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Comment by patmcc | Hacker News Reader

The obvious fix to bots and scalpers is just to not allow ticket transfers - you give your name when you buy the ticket and show your ID at the door. Why this isn't the current process is left as an exercise to the reader.

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I remember Green Day doing a local show where you had to pay cash at the door.

This seems to address botting, though scalping organizations can still pay people to stand in line (and presumably take a cut when they are paid to give up their spots.)

Personally I think this approach helps out kids who have time to wait in line but don't necessarily have the money to pay huge markups and fees from the secondary market.

To prevent scalping, one could just write the name of the person on the physical ticket at purchase time and then check ID at the entrance.

Indeed, maybe with a more bulletproof implementation though (eg. you must show the same driver's license, enforced via matching the pdf417 on the back at purchase and entry)

The simple solution to getting fans rather than grifters is to make the tickets cost something other than money. Time is a nice obvious cost element to add.

If only we could channel that time more productively (and in a more palatable way) than having people wait in line.

How would you measure/trade time? Other than with the approximation of using money.

Sounds analogous to mining cryptocurrency with proof-of-work.

Taylor Swift did do something a bit like this this for a previous tour - you could get early access to the ticket sales by doing various kinds of fan activities, including buying physical copies of her records, watching videos, and posting on social media [1]. People were kind of mad about it, although I think in part that was because the "fan activities" that gave you the best chance to get tickets were the ones that also involved buying things.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/31/bad-blood-is-t...

In New York State, it is illegal to prohibit the transfer of tickets, which complicates most obvious approaches to stopping scalpers. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ACA/25.30

This appears to mainly apply to season tickets and subscription-based tickets, at least at first glance.

Look at paragraph (c), a little pro-reseller nugget buried in an otherwise very consumer friendly law. That paragraph is the reason obvious anti-scalping practices can't work in one of the US's largest live event markets.

If I'm not mistaken, this[0] seems to be a commentary on the law. As I understand it after having read that article, the law seems to be in an effort to encourage reselling by the regular person in case of travel/event plans changing, while introducing fines to prohibit egregious scalpers. However, it seems it's just some fines for these activities, and I can't find any case where scalpers were convicted and fined under this statute (but maybe my Google-fu is weak).

0: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

Ice is the old practice of producers (aka rights holders) or box office staff taking tips to make tickets available to resellers. This is illegal and is not common anymore. The era of computerized ticketing has made it much harder to do.

This is what newer Pearl Jam concerts do - they sell on Ticketmaster, but made a deal where you can't transfer the tickets to anyone else, and must present a Photo ID upon entry to the venue with a name that matches the name on the billing address.

So, you can't offer tickets?

Because people drop out last minute and might want to take a different friend.

I’ve been to events that do this and if someone can’t make it tough luck. But it prevents scalping at least. Every system has pros and cons.

Better solution is to just price the tickets higher. Scalpers are only taking advantage of arbitrage. This requires a bit of complex demand estimation up front though.

This was the point of the article. Or at least, how to reduce the arbitrage incentive without the complex demand estimation.

That prices out more fans who can’t afford it though, something that some artists are trying to avoid.

I don't see why they would outweigh the fans who want to make last minute changes?

In any solution there are those who get the short end of the stick.

A lot of artists don't want to perform in a venue with 20% empty seats

Offer the original purchaser a refund, and then sell the extra tickets at the door.

I went to a concert that requires you to match your ticket, but allowed you to sell tickets on a site they control for the face value. I think the buyer has to pay a transaction fee as well.

I got the tickets by signing up and they took my credit card, and charged me when I was next in line and someone had tickets for sale. It was pretty neat, though I suspect I lucked out because a bunch of people sold their tickets when they announced vaccines would be required (September 2021).

"I will sell you this ticket on the marketplace for $facevalue if you will paypal me $500 - $facevalue"

There was no market place. Just fifo queues of people willing to buy tickets, and tickets for sale. that constantly works its way down to atleast one of them being 0.

I signed up for the main concert and a few of the after parties, and over the next month I got emails saying I had purchased tickets for the various events.

If that's the case then it doesn't solve the problem of wanting to take a different friend, unless there are plenty of tickets available.

Some venues do this, but it does slow down entry (though during the pandemic some venues where checking IDs anyway along with covid test results, etc..)

AXS requires that you use their app and it must be logged into the account that purchased the tickets. The QR codes need to be refreshed before entry and expire in 60 seconds.

This presumably requires scalpers/bots to create an account per ticket purchase, and there is probably a limit on the number of accounts that can share the same payment method and address.

AXS allows them to resell on their own platform, so "the account that purchased the tickets" doesn't have to be the one that originally purchased the tickets.

Yes, it includes resale on its own platform. As I noted, I'm not sure this prevents scalping, but it seems like it would require bulk scalpers to create a large number of accounts, and presumably it allows AXS to take a cut and to monitor it.

Also I believe they limit the resale markup to 10% above the face value. This seems good for buyers and fair to sellers, and it may also reduce the profit for scalpers.

I imagine they could also ban resale of tickets for certain shows if they wanted to.

You can also transfer tickets on their platform, so even if there's a cap you can go off-platform for payment and "transfer" (aka sell) through the platform

AXS is really not invested in trying to stop scalpers, they do all this to defeat double use of tickets.

Australia has a few “major events” laws aimed at preventing the worse of scalping. They mostly require that any reselling not be more than a fixed percentage of the original resale price (I think it’s 20% from memory). While not perfect, it does prevent the insane ticket prices.

This is all managed through an offical resale partner with ticket tek and ticket master. You can only transfer tickets officially though the site, with options to do it for no (or low) charge if you’re sending it to a mate.

I’ve used the service quite a bit, picking up tickets on the day of an event. I’ve had some wins buying tickets for ~30% of the original price, but also plenty of times paying slightly over the original price or I’ve missed one event as there were no available tickets. It’s just something I’ve come to expect for the flexibility it provides.

I think the majority of people use this service rather than trying a third party as it’s official, easy for the seller and no one wants to support insane scalpers.

The only problem I’ve seen with the system is events can elect to not allow reselling on the platform till the event is sold out. This can prevent people recouping their losses if they can’t attend the event, and stops me from potentially getting a small deal.

Ticketmaster collects a "service fee" when you resell on their app

John Mayer did shows here in Montana with that model. People still drove to the venue to get their paper tickets then handed over to their saplees.

I went to Roland Garros and this is how they did it. You also were allowed to return the ticket to the pool and the event resold it at face value.

I wasn't able to go to a convention because my girlfriend already bought plane tickets to Las Vegas. If I weren't able to sell the ticket, there would be no way for me to recoup the cost

Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem but if you bought steaks from a butcher and you came home to find that your girlfriend already prepare dinner?

In the system that I can resell my ticket I don't have a loss, in a system where it's by name I can't

I believe it should be auctioned anyway, so that the people with the highest desire to go can put their money towards it. This is the most practical solution to the problem - the organizers get paid what the tickets are worth, anyone who wants to go knows how much the tickets will go for, scalpers become futures traders

The problem here is when artists want their tickets to go to any fan, and not just fans who have a lot of disposable income.

Then why charge money? Just give them away for free

The thing is, artists would like to make more money

No ones buying your resold steak from the butcher. Life happens but that’s a minority use case. Not the example to design around.

But you can put it in the freezer for months, kind of breaks the analogy. A concert or convention is just those few days

Ok but what about someone with not much money, but time. They may be willing to camp out for several days (certainly desire there) but would lose out to someone with money who can easily afford it.

Quoting GP, “Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem.”

If bands want to lower ticket prices then they can play in bigger venues or more days. Play until you don’t sell out. Supply and demand.

Not a great analogy; one “shit happens” situation has real physical reasons behind it that can’t be changed, the other is simply procedural.

If they make tickets non-transferable, they should also make them refundable. We're talking about events that are guaranteed to sell out, they should have a problem finding someone to buy returned tickets, even at the last minute.

And if you get sick or if you don't know if you can go but want to?

"Papers, please."

How could it be done without invading privacy?

I'm not sure it can be easily.

However, many venues were already checking ID for over 18/21 shows and also covid test results during the pandemic.

Also regular buyers already have to provide contact and payment info (usually very personally identifiable.)

Some venues have tried to fight scalping by requiring presentation of the card used for payment - though obviously that disadvantages cash buyers and scalpers can still use burner cards which they provide with the ticket.

I'm not sure "privacy preserving" is enough of a selling point.

Remove the reason why showing your papers is a privacy issue in the first place.

zero knowledge proof

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