5 ms·

Is there any reason ticket sales happen like this, rather than just selling directly from the venue? Why is scalping a crime, why not just sell at market price

Is there any reason ticket sales happen like this, rather than just selling directly from the venue? Why is scalping a crime, why not just sell at market price to begin with?

pat2man 12y ago
Scalping isn't a crime. They violated the terms of use by reselling on a third party website instead of using the Ticketmaster provided exchange. The question is, can you force someone to resell a ticket on a specific website? My guess would be that the courts will say no.
mox1 12y ago
I think on a macro level, teams don't always want to sell every single ticket for maximum dollar. They really want to ensure a year over year constant revenue stream. So they contract with ticketmaster to sell all of their tickets at fairly set rates. The "Market Price" for an event for 6-8 months from now is going to swing up and down a lot. There's also the perceived unfairness (think what would happen if a popular restaurant doubled its price on Friday and Saturday, people would flip out). After a while, they realized that a pretty large secondary market had formed for tickets (teams get hot, rival team in town on a Saturday night, etc, etc) and the team / venue wants in on the action. So Ticketmaster created an "official scalper" marketplace to compete with StubHub and friends.
- stevesearer 12y ago
  Interestingly enough fine dining establishments are moving in the direction of tickets with a variable price. Long, but a worthwhile read on the subject: http://website.alinearestaurant.com/site/2014/06/tickets-for-restaurants/ http://website.alinearestaurant.com/site/2014/06/tickets-for... "Having either static or dynamically variably priced tables by day of week and time – in a fully transparent manner – simply gives customers the option of paying a bit more for a prime time table or saving a bit of money for an off-prime table. It acknowledges the obvious. No one pays $ 275 for a good seat at a Cubs game, looks up at the nose bleed seats and complains that it’s not fair that those guys up there only paid $ 25. People accept the difference so long as the choice to buy either was their own." EDIT: There was also some discussion about this on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786
picks_at_nits 12y ago
Don’t forget that for some businesses, ticket revenue is just one stream, and they’re trying to maximize total revenue, over a very long term. For example, if you take a sports business and raise ticket prices to a certain level, you will end up with businesses using it to schmooze. Families stop attending. You lose toy sales. Nobody buys bedding sets with the team logos. And then one day, there’s a new hot place to schmooze, the businesses leave, and you’ve got nothing, because there aren’t any adults with fond memories of coming to games as a kid.
Nursie 12y ago
It's not a crime AFAICT, but there are a myriad of reasons people might not want to sell at 'market' Sports teams and sports associations like to be family friendly, which means keeping prices in check. This is partly self-interest - disenfranchise families coming to your games and interest might drop off. Many bands, though, would like their fans to be able to come and see them regardless of income level and think a first-come, first-served basis is much fairer than purely who can afford the most. And then there are people like me who think that inserting yourself between buyer and seller purely so you can hold very limited-release goods to ransom is just a shit thing to do.
matthewowen 12y ago
I usually buy baseball tickets via StubHub. Not all seats within a section are equal (closer rows are better): the better seats are typically held by season ticket holders. Most season ticket holders don't go to every game. They sell the games they can't make on StubHub. As a result, you can often sit in meaningfully better seats for less than you would pay to buy directly from the team.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  Additionally, having different prices for every game is difficult and it is hard to predict that a late October baseball game will be important for the playoffs and exciting. Secondary markets can incorporate that information that shows up 2 or 3 days before a game that isn't present in prices set months ahead.
guelo 12y ago
Season tickets. Teams prefer season tickets because they force fans to buy the whole season, including the boring games. Plus they get a bunch of the money up front. But most fans can't go to every game, so you get a big secondary market.
- TillE 12y ago
  Is that actually possible? I don't know about other sports or the US, but in Germany or England a football club's season ticket will be some kind of plastic card with your name on it. They may not necessarily check ID before a match, but you'd still need to trust a stranger with it. However, I know Arsenal runs a ticket exchange to let season ticket holders sell off individual matches (at a fixed price).
  - RyJones 12y ago
    In the US season tickets (in my experience) are only slightly different from other tickets, in that they're paper with a coupon that may or may not be torn off when you enter. Season tickets have nicer printing and logos and come in a nice folder.
  - johnward 12y ago
    Usually season tickets in the US are actual paper tickets to each game which can then be divided or resold.
zippergz 12y ago
Many music artists don't want to give off the impression of being greedy. They know that selling tickets for $500 or $1000 will make them look bad, and piss off a lot of fans. Fans are still pissed off when scalpers buy up the tickets, but then they’re mad at the scalpers rather than the artist. But, the artist can get the best of both worlds by doing backdoor deals with Ticketmaster and others to get a cut of the resale market - it looks like scalpers are doing it, but it’s really the artist. The whole thing is shady.

Is there any reason ticket sales happen like this, rather than just selling directly from the venue? Why is scalping a crime, why not just sell at market price to begin with?

pat2man 12y ago

Scalping isn't a crime. They violated the terms of use by reselling on a third party website instead of using the Ticketmaster provided exchange. The question is, can you force someone to resell a ticket on a specific website? My guess would be that the courts will say no.

mox1 12y ago

I think on a macro level, teams don't always want to sell every single ticket for maximum dollar. They really want to ensure a year over year constant revenue stream. So they contract with ticketmaster to sell all of their tickets at fairly set rates. The "Market Price" for an event for 6-8 months from now is going to swing up and down a lot. There's also the perceived unfairness (think what would happen if a popular restaurant doubled its price on Friday and Saturday, people would flip out). After a while, they realized that a pretty large secondary market had formed for tickets (teams get hot, rival team in town on a Saturday night, etc, etc) and the team / venue wants in on the action. So Ticketmaster created an "official scalper" marketplace to compete with StubHub and friends.

stevesearer 12y ago
Interestingly enough fine dining establishments are moving in the direction of tickets with a variable price. Long, but a worthwhile read on the subject: http://website.alinearestaurant.com/site/2014/06/tickets-for-restaurants/ http://website.alinearestaurant.com/site/2014/06/tickets-for... "Having either static or dynamically variably priced tables by day of week and time – in a fully transparent manner – simply gives customers the option of paying a bit more for a prime time table or saving a bit of money for an off-prime table. It acknowledges the obvious. No one pays $ 275 for a good seat at a Cubs game, looks up at the nose bleed seats and complains that it’s not fair that those guys up there only paid $ 25. People accept the difference so long as the choice to buy either was their own." EDIT: There was also some discussion about this on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786

picks_at_nits 12y ago

Don’t forget that for some businesses, ticket revenue is just one stream, and they’re trying to maximize total revenue, over a very long term. For example, if you take a sports business and raise ticket prices to a certain level, you will end up with businesses using it to schmooze. Families stop attending. You lose toy sales. Nobody buys bedding sets with the team logos. And then one day, there’s a new hot place to schmooze, the businesses leave, and you’ve got nothing, because there aren’t any adults with fond memories of coming to games as a kid.

Nursie 12y ago

It's not a crime AFAICT, but there are a myriad of reasons people might not want to sell at 'market' Sports teams and sports associations like to be family friendly, which means keeping prices in check. This is partly self-interest - disenfranchise families coming to your games and interest might drop off. Many bands, though, would like their fans to be able to come and see them regardless of income level and think a first-come, first-served basis is much fairer than purely who can afford the most. And then there are people like me who think that inserting yourself between buyer and seller purely so you can hold very limited-release goods to ransom is just a shit thing to do.

matthewowen 12y ago

I usually buy baseball tickets via StubHub. Not all seats within a section are equal (closer rows are better): the better seats are typically held by season ticket holders. Most season ticket holders don't go to every game. They sell the games they can't make on StubHub. As a result, you can often sit in meaningfully better seats for less than you would pay to buy directly from the team.

cowsandmilk 12y ago
Additionally, having different prices for every game is difficult and it is hard to predict that a late October baseball game will be important for the playoffs and exciting. Secondary markets can incorporate that information that shows up 2 or 3 days before a game that isn't present in prices set months ahead.

guelo 12y ago

Season tickets. Teams prefer season tickets because they force fans to buy the whole season, including the boring games. Plus they get a bunch of the money up front. But most fans can't go to every game, so you get a big secondary market.

TillE 12y ago
Is that actually possible? I don't know about other sports or the US, but in Germany or England a football club's season ticket will be some kind of plastic card with your name on it. They may not necessarily check ID before a match, but you'd still need to trust a stranger with it. However, I know Arsenal runs a ticket exchange to let season ticket holders sell off individual matches (at a fixed price).
- RyJones 12y ago
  In the US season tickets (in my experience) are only slightly different from other tickets, in that they're paper with a coupon that may or may not be torn off when you enter. Season tickets have nicer printing and logos and come in a nice folder.
- johnward 12y ago
  Usually season tickets in the US are actual paper tickets to each game which can then be divided or resold.

zippergz 12y ago

Many music artists don't want to give off the impression of being greedy. They know that selling tickets for $500 or $1000 will make them look bad, and piss off a lot of fans. Fans are still pissed off when scalpers buy up the tickets, but then they’re mad at the scalpers rather than the artist. But, the artist can get the best of both worlds by doing backdoor deals with Ticketmaster and others to get a cut of the resale market - it looks like scalpers are doing it, but it’s really the artist. The whole thing is shady.