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For one evening, your everyday troubles are
on hold as you go crazy to wild riffs or gnarly beats.
And that's worth quite a bit of money to you;
up to a point.
Imagine, there's this one incredible show you just cannot miss.
You decide to go for it and pay *inhales* 100 bucks for a ticket,
but uh-uh.
A minute after pre-sale start, all tickets gone.
Tough luck.
But of course, five minutes later, you see that some leech has already
put their ticket up for sale on an exchange for double the price,
and you just want to burn the world down.
You won't like to hear it, but reason for all of this is:
Let's say there are 10 000 tickets for 50$ available for a specific concert.
But there are 20 000 people who'd want to buy a ticket at that price.
Any way you twist it, half of them will remain ticketless.
And that's where scalpers come in.
Of those 10 000 people, some would pay quite a bit more for a ticket.
The scalper takes 'em by their word,
asks for one hundred per presold ticket and pockets a fifty in margin.
Good for the scalper, bad for fans,
who face a decision of having no ticket or paying an obscene markup on it,
and also bad for all the people who make the show possible, because that markup doesn't go to them,
but towards someone who has not contributed a single thing to the concert.
When a handful of tickets per concert are sold that way, it's unpleasant,
but when big amounts, a tenth or even more than half of all tickets, regularly go to scalpers
- thanks to bots -
it's a massive problem for the industry and every person who likes to go to concerts.
*blows horn*
Right, not like that.
To seriously curb ticket scalping we can turn three screws:
If you set prices low enough so you sell out,
but high enough so everyone who wants a ticket for that price can get one,
there's no margin for scalpers to work with.
Either you flick up prices from the start,
or you move them up or down according to demand,
or you put in different price tiers
- you might know that from theater, then again ... you probably don't -
or auction off tickets to the highest bidder.
Comes with drawbacks, though:
Auctions are kinda cumbersome and complicated,
price tiers only work when you're willing to divide the audience into
simple peasantry and most honored VIPs,
and ... then there's the money thing:
Overdo it with prices and you can't act surprised when your audience calls for revolution.
Even if you really only want to push back on scalpers, you'll look like a greedy bastard
forcing people to sell their gold fillings for tickets.
That's why, in reality, ticket prices are often lower than they could be.
Better to let a bit of paper go by than being labeled sellout
and losing your fanbase in the long run.
Instead of "price up", we go "capacity up" until supply and demand are in balance.
So either bigger locations - from the 10 000 people arena to the 50 000 people stadium -
or, every time a concert sells out, you throw in another one at the same place.
No one pays a huge markup when there are normal priced tickets still up for grabs.
There are some practical limits, though.
There's no 200 000 people stadium for one,
and there's probably no act willing to go on tour till the end of time.
Also, you lose a bit of money that way because more/bigger shows also have higher costs.
If you control who can buy or use tickets, scalpers can simply be locked out.
For the messy beta version of this, we swing our almighty wooden hammer and make scalping illegal.
Problem solved?
With that, you ban big scalpers from the market,
but then you're facing an army of illegal street vendors,
who can just as easily sell you counterfeit or invalid tickets.
The market for scalping gets smaller, but the ugliest part survives.
So, away with the hammer.
*glass breaks, cats screeches*
Better to ensure that fans, not bots, get tickets by properly authenticating them.
Those who already bought merch or tickets from the last tour,
or have a badly done band logo tattoo, are first in line for tickets.
Or you only sell personalized tickets.
If the name on the ticket isn't the name of the person trying to use it, it's invalid.
Gotta check every single one at the entrance, though.
Bad news if you're unvailable at short notice:
Quickly selling or gifting tickets isn't an option.
As you can see:
Many ways to curb scalping, but none perfect.
Still, they're dearly necessary, because one thing's for certain: Concerts aren't free.
If an event doesn't pay, it's not happening.
That's why it's important the money we pay for tickets doesn't go
to people who are just exploiting a purposely left price gap for their own profit,
but to the people who bring the show to the stage.
*sick beat drops*