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Scummy behavior, but customers are also tacitly endorsing high prices when they pay $1500 for a Taylor Swift (or name your artist) ticket.
by xnx 4mo ago
Scummy behavior, but customers are also tacitly endorsing high prices when they pay $1500 for a Taylor Swift (or name your artist) ticket.
- gruez 4mo agoYou're not entirely wrong, but the root issue is artists not charging the market clearing price for tickets. If you're selling something worth $1000 for $200, you shouldn't be surprised arbitrageurs pop up to take advantage.
- eightysixfour 4mo ago> You're not entirely wrong, but the root issue is artists not charging the market clearing price for tickets. Because there is value for the artist in maintaining the perception of accessibility.
- gruez 4mo agoThat's also easy to solve. Allocate discounted tickets by lottery and bind to a name (think airline tickets). If for whatever reason they can't make it, the ticket goes back into the lottery pool. Or maybe if they want the tickets to be transferable, you can put in some nominee ticket holders (eg. max 3 people you can transfer it to).
- meatmanek 4mo agoMy (probably mis-)understanding of StubHub/Ticketmaster is that they're serving as sin eaters / reputation shields for the artists: Phase 1: - Artist lists tickets as "$20" - SH/TM charges $20 + $15 convenience fee - SH/TM pays the artist $30 and keeps $5 - Artist gets to look like they're kind/generous for pricing so affordably while making some of SH/TM's cut Phase 2: - SH/TM hold back some percentage of tickets (possibly most or all of them) to sell on the "resale" market - Those "resale" tickets sell near the market-clearing price, either earning higher margins than if they had sold at list price, or ensuring that most of the seats in the venue are filled. - SH/TM kick back some percentage of revenue from resale tickets to the artist.
- badgersnake 4mo agoThis argument has been made a lot on this site, mainly by people who don’t understand live music.
- bawolff 4mo agoWhat is it that they don't understand about live music?
- godsinhisheaven 4mo agoI understand the arguments against charging the market clearing price, but I do just think it would be very funny for Taylor Swift to sell out a concert charging $10k+ a ticket.
- bmm6o 4mo agoThose arbitrageurs who extract payment without adding value should not be surprised when people are upset and demand changes.