The problem is when all tickets sell out in a couple minutes (at the unrealistic list price), limited only by the IT infrastructure handling the orders. In this case only "professional scalpers" can win the race to be "first". OK, now we're caught up to present day, is there any way we can make this system less silly and have less of the money end up in the hands of middlemen ...
>less of the money end up in the hands of middlemen
This is the deceit of the whole system though. This system isn't just about "middlemen" extracting value. The _artists themselves_ directly profit from the multi-tier selling system. A performer like Bieber or Adelle is actually directly selling large blocks of premium seats directly to ticket brokers ("scalpers") _at a premium over face value already_.
I think there's less of that happening, and more of either agents on behalf of the artists are selling directly on the exchanges, or there's a profit sharing agreement with select brokers. Whether there's a difference between those two things is up to you to decide. But yes, often large chunks of inventory seem to never become available on the primary market, for whatever the reason.
>either agents on behalf of the artists are selling directly on the exchanges, or there's a profit sharing agreement with select brokers
This is just mental gymnastics to absolve performers of economic responsibility for the market in which _they_ are the source of all value in play. The artists are directly complicit because they want to get famous and make the big bucks. The ones who don't play that game are the bands you might see touring local venues and working out a $10-$20 cover charge with the bar they play at.
>often large chunks of inventory seem to never become available on the primary market, for whatever the reason
I worked at a secondary ticket marketplace company and I am trying to explain to you what is _actually happening_ in the real world every day in this industry, from my direct experience. I'm not hypothesizing here...
Edit: can't reply to you again, but I think we're on the same page :)
> This is just mental gymnastics to absolve performers of economic responsibility
I'm fully putting blame on the artists for this behavior. I'm just wording it slightly differently because I think it's less of a "broker approaches artist with a good deal" situation than a "artist decides they want to have their cake and eat it too and quietly sell on the secondary market for more money." That's not definitive though, I'm sure there have been plenty of brokers that have approached everyone in the entertainment industry in the past.
> I worked at a secondary ticket marketplace company and I am trying to explain to you what is _actually happening_ in the real world every day in this industry, from my direct experience. I'm not hypothesizing here...
I work in it currently, and have for years. Everyone in the industry believes that, but few will outright say they have access to that definitively (for obvious reasons). If you have direct knowledge that it was happening at your company or direct knowledge of another company doing so, I'm happy to have confirmation. I just didn't want to be overly assertive about something I didn't know as fact, and wanted to express what I saw as the general industry consensus ("it happens, there's no proof"). :)
Sure. That'd probably work. That's why the article is so explosive... it shows that TM will never implement anything to make its service fair to the actual fans.
My comment applies to situations where the ticket price is massively different than the market clearing price. If a ticket is priced close to the market clearing price then it isn't really a price control situation. I'm guessing that this is probably closer to the situation for the symphony.
If the symphony was an auction system, tickets might sell for $110 each. It fills up with a $100 each first-come system, most people who want tickets can get them, tickets are sold at only a $10 discount of auction value, and it "feels fair." The first-come-first-serve system works well for the symphony.
If the pop-star concert was an auction system, tickets might sell for $999 each. With first-come-first-serve and a set $100 price, each ticket is sold at a $899 discount of auction value. Moreover, most people who want tickets cannot get them directly as they sell out instantly because of the relatively steep discount (90% discount vs 9% discount).
The first-come-first-serve system only works well when prices are set near a market-clearing value, like with the symphony. As stated elsewhere in the thread, people would get super upset at $999 tickets. They would think "those greedy pop-stars price tickets way too high, it's so unfair." So pop-stars are unwilling to set prices at the high market-clearing value, and use the first-come-first-serve with way underpriced tickets (getting some money back by having agreements with scalpers or Ticketmaster).
Demand way exceeds supply, tickets sell out instantly (mostly to scalpers). Most fans never get to see the concert at the "fair-seeming" $100 price and are upset at "those nasty scalpers" and pay near $1000 to see the concert anyways. But the scalpers (or Ticketmaster) are the ones whose reputations are harmed, saving the artists' reputations.
The purpose of a pricing strategy is to maximize the capture of value from a given market. Auction pricing works when:
1) It is a single event-based POS
2) Every member of audience has the same level of knowledge of what is being sold
For a symphony, the audience is smaller and more homogeneous than a pop-star concert. Symphony attendees are typically repeat buyers, who share similar knowledge of what they're seeing, and will know well in advance if they are going to attend.
Pop-star audience goers will make the decision to buy and will need to confirm purchase at different time points before the event. They also have varying degrees of knowledge as to how much the ticket price really should be, meaning they are not going to be good at bidding and won't fully participate.
First come first serve doesn't work for most concerts and live sporting events because the true market value, meaning the rate at which "the market" will bear a price-point and still relatively easily sell out all the supply (seats), or at least enough to cover costs for the venue/act/promoter, is well above what is printed on the physical ticket as "market value." I would guess that Symphony tickets on the secondary market simply don't fetch enough _margin_ to justify the type of extensive secondary inventory sales infrastructure that pop concerts and pro sports games do. You're starting to see this change though, with NYC broadway at least, with shows like Hamilton and The Importance of Being Earnest fetching just as large secondary market margins as any pop concert.
If you want data to illustrate this point, there's an article on The Ringer site a few years back that was written by a guy who was the CEO of ticketmaster for several years. He said "If you add up the face value for every seat in the venue, that total number is _less_ than what most popular artists are paid out for that show in just the artist appearance fee." This should show you how fake the entire idea of "face value" is...
