more, it may not be brokers but the regular public will do it too. The actual solution for this is fairly simple. It's supply and demand. Play more shows at a location and the ticket prices will drop. Kid Rock has done it for decades at this point. Artists don't like having to put the extra work in for less money (tickets will be cheaper) and don't want to take the risk that the demand won't be there if they book the venue early. That risk is pushed out to brokers.

jdietrich 1y ago

Ticket sales companies and scalpers are holding the bag for everyone else. It is extremely convenient for artists, promoters and venues that ticketing sites will tack on a bunch of extra fees, take the blame for pushing up the price of tickets, then share out most of that extra cash to everyone else in the chain. Scalpers are effectively providing financing for the rest of the industry - it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced, rather than having to bear the cashflow risks yourself. There is of course absolutely nothing stopping a promoter from reserving some proportion of tickets to be sold directly to secondary resellers at substantially above face value, or on an agreed profit-sharing basis.

theamk 1y ago
> it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced it's only obvious to "private equity" type people. There is energy in the concerts - and a lot of people go to live shows for that. Otherwise, one would listen to the recording / watch music videos instead - it is cheaper and the seats are nicer too. If the seats are half-empty, or only full of people who are ready to pay exorbitant prices, that energy is reduced... people like concerts less, and eventually those concerts are not sold out anymore. So giving up (or even worse, cooperating) to scalpers is like selling your business to private equity - you get some money, they get some money, and your customers/fans are f*d.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  This sounds so truthy and yet so lacking in specifics. Any examples come to mind?
- toast0 1y ago
  >> it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced > it's only obvious to "private equity" type people. I mean, who wouldn't look at their current expenses, look at their future cashflow, and be like hey, it would sure be nice to be paid today for work I'll do over the next year? Venues need deposits (maybe), transportation needs deposits, set builders need materials, marketing needs budget, merchandise production needs to pay vendors, etc. Insurance needs to be purchased. It all adds up to it'd be nice to have ticket sales money sooner rather than later.

immibis 1y ago

It's only mispricing if you take market dynamics, and making the most money possible, as paramount. If your goal is to actually bring fans to your show, you might want a different system. One music festival issues ID-linked tickets using a lottery 8 months in advance. If only the richest people attended, it would actually destroy the festival. And no, they can't hold it more than once each year so that prices drop.

whoisthemachine 1y ago

Sometimes you leave money on the table to increase demand.

tsimionescu 1y ago

Are they mispriced? Or is it just hard to price goods where some people are willing to pay a MUCH higher premium than others? That is, if I can sell 5000 tickets at 10$ or 10 tickets at 1000$, the right price may just be 10$. And trying to find a way to convince those 10 people to pay the 1000$ they were willing to, in a way that doesn't affect my reputation too much, may just be too hard.