WTF Stories of the Week

[Ghoulish Delight]

Considering the number of places that already use the "card you used to purchase the tickets" method of verification for will call, I wouldn't anticipate an issue with that.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Wow, I actually like a move that Ticketmaster made. WTF.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

...but tickets should plain and simply not be purchased for the purpose of re-sale.

Why?

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

If legitimate circumstances call for such a thing, the seller should be entitled only to a profit for time and effort of original acquisition and resale.

What is a "legitimate" reason?

If there are people who would rather pay more for the convenience of having someone purchase their tickets for them so that they can avoid the annoyance of having to be online at just the right second, why should they be denied the right to pay for this convenience.

And what is someone's time worth? Minimum wage? $300 bucks per hour (which in the legal profession is not uncommon)?

[Alex]

The correct resolution to avoid ticket scalping (if that is what is wanted) is to sell them for what they're worth in the first place.

If people are immediately paying several times face value for the ticket then obviously the ticket was too cheap. The truly consumer friendly thing for Ticketmaster (or venues directly) would be to sell tickets through a modified Vickrey auction. This should mostly sell tickets at their true value (obviously venues would tier the tickets and run several simultaneous auctions) and the money would go to the venue/ticket agent/performers rather than the secondary market. There'd still be some slim room for a secondary market but it'd hardly support a whole industry. Modern technology would make it relatively easy to do this.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Kevy - Oftentimes, the major reason tickets sell out so fast is because scalpers are buying them up. If you didn't have to compete with hundreds of scalpers, maybe they'd actually be available for half a day and the hold time wouldn't be an issue.

Alex - I worry that such a system would put the tickets out of reach of many people, and I'm sure that certain artists would feel the same.

[Alex]

Yes it would, but then there's a very simple mechanism by which bands could eliminate the secondary market while keeping prices near whatever level they think is appropriate for one of there shows. But they choose not to do that. So I find the "oh the poor fans" argument made by some bands to be empty. Especially if the solution is that you have to have a credit card to go to the show (and boy will it be a scandal the first time it is discovered that the card swipers at the door have been compromised).

I'm also amused that in Indiana it was recently ruled unconstitutional to require identification in order to vote but you'll need identification (and bank or credit accounts) to see Muppets on Ice.

So the options are live with the existing scalping market, make things really painful for everybody through gimmicks that will likely ultimately fail once a new equilibrium is found, sell them for the actual value, or reduce the value of what you're selling.

It is interesting to me that the, in my opinion, stupidest of the four is generally advocated. Though Ticketmaster is setting it up so that essentially they become the scalpers. They don't want to get rid of the secondary market they just want to run it (NFL has already done this with its StubHub partnership).

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Kevy - Oftentimes, the major reason tickets sell out so fast is because scalpers are buying them up.

To me, that is a non-issue. There is a market for people willing to pay for convenience.

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

If you didn't have to compete with hundreds of scalpers, maybe they'd actually be available for half a day and the hold time wouldn't be an issue.

Nope: still more likely that I would prefer to pay a premium than have to hit a specific window.

[Moonliner]

In Washington State:

"A legally insane killer" is on the loose.

After he "escaped during a field trip to a county fair"


Ahh, yeah right.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

To me, that is a non-issue. There is a market for people willing to pay for convenience.

Nope: still more likely that I would prefer to pay a premium than have to hit a specific window.

Yes, there is a market, and yes, you'd be willing to pay a premium, but how much of a premium? How much does the convenience cost, how much is it worth to you? If I buy milk at a convenience store it may very well cost me twice as much as it would at the market - but 5 times, 10 times as much?

As with everything else, it's a sliding scale. What would the "convenience market" be if you could come home from work the day the tix went on sale, make a call, not wait on hold for long, and pay the base price? What would the convenience market be if it were 2 days, or a week? How small a window does it have to be for you to consider it a "specific window"?

Not knowing enough about how this would exactly affect the ticket sales limits the strength of my examples, but still, I'd argue that there are plenty of acts that sell out in an hour under the old system that would take over a day to sell out in the new system, simply because the scalpers are out of the picture.

I'm sure that even if you just get the process down to "wait until my lunch break, make a call, wait on hold for a short period, then get my tickets at base price" the convenience angle is rather knackered....because that's actually convenient.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Yes, there is a market, and yes, you'd be willing to pay a premium, but how much of a premium? How much does the convenience cost, how much is it worth to you? If I buy milk at a convenience store it may very well cost me twice as much as it would at the market - but 5 times, 10 times as much?

And therein lies the crux of the free market. Things are worth as much as people are willing to pay for it.

People who want to save money can still go online or be at the right place at the right time can still do so. I believe the majority of tickets sold are sold directly to people who do not pay scalper prices. Those who prefer the convenience and are willing to pay for it can do so. To me, the system works.