
Will your Michael Jackson tickets be worth more than the refund? - Flemlord
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/07/will-your-michael-jackson-tickets-be-worth-more-than-a-refund.html
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davidw
Something they didn't touch on is the possible size of payouts: if you get
your refund, you get N dollars (pounds, I guess, in this case), whereas there
is no set upper bound to the ticket.

That said, if you look at the comments, some guy did something clever and
searched eBay for Elvis tickets, and found them going for $60, which may well
mean you'd be better off getting the refund.

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rms
Those Elvis tickets would have gone for more right after Elvis's death if eBay
had been around. To properly compare, you would need to find out what Elvis
tickets went for in the month after his death.

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anigbrowl
Why would be the price be higher when the supply is abundant? I'd have thought
it would be a lot harder to find an Elvis ticket 32 years later.

And looking on eBay, Elvis tickets are worth quite a bit more than suggested -
several hundred dollars, competitive with MJ tickets (I compared completed
listings). One factor in favor of Jackson tickets is that the generation that
cared most for Elvis is that much older and probably doesn't use eBay as much.

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rms
I ordered three very good (2nd row side stage) tickets for the final show
scheduled. I have one of mine scheduled to start on ebay later today with a
minimum bid of $150. If I get a bid, I'll list the rest of my tickets. I
believe I have at least 30 days to decide and don't see how a strategy can be
more optimal than preselling the tickets.

You can see a picture of the tickets here:
<http://www.michaeljacksonlive.com/images/tickets.jpg>. They are printed with
a 3d lenticular process.

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icefox
There is one huge bit of information missing which makes this whole though
process moot. What is the default case? If a ticket owner doesn't do anything
do they get their money back or get a ticket? This _will_ determine more then
any other factor how many tickets are out on the market. People are really
lazy. Assuming that everyone went and selected what they wanted (impossible)
we get two cases for the $150 ticket, and two outcomes:

\- Tickets are worth $5000 \-- I keep it : I make a killing (or keep it),
either way I have a great story to tell \-- I sell it for $150 now. I have a
sad story to sell and look foolish if I told other people I sold it.

\- Tickets are worth $50 \- I keep it : I sell it later and loose $100 and
either sell it or store it away and never tell anyone. \- I sell it: I get all
my $150 back, but the story really just comes out that I was lucky.

Adding in the ability to have a really good story and piece of history for
only $100 seem like a win case.

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rms
Default case is refund

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sharpn
The Jackson ticket game theory thing is noteworthy - but indirectly
discovering that The Times is partially hosted on typepad is more remarkable
to me. I'd be interested if other Murdoch papers follow suit.

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dunk010
Either way people are going to think that they might be, fueling a speculative
market on ebay. Wait to see if you can get more than the refund value on there
and then dump them and try and make a profit.

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sgibat
Not related to the point of the article, but don't most people want to go to
bars when they are crowded? I do anyway.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Not when they're too crowded, as Yogi Berra famously pointed out.

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wimlard
Yeah, but if everyone follows that advice then we're back to square one

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byrneseyeview
No, it depends on the number of iterations the average person expects the
average person to expect the average person to go through.

See:
[http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hauert/research/gamelab/t...](http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hauert/research/gamelab/twothirds.html)
for an estimate of how many iterations that is.

And <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest> for way more.

