Starting at $2000 for a concert where demand outstrips supply to the point where people will pay $4000 to a ticket scalper just means the minimum ticket price will be $2000. All the tickets will still sell out immediately. The audience will be entirely made up of wealthy people, or people who are willing to break the bank to see Taylor sing.
The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and you want everyone to have the same level of access regardless of their background is a lottery. Tell people what the price is, let them apply for tickets, and sell to people at random. Scalping can be stopped by not allowing people to transfer tickets to other people - people should get a refund in full and their tickets get resold to other people in the lottery if someone changes their mind.
The obvious problem with the lottery approach is that it entirely fails to maximize profit.
Personally, if I was selling tickets, I'd just not sell them "fairly". Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.
This is actually how they do it in Japan. They love the lottery system and as a customer it's honestly a huge pain in the ass but once you see the kind of scalping and sleazy tactics that go on overseas you kinda start to appreciate it.
There's a few ways it is implemented and not all artists/venues do all of these but things I've seen are:
- Priority purchase for "fan club" registered members. Most artists have a LINE group fan club with a yearly subscription (like $50 or whatever), then if you are in this group, you get priority access to that artist's events. This means if you're a "real" fan you get to access tickets before everyone else.
- Lottery system based on price "bands". I've seen a few artists let the fans decide how much they want to pay based on tiers. Months before the event, the artist will send out a survey with price ranges you can choose (only one) like: $10, $15, $30, $50, $90 and then seats will be allocated based on a priority level as a self-chosen value. So if there's 5 people who chose $90, 10 people who chose $50, 30 people who chose $30, 200 people who chose $15, and 1000 people who chose $10, if the venue can only host 250 people then 5 + 10 + 30 + 200 (= 245) people will get in at their price, and only 5 remaining people will get in at $10 price point.
- Totally random lottery based on "waves". X people will apply to wave 1, and out of those X people let's say only 70% will get chosen. Then the artist/venue decides on a more approachable size and might host a second wave, another X people will apply to that second wave (including the previously excluded 30%) and another 70% will get chosen, then repeat until the venue is full or the artist decides they cannot host more events. Those who don't get chosen have to suck it up and try again another time.
It's far from perfect, and as I said it can be extremely frustrating, but it has its good sides too.
> The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and you want everyone to have the same level of access regardless of their background is a lottery.
After centuries of failing to manipulate natural market forces, I don’t understand why people continue to think it’s possible. All that a lottery does is incentivize everyone to participate, even those who have no interest in going. Then a secondary market will engage in actual price discovery and you’re left with the current system.
There is really no way to beat the system. Prices are what people are willing to pay. I’m not sure how any other system is fairer? Let’s say I’m a middle class Taylor Swift mega fan and save up for years to drop $4k on a ticket. Instead, we move to a lottery system and I don’t get picked. I want to go way more than most people, as evidenced by the amount I’m willing to pay. But now I don’t get to go. How is that fair?
> All that a lottery does is incentivize everyone to participate, even those who have no interest in going. Then a secondary market will engage in actual price discovery and you’re left with the current system.
How would the secondary market work if you have to put peoples names on tickets upon buying the ticket. No renames allowed (bring your name change deed poll and old and new IDs I guess). Can’t make the concert? Tickets can be refunded for the original price (maybe minus a token handling fee), and the ticket goes back into the next lottery sale pool.
Edit: Also Chris Smith is still a very limited sales opportunity compared to everyone. Plus Chris would be going alone assuming their partners name was not listed correctly or partners name didn’t have a ticket matching that too.
The flaw in Hamilton is it’s only the name of the payer, but if multiple seats in one booking, those additional seats could still be on sold so long as the scalper escorts them into the theatre.
Solved by requiring names and dob for all ticket holders. No changes allowed. Mistakes (wrong name or dob) must be refunded and tickets back to lottery.
Not so hilariously for people this applies to, but the combination of name and DOB still isn't actually unique either. I'll skip rewording it and just leave this link
It doesn’t need to be absolutely unique though. It just needs to make the secondary market infeasible. I would argue that only being able to re-sell tickets on the secondary market to “Chris Smith” is going to result in essentially no ticket scalping.
I fear that if there is hundreds of thousands of dollars in demand pressure on getting some rich guys in, the chain will break somewhere. Maybe they'll bribe the entrance staff, or someone sells access to a VIP guest list, but it's bound to happen eventually.
> Personally, if I was selling tickets, I'd just not sell them "fairly". Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.
Agreed. Tickets are a luxury item. The only fix is for the artists to do more shows. Obviously this is hard on the artists, but I wonder if they could do short term residencies in a place like Vegas? If Taylor Swift played every other night for 3-6 mos. in a fixed location, it seems like everyone could eventually see her show if they wanted. Fans would probably spend less than 2-4k each even accounting for any travel.
I also don't find the lottery method 'fair' either. Random yes, but not necessarily fair if a person can only see a show on a certain date and doesn't win the lottery.
If you want your marketing signaling to be "this artist is for rich people, normal people have no chance to see them anyways", sure. Many probably don't want to do that - indeed the strength of the lottery system is that it does signal the opposite.
No, they would also advertise the descending nature of it, so if they book a big enough venue, there won't be that much demand at $4000 to sell it out. So the price will descend down to more affordable levels.
Of course if the biggest venue isn't big enough to do that, then that's more of a problem of the local facilities, or the artist's decision to play in an area with inadequately sized venues.
I don't think "avoid playing in places without mega-venues, because otherwise our self-choosen pricing policy will make us look bad" is a particularly clever approach. (not to mention that doing so will drive up the price for events in places with such mega-venues)
People accept the logic that smaller facilities = more restricted capacity = higher prices in pretty much every other context.
A Ferrari dealership has to turn away the vast majority of folks who want to test drive their cars, a B&B, or boutique hotel has to turn away customers, or price rooms very highly, on a busy weekend, etc.
Just want to support this - and agree that the implication is the people who don't implement this are the artists (or managers) themselves who, y'know, like money.
Yes, a lottery system would require non-transferable tickets, but those tickets could be refundable, and returned tickets could be redistributed in a subsequent lottery round.
This doesn’t sound very true to me. My guess is that there are a much smaller number of people willing to pay $4k to a scalper for tickets and the price reflects the small supply of scalper tickets.
The only "fair" way to sell a good that's in high demand and you want everyone to have the same level of access regardless of their background is a lottery. Tell people what the price is, let them apply for tickets, and sell to people at random. Scalping can be stopped by not allowing people to transfer tickets to other people - people should get a refund in full and their tickets get resold to other people in the lottery if someone changes their mind.
The obvious problem with the lottery approach is that it entirely fails to maximize profit.
Personally, if I was selling tickets, I'd just not sell them "fairly". Accept that tickets are a luxury item, like Ferraris.