
An Update to Our Event Ticket Reseller Policy - rexbee
https://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/02/update-ticket-reseller-policy.html
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gervase
I'm interested to see how this plays out. On one hand, this is obviously
unambiguously good for consumers. On the other hand, Google is leveraging
their market position to effectively serve as a corporate regulatory body,
through the fact that freezing these sellers out of Google results will
effectively tank their business.

It reminds me of a conversation here about Google's behavior with regards to
their upcoming Ad Blocker. It would be very easy for Google to guide their
business decisions in a certain way, then say "This is how things should be"
and use their clout to force everyone to behave in that way, except that
everyone else will then be playing catch-up. They have the power to do it, and
in this case, it's for a good cause (plus, they're not a ticket reseller,
etc).

But will that always be the case? Who decides which specific instance, if any,
is "a bridge too far"? Is this something we even need to worry about, or
should we let the market decide? Like I said, I'm curious to see how these
kinds of actions by Google (and other market leaders) evolve over time.

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matt4077
Adwords has had all sorts of requirements for advertisers since it first
started, so this isn't anything new. Google has occasionally caught flak from
certain segments, in cases where they offer competing products. Google Flights
comes to mind as the most obvious example.

Ticket resellers would be far too small a market for Google to actually do
anything nefarious. It's just not worth risking a precedent.

I think Google also knows these concerns very well. I'm absolutely sure that
they have more lawyers than programmers working on the upcoming ad blocking.

Strategically, Google owns so much of the open internet that they get plenty
of benefits by, for example, improving ad quality overall. Their competitors
aren't some ticket resellers that they would screw over by banning their ads.
It's Facebook, Apple, and possibly Amazon with closed ecosystems.

That's why Chrome is such an excellent browser: Google's interests are almost
completely aligned with someone browsing the internet. That, plus their
basically unlimited money, and what's probably the world's best software dev
operation meant that they easily outclassed Firefox without really trying[0].
Chrome was started at a time where native apps (and the Facebook SDK) had
become superior platforms for app development: Remember Zynga? Yeah, me
neither...

[0]: The "Chrome" wave of browser advancement has probably hit a sort of
natural slowdown for now, which is (among other things) what allowed Firefox
to catch up.

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Mononokay
FINALLY. Reselling needs to be regulated so badly. I couldn't get tickets to a
show at a medium-sized, local venue half a day after it was announced without
having to go through a reseller and buy at a 200% markup. It wasn't even a
person with a large amount of name recognition, either.

~~~
tptacek
Then how was the market clearing price 200% marked up?

~~~
calciphus
Many scalped & resold tickets are bought with stolen credit cards. Marking up
doesn't imply market clearing, and since the buyer didn't spend their own
money it doesn't result in a loss to them. Only the venue and fans lose out,
as the show has fewer actual attendees purchasing drinks, where venues make
most of their money.

~~~
tptacek
So your argument is that most of the tickets go unsold at any price, despite
having been purchased by resellers, and that attendees arriving at the venue
will find it mostly empty despite it being impossible to find tickets?

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gerardnll
Last year, my ex bought me some tickets for a concert as a present, and she
bought them in Viagogo thinking it was the official place at almost double the
price. Tickets were not sold out on the official webpage. They design their
webpage trying to hide the fact they are resellers. Awful, I hope they fail
miserably.

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robocat
Viagogo lied to me the other day, so I am very happy to see Google do
something about this...

I searched for an event and I was in a hurry and I made an honest mistake
where I tapped the first item in search result on mobile without checking
(tapped a paid Google Ad by Viagogo; normally I am more careful to avoid
scummy ads!).

Paid a premium for "D reserve" seats but was given "E" seats many rows back
from D section. Scummy switcheroo. Also worried if we would get into event
since tickets were bought in someone else's name. And bookings two seats means
you pay 2 booking fees - uggh. The worst part was that you pay more, but the
UI for Viagogo is really really shitty!!!

Lesson learned: avoid scummy Viagogo unless no other choice...

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donarb
It would be nice if resellers were required to prove that they actually have
tickets in hand before advertising. Many times these resellers work as brokers
trying to match buyers and sellers and buy tickets after getting offers,
leaving some buyers out in the cold when tickets don't materialize. Also maybe
require proof of actual rows and seats on the tickets, if they don't match,
when buying allow the buyer to back out of the deal.

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xenadu02
A large number of resellers are directly connected to the venue and artist
management. Artists don’t want to be seen as too greedy, yet their contract
has guaranteed payouts that simply aren’t possible given the venue size times
# of seats. By directly routing most tickets to resellers they can charge way
more than the face price of the ticket while shifting the blame to the
resellers. In some cases the artists are aware, in others their manager
doesn’t discuss it with them (but presents bigger paychecks as proof of how
great their management skills are).

There is zero desire on the part of anyone involved to stop the practice,
other than a few artists that really do care about fans and are willing to
take a pay cut (eg Bruce Springsteen).

~~~
michaelt

      A large number of resellers are directly connected
      to the venue and artist management.
    

Interesting, I didn't know that.

Where can I learn more?

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aiCeivi9
[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-
scr...](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/)

If anyone actually wanted to stop ticket scalping they would put buyers name
on tickets and only allow reselling on primary site, for face value. No hi-
tech required. This is what train service I use did after people tried to buy
all and resell reduced price tickets.

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debt
The problem is that there are so many different players in the event game. You
have the artist, the people that own the venue, the promoters, the ticketing
company itself, and then you also want to provide comp tickets.

It’s not always as simple as “does the purchaser really want to go to this
event? Is the purchaser a person or a company? Is the ticket being used bought
from my reseller or from the primary source?”

The people that own the venue typically do not care how the tickets are bought
because they usually make most of their money from concessions. The artist
also don’t necessarily care where the tickets are bought from, the promoters
also don’t care necessarily where the tickets are bought from because in both
cases they just want to get paid.

The only people that are really affected by resellers and scalpers are the
person or people that genuinely want to go to the show and can’t afford the
prices that the scalper or reseller is selling them at.

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dublinben
I wish Google would delist these sites entirely. It's illegal in many (most?)
states to resell tickets above face value, but these sites are often the only
place to find tickets to popular events.

