2 ms·

I think that's where things will eventually be, but the ticket industry moves very very slow. For sports, teams often sell tickets below market price for cash f

I think that's where things will eventually be, but the ticket industry moves very very slow. For sports, teams often sell tickets below market price for cash flow purposes. Season ticket holders often have to pay the entire balance upfront before the season even starts and independent of the team's performance. Also, if face value goes up too high their can be (and has been) a fan and media backlash. Also, many stadium agreements are set up so that a team makes more money from merchandise & concessions than ticket proceeds. In the NFL, if you don't sell out you run the risk of TV blackout; this also causes downward pressure on prices. Concert tickets are a different beast since bands don't acquire win & loss records, but the public perception of face value still applies. During the season, prices can vary dramatically based on how good a team is playing. For example, Lions and Rams tickets we're going for $5 by season end. However, this almost never happens with bands on tour unless they require a reputation for sucking live. Also, what Ticketmaster doesn't make very public is that they often split their "convenience fees" with the artist.

paulgb 18y ago
Thanks, that gives some insight. The argument for sports tickets is quite convincing, I didn't realize all the factors that were involved. I'm still not sold on the public-backlash argument for performers though. Couldn't price targeting reduce the public backlash? Eg. charge $50 for a limited number of tickets 3 months in advance, when the die hard, starving-college-student fans are ready to buy tickets, and $200 to the investment banker who buys tickets for his kid at the last minute. Maybe I'm over-simplifying things, or over-estimating the money the scalpers are making.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  Agreed. The case is much more clear cut for sports than it is for concerts. What you're talking about exists in the form of presale passwords: http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/presale-passwords-faqs/ http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/presale-passwords-faqs/ Presale passwords allow fans to gain access to tickets before the public sale. However, scalpers can pretty easily acquire them and the sales limits aren't very hard to game. What does tend to happen though is that the investment banker type (is that reference even valid anymore? :-D) can buy his tickets on the secondary market at the last minute from TicketsNow, which Ticketmaster owns, and sometimes the artist receives a cut of those proceeds. To people on Hacker News, market prices makes a lot of sense, but in practice they scare a lot of people away. Fixed prices are why Ebay acquired Half.com & Stubhub. And it's why places that deal with futures or more complex purchasing options like First Dibz have blown through loads of cash without gaining much traction; the people behind those sites aren't the target market. What's also interesting is that artists tend to make more money from tours than CDs, merchandise, itunes, etc (as the label gets a significantly larger cut of the latter). So maybe there's some behind the scenes pressure to ensure sellouts and drive the type of sales that benefit the label most. One final thought: if an artist becomes really hot (like the Flight of the Conchords currently) shows can be added...double or tripling supply in a given metropolitan area. The same thing cannot be done with sports.

paulgb 18y ago

Thanks, that gives some insight. The argument for sports tickets is quite convincing, I didn't realize all the factors that were involved. I'm still not sold on the public-backlash argument for performers though. Couldn't price targeting reduce the public backlash? Eg. charge $50 for a limited number of tickets 3 months in advance, when the die hard, starving-college-student fans are ready to buy tickets, and $200 to the investment banker who buys tickets for his kid at the last minute. Maybe I'm over-simplifying things, or over-estimating the money the scalpers are making.

fallentimes 18y ago
Agreed. The case is much more clear cut for sports than it is for concerts. What you're talking about exists in the form of presale passwords: http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/presale-passwords-faqs/ http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/presale-passwords-faqs/ Presale passwords allow fans to gain access to tickets before the public sale. However, scalpers can pretty easily acquire them and the sales limits aren't very hard to game. What does tend to happen though is that the investment banker type (is that reference even valid anymore? :-D) can buy his tickets on the secondary market at the last minute from TicketsNow, which Ticketmaster owns, and sometimes the artist receives a cut of those proceeds. To people on Hacker News, market prices makes a lot of sense, but in practice they scare a lot of people away. Fixed prices are why Ebay acquired Half.com & Stubhub. And it's why places that deal with futures or more complex purchasing options like First Dibz have blown through loads of cash without gaining much traction; the people behind those sites aren't the target market. What's also interesting is that artists tend to make more money from tours than CDs, merchandise, itunes, etc (as the label gets a significantly larger cut of the latter). So maybe there's some behind the scenes pressure to ensure sellouts and drive the type of sales that benefit the label most. One final thought: if an artist becomes really hot (like the Flight of the Conchords currently) shows can be added...double or tripling supply in a given metropolitan area. The same thing cannot be done with sports.