Comments on: Ticketmaster Beats Scalpers At Their Own Game

By: The Feed Bag

The Feed Bag — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:20:40 +0000

[...] Speaking of auctions, Ticketmaster in New Zealand has cut ticket scalpers out of the picture by auctioning tickets. [...]

By: omigod

omigod — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:37:10 +0000

Oh yeah, and BTW, this really is the last straw. I don’t need to see The Police that badly. I paid Ticketmaster for ‘premium’ tickets for U2 and still got seated at the far end of the stadium. I watched the concert on the big video screen, it was impossible to ‘connect’ with the band on stage.

By: omigod

omigod — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:32:28 +0000

Lex said: “I would much rather pay say $200 knowing more goes to the promoter and artiste than $150 knowing they only get to slive up a $75 face value with a scalper taking $75 for no better reason than that they had a contact at a ticket outlet.”

Sorry Lex, but it doesn’t work that way. The band charge the promoter a performance fee and he tries to recoup that thru ticket sales. If he sells a $75 ticket for $200 the promoter get the extra, not the band. Ticketmaster will be getting a commission too, hence their desire to sell tickets at a higher face value.

By: Lex

Lex — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:24:27 +0000

Great idea!

This is no different from an institutional book build process for securities offerings.

The only question is whether the average punter will understand how to use it to their advantage for buying tickets.

On another positive note, it will make Nanny State’s meddling legislation for ‘major events’ entirely redundant.

And for my part, I would much rather pay say $200 knowing more goes to the promoter and artiste than $150 knowing they only get to slive up a $75 face value with a scalper taking $75 for no better reason than that they had a contact at a ticket outlet.

By: MikeE

MikeE — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:14:14 +0000

Wow Ticket master have finally learnt the concept of the market!

Good on them.

http://mikeenz.blogspot.com/2007/01/ticket-scalping-efficient-distribution.html

By: JamesP

JamesP — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:58:14 +0000

Why are you assuming that you will necessarily pay more? An auction can also be an opportunity to pick up a bargain if demand is light.

More importantly, an auction gives you the power: you get to pay exactly how much you feel the tickets are worth to you. How is that unfair?

And if you take a minute to think about it you will see that the “problems” of scalpers and tickets selling out in 20 minutes are caused precisely because tickets are not being sold at market value. Selling the tickets at auction fixes this easily. Compare this to banning scalping which is much easier said than done.

By: Boxy

Boxy — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:26:26 +0000

Not impressed. Even though the scalpers sometimes get all the best seats, there’s a good chance that committed fans will be allocated front-row seats. The new system will leave them with no chance, because the “committed bidder” is prepared to pay more.

Scalpers for a while have been joining fan clubs to get better and earlier tickets. The Ticketmaster auctions have been running in the US for some time, and the general feeling there is that it is just legalised/institutionalised scalping, something which the true fan hates in the first place.

I would like to see a “no tickets resold above cost price” policy, but that’s me talking with my “event goer” hat on. I can see the attraction in profiteering and think it’s fair that they are a free market commodity, but at the end of the day it’s not what the bands want.

U2 could have played another show in New York to 10 times as many fans instead of putting a second show on at Mt Smart Stadium…

I guess we’re just lucky we get to go at all.