
Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program - rinze
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/a-public-relations-nightmare-ticketmaster-recruits-pros-for-secret-scalper-program-1.4828535
======
ageitgey
This is super sleezy and I think Ticketmaster is one of the most awful
companies in the world. But given the ridiculous levels of scalping that goes
on every day (including all the companies that attempt to normalize it, like
StubHub), doesn't it all imply that the fair market price of a lot of tickets
is way higher than what they sell for? Obviously demand is way outstripping
supply or people wouldn't pay $500-$1000 for $100 tickets on a daily basis.

By making all event tickets available at exactly the same time for an
effectively-lower-than-market price, of course professional scalpers are going
to snap up almost all of them and normal people without scripts won't be able
to compete. I wonder what would happen if tickets went on sale for a really
high price (like $500 each) and then the prices kept dropping automatically
every hour until they were all sold. That would kill a lot of advantage that
the scalpers have.

I guess customers would hate it and promoters would hate it, but I wonder if
there isn't some other kind of sales model that would make this kind of sleezy
self-scalping less profitable. Because with market forces this strong,
companies are going to do anything that is legal-ish to get a piece of it. If
Ticketmaster doesn't figure out a way to get a piece of the massive resell
market, they are essentially just giving away free money to StubHub (from
their point of view).

~~~
chongli
Ticketmaster provides a valuable service for the associated acts:

Reputation shield

If artists started charging fair market prices for their tickets the fans
would go ballistic and the artists' reputations would be severely damaged. By
ostensibly selling the tickets below, even if normal people never get to buy
them at face value, they outsource the reputation damage to Ticketmaster.
Since Ticketmaster already has a detestable reputation, they are well-equipped
to provide this service with minimal damage to their brand. In exchange,
Ticketmaster pays a portion of their revenues to the promoters and their
associated acts. It's a win win: artists get more money without damaging their
credibility with their fans.

~~~
mehrdadn
I'm confused, so like an artist would be paying 80% of his potential revenue
($100 vs. $500) in return for reputation shield? That's how valuable this
service is?

~~~
kbenson
Artists' reputations may take a hit if they price their tickets overly high,
as it's seen as gouging fans. Instead, Ticketmaster charged multiple hidden
fees for each ticket, often including a venue fee, service fees, and other
interestingly named fees that are different based on the event, venue, and
tour (although all events in some tours might have a similar fee, some some
venues might have a similar priced venue fee across all events...).

Some of these are collected and go right back to the artist, promoter and
venue. Fans are unhappy about this, but they place the blame on Ticketmaster,
not the artist or venue. This is the reputation shield Ticketmaster offers.
They take the blame for higher prices while passing a lot of those fees back
to the artist and venue. They take a cut for processing the order, and
probably a higher than normal cut for taking the negative PR, but both
Ticketmaster and the artists and venues make more money in the end.

~~~
joshfraser
The kickbacks go mostly to the venues who then write Ticketmaster into their
contracts, making it really hard for artists to find somewhere to play without
Ticketmaster being the manditory ticketing provider.

------
oflannabhra
Freakonomics did a great deep dive [0] into the complexity of ticket markets.
The short of it is that incentives are mixed and spread through the following
parties: sellers, venues, promoters, artists, and fans.

Artists don’t want to look like they gouge their fans.

Promoters take a cut and need to hit volume milestones.

Fans want access, and are willing to pay extra.

[0] - [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-
scr...](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/)

~~~
jrockway
It's kind of unfortunate. I am perfectly willing to allow the artist to gouge
me. If 2000 people want to see the concert and there are 1000 seats, what
choice do they have? Sure, next time book a bigger venue, but this time... you
just have to let people bid on the tickets and sell them to the 1000 highest
bidders.

I feel like I've always gotten a good deal on the secondary market. Every so
often I am in Japan in late August and like to attend a 3 day anime song
concert. The tickets are sold way in advance, and are $60 (ish) for a randomly
selected seat in Saitama Super Arena. This means your $60 may get you a front
row seat or one on the upper balcony behind a pillar, you don't know. And you
have to physically buy the thing from a convenience store in Japan 6 months in
advance. So the primary market is just bad. I end up just buying tickets on
Yahoo Auctions and for $200 I get a front row seat. Would I have been just as
happy to give that $200 directly to the people running the event? Yup! But
they don't let me, so they lose out on $240. Multiply that by thousands of
tickets sold, and you wonder whether or not any of these people ever attended
business school.

Similarly, you can get reverse gouged on unpopular events. My brothers are big
basketball fans. Whenever they visit New York, we go see the Nets play. The
Nets are historically terrible and never fill up the arena, but apparently
they sell a lot of tickets for corporate events. These tickets end up on the
secondary market for reasonable prices, and that's what I buy. The list price
can be something like $1000 and yet we buy them for $100. (I also enjoy the
banter with the coworkers of the people that sold us their tickets. Every
time, it's "I can't believe so-and-so sold their tickets!" But people are
drinking and you can't take yourself too seriously and be a Nets fan, so it's
all in good fun.)

Anyway, kind of wandered off topic... but the only way to make demand meet
supply is to gouge people, so that supply falls to exactly meet demand. The
artist deserves the money, not middlemen.

~~~
cortesoft
Right? This whole thing comes down to the most basic of economic questions:
"How do we distribute a scarce resource where demand is greater than supply?"

We have an amazing system for this - a market. Why don't we just accept that
price is based on supply and demand and let the market (secondary markets
included) determine the price freely.

~~~
medell
Some artists want their concerts to be accessible. Not every creator is in the
maximizing profit mindset.

~~~
kbenson
So? If artists want to control the experience perfectly, don't sell on an open
market. There are ways to prevent the majority of resale (will call,
purchasing credit card required at gate, etc).

If artists really care, they would do more than lip service (some do!). When
they don't, the message is clear. They might care, but they care about money
more, because let's be clear, brokers buying out a venue within a day that
might take a few months to sell out is good for the artist, promoter and
venue. They get to offload risk to a broker, for the cost of _possibly_ some
more money in the long run, and they get all their money up front and can do
what they want with it for that time.

~~~
jtmcmc
Uh there are many reasons. Artists desires are typically mediated through a
promoter or a promoter and a venue and the contractual obligations of both.
For instance if the only appropriate sized venue is a live nation venue then
you're using ticketmaster! if it's one that has an exclusive contract with
ticketmaster same thing. You often can't just "get a different venue" because
for various sizes of venue there are only so many in a city, even fewer that
are correct for your show, and that are available.

~~~
kbenson
> for various sizes of venue there are only so many in a city, even fewer that
> are correct for your show, and that are available.

"Correct for your show" is what I'm talking about. It's realative based on
what your goals are. If you want to make sure fans get cheap tickets, you make
sure supply isn't too far under demand. That can be adding a date, or playing
a larger venue. That's risky, because if you misjudge demand, you might
actually lose money (based on venue minimum costs).

So, artists and promoters like to ensure they are sold out whenever possible.
To achieve this, they play it conservative, but that leaves value on the
table. Brokers capitalize on this. If the artist or promoter was more willing
to increase supply and take that risk, fans would benefit. Usually, they
aren't. Sometimes, they are. Kid Rock and Garth Brooks are notable here. Garth
Brookes will play a venue three days in a row, _twice a day_. Kid Rock might
just book 6-7 days.

~~~
medell
Assuming artists could predict demand and supply (versus spending time
creating music), if they become popular, with this simplified logic they
should only play large venues (which Live Nation controls) on back-to-back
nights in primarily big cities. And if they were mainly concerned about money
(which some are) then they'd only play the largest cities every year. There
are only so many tour days in a year, how would they split their time?

That's not a music culture I'd want to be part of.

~~~
kbenson
> Assuming artists could predict demand and supply (versus spending time
> creating music)

I assume they pay people that are good at this to do it for them.

> they should only play large venues (which Live Nation controls)

Not all of them. Most, but not all.

> And if they were mainly concerned about money (which some are) then they'd
> only play the largest cities every year.

For the most part, I think you just described the concert industry as it
currently exists. Usually, the only thing indicating whether an artist will
book theaters, arenas or stadiums is how likely they are to sell it out. Only
the biggest artists can do stadium tours.

------
satanic_pope
Given how frequently they ran out of 65,000 tickets for
<enter_any_big_ticket_event> within seconds (which would pop up under resale
with > 200% markup minutes later), glad this is out in the open.

Also, Fenway Park is the worst. Had a terrible experience earlier this year
while trying to book Pearl Jam tickets. Presale went live at 10:00 AM on
February 10th (for shows in Sept) and they ran out of tickets at 10:01 AM, are
you kidding me? Suddenly I see spike on StubHub an hour later with ridiculous
markups.

Fortunately my Uber driver pointed out and suggested that I wait until day of
the event (as fenway park puts up unsold scalper tickets back online at market
price). I followed his advice and snagged couple of tickets on day of the
event at market price as he suggested.

The whole experience was mind numbing.Can't wait for Amazon tickets to disrupt
this space and drive 'em out.

Edit : When I said 65,000 tickets - I'm counting Pre-sale tickets as well
including Verified Fan scheme they had going this year.

~~~
nullify88
> Can't wait for Amazon tickets to disrupt this space and drive 'em out.

I think you'll be waiting a while. TicketMaster shotdown Amazon Tickets in
both the UK and US because they didn't want to do business with them.

~~~
dragonwriter
Good thing no one was abusing monopoly power to the detriment of consumers,
otherwise antitrust regulators might have to get involved.

------
wnmurphy
I bought 1 concert ticket from Ticketmaster that cost $45. My final total was
$72. They charged me 60% extra in 'processing fees' for something I could have
just printed out. How much 'processing' does it take to display information on
a web page?

They also don't let you just print the ticket. I had to pay extra to have a
physical ticket snail mailed to me.

Paying 60% of the cost of the product just to help the company continue to
justify their existence is freaking ridiculous.

~~~
kbenson
Part of Ticketmaster's purpose is to allow the artist, promoter and venue to
charge extra but in a way that shifts blame to Ticketmaster. They are wildly
successful in that, as evidenced by the number of people that bring up this
exact point.

If you look at the fees, often there's a "venue fee" and other ones. They are
different per event, but often are similar per tour and per venue... which
means it's being set by artists, promoters and venues. It's trivial to show
all-in pricing (some events have it turned on, so it's what you actually see
on the main page). They don't do so on purpose.

~~~
somebodythere
I hear this a lot, and it might just be me, but I'd feel better about a $50
purchase where the $50 dollars all go to the artist/venue, vs a $50 purchase
where $30 goes to the artist and $20 purportedly goes to Ticketmaster.

~~~
kbenson
Except a vanishingly small number of tickets for popular events are even going
for $50 any more, and how do you feel with the ticket costs $95 but you're
actually paying over $20 extra for it? Sticker shock is real. Avoiding a $115
ticket price helps avoid some of that outrage. Here's a case study:

The last couple weeks Paul McCartney went on sale in a few places. At PNC
Arena[1], the the prices for standard tickets were as follows[2]:

    
    
       25.50 + 15.59 =  41.09 (+61%)
       65.50 + 18.54 =  84.04 (+28%)
       95.50 + 20.41 = 115.91 (+21%)
      165.50 + 27.92 = 193.42 (+17%)
      250.00 + 39.24 = 289.24 (+16%)
    

That doesn't look too bad, until you consider that the lowest price offer,
which is just over $41 all said and done, but there were only about 250
tickets at that price level releases, for a venue that holds about 20,000
people. That's just over 1% of capacity.

Less than 1,000 tickets of the $65.50 price level were released (and you had
to pay $84 to get them). Less than 3,000 of the $95 price level (almost $116
for those) were released.

Now, I'm not sure exactly how you interpret that, but I suspect I know why
they put put in a very low price level but didn't stock it with much
inventory, and it wasn't to make sure deserving fans got a chance. It does
conveniently allow them to to say that brokers grabbed all the cheap inventory
in the beginning though...

That's not to say every artist does this. Some provide quite a large amount of
low priced tickets, but the trend on that is down, not up, from what I've
seen.

1:
[https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/2D00551BBC524826](https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/2D00551BBC524826)

2: Feel free to check for yourself. Use this JS snippet in a developer console
from the event page:

    
    
      _storeUtils.eventJSONData.tickets.filter(offer=>offer.description.match(/Standard Admission/))[0]
        .prices.sort((a,b)=>a.amount>b.amount).forEach(pl => 
          console.log(`${pl.combinedFees} + ${pl.combinedFees} = ${pl.displayAmountWithFeesTaxes} (+${Math.round((pl.combinedFees/pl.amount)*100)}%)`)
        )

------
lawnchair_larry
I wonder when we are going to see a startup do to ticketmaster what Uber did
to cabs. They are asking for it with their escalating shitty rent seeking
behavior. Unfortunately, due to their stranglehold on most venues in the
country, they seem to enjoy more power over their industry than even the taxi
lobby did.

~~~
atomical
How do you prevent scalpers? Better KYC?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Tickets are associated to a name at purchase; you are then required to provide
corresponding ID upon admission at the event. Very similar to non-refundable
airline tickets (which was designed to kill the secondary market for airline
tickets [1]). If you cannot attend, your ticket expires worthless.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame has been doing this as part of his fan
club for over a decade, and is a vocal opponent of scalpers [2].

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-I-resell-my-air-ticket-to-
som...](https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-I-resell-my-air-ticket-to-someone-else-
if-I-dont-want-to-travel?share=1)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=trent+reznor+ticket+scalping](https://www.google.com/search?q=trent+reznor+ticket+scalping)

~~~
monksy
They did say that they were doing that. However.. they're still selling
tickets through Livenation. That was only happening via the Presales.

Source: I have a ticket for NIN that I bought on Stubhub.

------
walrus01
I know that they did this in the United States. But one of the interesting
things that is helpful for investigative journalism in Canada, the entire
country is a one-party consent jurisdiction for recording of phone calls, and
recording of conversations in person. investigative journalists in Canada have
taken advantage of this fact for many years, and exposed a great deal of
corruption.

------
jrockway
I enjoyed reading the email chain linked from the article. Ticketmaster sent
CBC the usual PR statement, CBC replied saying "we are going to say you
declined to comment if that's your answer to our questions" and Ticketmaster
replied that that's unfair and they were perfectly happy answering all the
questions... off the record. Wow.

~~~
Sgt_Apone
I really like that they add supplementary and primary source documents. Seems
like something that more news organizations should do.

------
saudioger
It's amazing how long this ticketing scam has continued, and so blatantly.
Everyone knows it's a scam!

They even managed to make settling a class-action lawsuit into a huge fucking
scam. It's infuriating. I feel like they should be sued for the way they
settled the lawsuit.

~~~
my_usernam3
What do you mean ticketing scam? Scalping? If so, I'm confused on how you
might stop it without allowing people who can't go last minute to resell their
ticket. This feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situations.

Also which class action lawsuit are you talking about

~~~
saudioger
This is a professional reseller program. It's not about individuals reselling
tickets last minute. This is specifically about squeezing more money out of
average customers using scalping methods.

Sorry for being vague about the lawsuit/settlement, it's just enraging that
ticketmaster has been so shitty for so long... yet my options are still
generally:

1\. use ticketmaster

2\. don't get tickets

The settlement was:
[http://settlement.livenation.com/](http://settlement.livenation.com/) — in
which Ticketmaster ended up giving tons of borderline _unusable_ vouchers to
customers in settlement (the lawsuit was over fees and took a decade to reach
settlement).

You have to sit and watch their site for specific availability to generally
lower-tiered events and hope you're fast enough to actually get the available
slots (you're competing against millions of people who also have vouchers).

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/business/media/ticketmast...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/business/media/ticketmaster-
lawsuit-vouchers.html)

~~~
jandrese
I'm sure the attorneys were well paid at least.

Those things are almost as bad as those coupons for $10 off your next IOMega
product because your Zip drive was a piece of overpriced garbage.

~~~
saudioger
Hey at least I could use the IOMega voucher, I used to go to a lot of shows so
I have like 50 worthless Ticketmaster vouchers from the lawsuit. Sometimes I
get like $2 off a ticket, but the vast majority of them will go unused.

------
dfxm12
When I see ticketmaster selling tickets for an event, I know it's not going to
be worth my time, money or effort trying to go.

There are a ton of venues and artists out there. If you're put off by this
action, understand that this action is taken by TM, the venue and the artist,
and vote with your wallet. Spend your entertainment dollars elsewhere and
support artists and venues that are more honest. Find a club that sells
tickets with some other company or where you can buy tickets at the door.

------
jdblair
Why aren't ticket sales an auction? That would allow Ticketmaster and the
promoters (and hopefully artists) to extract maximum value for each ticket. It
would simultaneously take all the profit out of scalping. Tickets could be
exchanged at face value, but if the maximum value the market will pay is
already extracted there will be no margin left for resellers.

~~~
baddox
Because many performers want their concerts to be accessible to their broad
fanbase, and this is probably better for their bottom line in the long run,
since there is sure to be animosity towards a popular performer once fans
discover that only very rich people can attend their concerts.

~~~
jdblair
If that's the goal, then active measures to deter reselling tickets should be
used. Thom Yorke succeeded at this when I saw him earlier this year. All
tickets were Will Call and you had to enter immediately after ticket pickup.
Selling tickets in a way that puts fans in direct competition with well-
resourced resellers doesn't help fans either.

------
TallGuyShort
I had no idea Ticketmaster had such a reputation for being consistently sleazy
until I read all the comments here. They scammed me once and I thought it was
an isolated screw up that they just didn't want to own up to.

One would think that review sites, etc. or the BBB might do something about
companies like this, but even companies I always have good experiences with
have some disgruntled former employees or customers trashing them online, and
I've never known the BBB to do much. What's one to do? Are there sites for
feedback on companies like this where it's not just paid shills and
disgruntled people?

------
kaveh_h
This doesn’t hurt ticket buyers as much as it hurts artists and producers.
It’s they who get payed less from Ticketmaster, the consumer would have to pay
market value anyway.

What they should really do to get market value ethically is simple, have an
auction for the tickets. The going price would be transparent to buyers,
artists/producers and Ticketmaster wouldn’t have the ability to doubly collect
fees without paying the artists/producers their real cut in the end. Of course
you could argue Ticketmaster would have the ability to benefits from resellers
anyway, but in reality the price difference the second time would not be big
enough to be benificial for scalpers and Ticketmaster.

If the band/artist want to give more to dedicated fans, just set a side a set
of tickets for their fan club and let them buy for a flat fee or from a
private auction.

------
buf
Eventbrite should be ringing the NYSE bell pretty soon, but even Eventbrite is
unable to penetrate the decade long deals Ticketmaster has in place.

------
misiti3780
anyone else get a bunch of free tickets from ticket master in that lawsuit a
few years back but then realize that basically none of the concerts are
eligible ?

specifically talking about this:
[http://settlement.livenation.com/](http://settlement.livenation.com/)

------
allworknoplay
Maybe this will finally get the FTC to pay attention to
ticketmaster/livenation. It's been one of the most abusively anticompetitive
companies out there for decades, blacklisting venues that don't use it for
everything and setting ticket price requirements (and then of course charging
bigger fees because of it).

It's insanely bad monopolistic behavior the FTC never appears to care about, I
dunno, maybe because it's just entertainment or something.

------
bumholio
This industry can only exist because labels and artists are not willing to
sell tickets at the market clearing price, since they would be seen as
exploitative by their own fans. So they sell the tickets are significantly
discounted prices, in the hopes that at least some of them end up in the hands
of the fans, saving face but creating a niche for a super-sleazy industry.

The solution I believe is to directly engage the fans and include with the
price of the ticket benefits that only have value for fans. For example, when
purchasing a ticket the market price is $100, out of which $40 is the price of
the ticket and $60 is the "anti-scalping deposit" that fans get back when
purchasing from their account with the band's site. So you would get $60 back
in your account that you can use to purchase items valuable for fans such as
limited edition CD, merchandise or even other tickets in the future (this is a
bit tricky since scalpers can automate it, but exposes them to a major risk of
detection and loosing the deposit, unlike the automation of the single ticket
purchase, which either works or is risk free).

Providing this service seems like a nice idea to build a company on.

------
bogomipz
There's another essential component to this systems which is that the artists,
managers and promoters are all often in on this. See:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123672740386088613](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123672740386088613)

and

[https://www.theringer.com/2016/6/3/16045790/ticket-
industry-...](https://www.theringer.com/2016/6/3/16045790/ticket-industry-
problem-solution-e4b3b71fdff6)

LiveNation often offers the artist guarantees for the tour up front. This is
great for artists as the risk it transferred to LiveNation. LiveNation then
extorts the fans via Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster becomes the scapegoat, but since they're a near monopoly with a
one of the worst public images it makes no difference to them. The artists
also take a piece of those "convenience charges" that often make up a large
percentage of the face value of a ticket. Again Ticketmaster takes the heat
and everyone wins except the fans.

------
sandworm101
>> "This is going to be a public relations nightmare."

Lol. Does anyone think tickermaster cares one iota about its public image?
They have been hated for decades, by fans and artists alike. The survive on
their ins with venues, bulk purchasers, and CC companies.

------
kbenson
So, my problems with this article, as someone that works in the industry:

1\. It's not a secret. It's Ticketmaster's secondary market division, TM+.
They may not advertise where people out of the industry would see it, but
that's nothing special. They may not want to draw attention to themselves, for
reasons such as this article, where they are portrayed very unflatteringly and
given little chance to provide their own context. Tradedesk, their new POS
offering, is new, and has been somewhat buggy (most might be worked out now),
so they've targeted known brokers, but it's a free tool, so they would
probably be happy to have anyone that buys and sells more than 1-2 sets of
tickets a month (there are a LOT of people that do this as a little extra
income, or to pay for their concert habit).

2\. Ticketmaster has multiple divisions. The division responsible for proving
primary market tickets and the division for running Ticketmaster's secondary
market are sometimes at cross purposes. I can tell you from experience though,
Ticketmaster does a LOT to prevent the more egregious use of bots, to the
point where it can bleed over to regular fans. Every few months there's some
new site feature that makes bots harder to utilize. Recently it's a new
queuing system and new purchase mechanism, where you select seats off the map
(which they've had for a long time, but not during _sales_ ).

3\. Distinguishing a broker account with 100 purchases on it and a corporate
account for bonus gifts or a concierge service may not be as easy as it
sounds. It's also not that hard for a broker to just use an account for a few
purchases. If I was running a concierge service and Ticketmaster cancelled
hundreds of purchases all of a sudden, I would be a bit peeved that they took
my money (credit, most likely) for months and then basically killed my
business because they incorrectly identified me as a broker account. Also,
artists/venues/promoters may not actually want to you cancel tickets and put
them back on the market. Being sold out has it's own benefits (and nobody
wants to return cash they've already gotten).

4\. One of Ticketmaster's main purposes is to offload anger about pricing from
artists, promoters and venues to a separate entity. There's a reason why there
are often over 50% additional fees per ticket (and they are higher for higher
costing seats, how interesting...). It's because many of those are set and
received by the artist, promoter and venue. It allows for pricier tickets
which is hidden up-front, and the blame goes to Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster of
course tacks on their own fees for this service.

5\. I believe the secondary market provides a useful function (otherwise I
would seek other employment). It helps artists, promoters and venues offload
risk (up-front usable money _now_ , instead of little by little as the tour
goes on), it helps spread tickets to those that have more money than time
(people that devote time still often get tickets, brokers very rarely get
everything), and it allows fans to get tickets _well_ below original cost in
some (fairly common) cases, such as when a tour is overbought or demand
lessens as it goes on. I could find any number of events with secondary market
tickets under primary market cost at any moment.

In the end, it's a market. There are tried and true ways to alter it if that's
what you want, but for the most part, I think most people are happy with how
it works, and happy being able to complain about the time is doesn't as well.
Fix and/or make an example of the market participants that are too greedy
(such as the broker that got in trouble for buying ALL the Hamilton tickets),
and it mostly functions in a way that people expect and find useful. I'll tell
you this, getting rid of brokers (if you could) wouldn't result in much
cheaper tickets. A lot of the money left on the table would just shift to
other market participants, and I doubt it would be the fans.

~~~
conanbatt
> nd the blame goes to Ticketmaster

This argument is repeated over and over again, but i just cant imagine that
being right. This is not usually how efficient markets operate, taking into
account all the subjective brand appreciation. I can believe that Ticketmaster
can shame any artist outside ticket master, or some other network effect, but
not that hating ticketmaster, and deteriorating the user experience, is the
economically efficient way to do it.

~~~
kbenson
> This is not usually how efficient markets operate

Efficient markets assume clear information that is known by all parties, which
make rational decisions. We're talking about a luxury entertainment purchase
based on subjective taste in music, and how people feel about those performing
that music.

> I can believe that Ticketmaster can shame any artist outside ticket master,
> or some other network effect, but not that hating ticketmaster, and
> deteriorating the user experience, is the economically efficient way to do
> it.

Either you didn't understand what I was saying, or I'm not understanding what
you're saying. It's not about Ticketmaster shaming artists, it's about artists
not wanting the negative attention and feeling that high ticket prices
attract, and offloading some of the price to a third party (by having them
collect additional fees) to manage this.

~~~
conanbatt
> it's about artists not wanting the negative attention and feeling that high
> ticket prices attract, and offloading some of the price to a third party (by
> having them collect additional fees) to manage this.

I'll try to rephrase. This would only work if the artist selling the ticket by
themselves could only sell it lower than Ticketmaster. That is, Ticketmaster
can extract MORE money out its customers because they hate Ticketmaster.

That is the idea I contest: people pay more on satisfaction, not on
dissatisfaction. Yes, the artist save themselves _some_ hassle, but they dont
reduce it, they increase it. I would believe Ticketmaster has some leverage we
are not considering.

A thought experiment: lets say artists now sell their tickets on platform
independent and simultaneous to Ticketmaster, at the same total price. Would
people buy on Ticketmaster because they prefer to hate it than to hate the
artist?

I doubt so.

~~~
kbenson
> That is, Ticketmaster can extract MORE money out its customers because they
> hate Ticketmaster.

This is what's happening. People want to see the artist they like, so they see
Ticketmaster as a necessary evil. If those feeling were transferred to the
artist, the artist may alienate fans, which not only affects that specific
concert, but future reputation and events as well. This should not be looked
at one event at a time in isolation, reputation persists, and pays of in a
myriad of ways (album sales, word-of-mouth, etc), so it makes sense to look at
it over time, If an artist is able to cultivate a reputation for caring about
fans, it helps to have a partner able to take any blowback for actions fans do
not like.

More established artists often just charge a lot for tickets. They can get
away with it. Having to pay $100+ for the cheapest Rolling Stones tickets
isn't going to phase most Rolling Stones fans at this point (and a lot are at
a stage in life where they can support it, and much more expensive tickets).
The same might not be true of a newer artist, which is still trying to grow
their fan base.

> people pay more on satisfaction, not on dissatisfaction.

Generally, yes, but it's also skewed by how often the item in question is
purchases, have they purchased it before, etc. No matter how much I enjoy a
new car, I still hem and haw at the price when I an seriously considering
buying one. Expensive luxury purchases are like that (at this point I do pay
for satisfaction in cars - to a degree - but it wasn't always that way, by
necessity and by my current state of knowledge).

> lets say artists now sell their tickets on platform independent and
> simultaneous to Ticketmaster, at the same total price. Would people buy on
> Ticketmaster because they prefer to hate it than to hate the artist?

Is the artist advertising a similar face value and adding fees on to create a
higher purchase price, like Ticketmaster? If not, then I expect the vast
majority would probably end up at Ticketmaster because of a lower advertised
price, even if it's the same at checkout.

In the end though, some fans may be upset at the pricing and treatment, and
that may prevent a future album or concert ticket purchase. Fans are fickle,
and there's a _relationship_ between artists and fans, and that's essentially
why it's not a rational market. There's emotion in there.

~~~
conanbatt
> Is the artist advertising a similar face value and adding fees on to create
> a higher purchase price, like Ticketmaster? If not, then I expect the vast
> majority would probably end up at Ticketmaster because of a lower advertised
> price, even if it's the same at checkout.

Lets try to ceteris paribus it. I have no doubt the price shennanings
Ticketmaster does have an extractive effect, but given the same price for TM
and the artist, who would choose TM? And if the artist is cheaper because
there is no middleman?

Of course TM would punish any artist doing that, thats why I say they must
have leverage.

In the end I might be wrong about this, but deception is a poor substitute for
economic efficiency. The day one artist collects more money with no fuss, the
house of cards falls down.

------
j45
Ticketmaster is also largely pushing behind the scenes for digital only /
digital first ticketing.

The experience of being gifted tickets for an event is no longer the same.

A side effect of this is that Ticketmaster alternatives (Stubhub) etc, are
also better frozen out of the secondary ticket market, and ironically,
Ticketmaster takes their place through their fan-to-fan resale platform.

TM has acquired Stubhub as well, so there are likely other competitors/targets
they are targeting too.

------
wilgertvelinga
One of the few blockchain companies I actually see the value in is
[https://guts.tickets](https://guts.tickets) Their technology prevents
reselling tickets for anything other than the original price, among other
things. (Disclaimer: I just happen to know one of the founders from a past
endeavor, I do not own any of there token)

------
rystband
This is exactly why we built rystband! We're an all digital ticketing company
so we can do what the big companies can, but better. We sell tickets with $0
service fees, forever. Check us out!
[https://www.rystband.com](https://www.rystband.com)

------
porscheburnaby
Artists/celebrities keep using it (i'd even want to say endorse it). Customers
keep buying from it. Unless politicians pick this up and do something like
condemn this practise and threaten regulations, nothing will happen.

------
En_gr_Student
The dark side of this is how they damage the total sales in their
"explorations". The actual performer doesn't get a cut. They don't get to know
their market value, or how bad the pricing hurts the fan experience.

------
forkLding
So HFT taking advantage of ticket sales arbitrage?

------
aidenn0
Has Ticketmaster hit the point where their brand image is so bad that they
aren't hurt at all by bad press?

~~~
Deestan
Their reputation doesn't matter.

If Favorite Artist comes to town to play, you will buy a ticket because you
love the artist. Whether the ticket handler is a piece of shit is
inconsequential.

------
edoceo
Ages ago I was paid by professional scalpers to build bots on TM to get the
"fruit". Fun times.

------
browsercoin
excuse my ignorance but why can't artists just setup a stripe page and collect
money from fans and set up a location and date? why are market makers needed
in tickets market that create incentives for scalpers?

~~~
bluetidepro
It's because the venues are the ones partnered with these types of companies.
Unless the artist themselves own a venue, they usually have to go through the
ticketing of whatever that venue itself uses. The artists sadly don't get that
much control on that type of thing, esp the average artist that doesn't have
the type of "klout" to demand X Y Z happen for them to play that venue.

------
tantalor
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICO)

------
brian-armstrong
Guess it's not so secret anymore

------
jiveturkey
"secret"

------
soperj
How is the artist not getting absolutely screwed in this situation?

------
howeyc
Sell tickets by auction, it would extract maximum value and kill the scalping
market.

------
barking
I bought my son a ticket for a music festival that was sold out within hours
of ticket release from ticketmaster's reseller site seatwave and paid triple
the price to some guy with an Indian name who I'm fairly sure never had any
intention of attending.

