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Comment by bo1024 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is great if your goal is to clear the market at a competitive price. But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price. That makes the problem a lot harder. The obvious thing to do is have a lottery, but it's hard to stop people from using multiple identities (especially scalpers).

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It’s really easy in many European countries to prevent identity abuse. In Finland there is a system called “strong authentication” where you log in with your bank. It’s directly tied to your social security number and banks do a very strict job of identifying you in person before you open your accounts. It works and I’ve not heard of anyone gaming this system. It’s used by the banks themselves, the government, tax office etc.

This is the solution. Strong authentication into a lottery.

> This is the solution. Strong authentication into a lottery.

I really don't like using a lottery, because it assumes that everyone who wants to go to a particular concert has the same level of desire to go.

A lot of people might just kind of want to go, while for others going is the most important thing in the world. With a lottery system, each of those people have an equal chance of getting to go. It seems unfair to me.

I want a system that allocates tickets to the people who want to go the most. I know an auction type system isn't completely fair, since some people have more money than others, but it least it has some semblance of trying to distribute tickets to people who want to go the most.

> I want a system that allocates tickets to the people who want to go the most.

I can't think of a better way to measure desire than willingness to spend a long time waiting in line. So perhaps sell the more expensive lottery tickets online (with some proof of unique identity), and cheaper lottery tickets at the venue itself (still tied to identity) on a single day a few months in advance.

> who want to go the most.

And then there is the difference in means. I barely want to go to tswift, but it's no skin off my budget. My friends 15yo daughter is dying to go but its like 100% of her income for the next 3 months.

> I can't think of a better way to measure desire than willingness to spend a long time waiting in line.

Doesn't this have the same problem as using money? Some people have a lot less time to wait in line, just like some people have a lot less money to spend on tickets

Lotteries aren't fair.

How come?

I don't understands how that system would help, can't you have multiple bank accounts? Except if all the banks transfer some strong common identifier like the social security number (and that sound pretty dangerous to share). Open 5 accounts in 5 different banks (I'm pretty sure you could even do it all at the same bank), and there you go... you will exist, but Ticketmaster would have no idea whether you are 5 different deanc or all the same one.

Your identity is tied to your account at the bank, not your bank accounts. It's simply a way to identify you are an individual. It is tied to your SSN, and there are very very strict requirements to gain access to this provider (it is run by a branch of government).

Sell a fraction of tickets at higher prices (perhaps via auction) ahead of time, and sell the rest at the door. Scalpers cannot pretend to be multiple people if they have to enter the venue and pay.

The known-price door tickets set a bound on the value of advance tickets, with the latter having a premium for certainty of getting in. Younger people with less money will place less value on certainty (they can wait in line at another concert).

Scalpers can still buy advance tickets and scalp them, but they have reduced pricing power because buyers might rather take a chance at $50 door tickets than pay $500 to a scalper. And there may be less bad press about tickets costing $500 if most of them are sold at the door for $50.

sell low price vouchers, require ID for them, make them refundable in 90+ days or in person with ID only

set up a membership/trust/reputation system for fans and/or frequent venue goers (eg. locals), and if they actually show up to gigs, then you can reduce the refund wait time for them, etc.

> But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price

And I want to experience being a dragon, unicorn, billionaire, etc. We can want impossible things, but ignore reality at our own peril.

You can't "beat" the market, you just force the market underground (black market, scalpers). The market ALWAYS pays what it can afford. If demand is greater than supply, and someone is willing to pay more for it, refer to Economics 101.

The market! The market! The market! This invisible beast which controls everything for all eternity!

There are always ways of influencing the market. Taxes, subsidies, regulations, advertising. It requires imagination, but let's not feel ourselves enslaved completely to the invisible hand of the new leviathan.

"Influencing the market" is just a way of introducing unenforcable or ineffective rules, or unintended consequences. You want to tax resale of tickets at above face value at 100%? Sure. Now enforce it. I mean, it's been illegal in many states for a while now anyway.

Back in the day, before the web, anyone who wanted a ticket at face value could get one. You just had to wait in line. For a long time. And back then, people said that system was unfair, because wealthy people could afford to take the day off of work, while poor people couldn't. Or wealthy people could simply pay other people to wait in line for them. And the wealthy people realized, hey, the limit is 8 tickets but I'm going with just a group of 4... I can buy all 8 and sell 4 to people at the end of the line for a profit. And they did! And so waiting in line became fruitless, unless you were really, really, really early, because all the wealthy people (scalpers) would buy the max number of tickets and the show would sell out fast. Now we have the internet and nobody has to wait on a line, everyone can log in at the exact moment, but people once again say this is unfair.

The idea that you can somehow ignore, heavily influence, or override the free market in concert tickets is nonsensical.

So we can influence the market for travel, healthcare, education, military, environment, food, children’s toys, etc. But not for tickets to watch Taylor Swift?

Seems a bit of a weird question.

Considering how often it's discussed on HN what the unintended effects are of regulations on healthcare, education, and environment.

I would wager more than 5% of posts that got more than 100 comments in the last 5 years have discussions about that topic.

There are three categories of criticism being mixed up here.

1. You cannot influence the market, it will always revert to form.

2. You can influence the market, but in doing so, you will cause too many damaging side-effects.

3. You should not influence the market, because it’s morally wrong to do so.

The first comment was very much in category 1, but now it sounds like category 2.

The problem with category 2 arguments is that they pretend any solution must be perfect with no side-effects or we shouldn’t do it. Clearly, it’s a trade-off - even if there are negatives, if they are outweighed by the positives, it’s worth doing.

Thus, if it’s possible some mixture of regulation, tax and subsidy can prevent monopolistic behaviour, it’s worth at least discussing.

Well 2. is only a subset of 1., on a long enough time scale, as all human 'influences' will vanish too.

Animals, even plants, experience market forces to some extent. So I would say 'You cannot influence the market over millions of years, it will always revert to form.'

Within the next million years, I predict we’ll find different solutions. For now, I’ll focus on the next few decades.

The point is that there always exists a market clearing price for everything, which can be modified temporarily via human action, but not forever.

If we can improve things during that timeframe, great (perhaps phrased better as “In the long run, we’re all dead anyway”). And by the time we reach the end of that timeframe, the context will be different.

"Improve" how? And for whom? You have 400,000 people wanting to see a Taylor Swift concert each night in a venue that seats 80,000 (or whatever the actual numbers are). Lots of fans are going to be disappointed, shut out, denied access under any plan you implement or any laws you pass. Further, denying market forces to dictate prices results in an economic loss to Ms. Swift. You can twist "the market" all you want but you can't make everyone happy.

You sound like a pagan worshipper in Ancient Greece, commenting on the sacrifices we must make for the gods on Mount Olympus.

I’ll try to respond in the rigid language of the mythical Homo Economicus. If Taylor Swift could control the ticket booking process herself, she could choose which of those 400,000 fans got tickets, instead of being forced to accept those who make TicketMaster the most profits. She can go for maximum short-term financial gain for herself, or perhaps long-run profits, or even some kind of artistic consideration. This is why TicketMaster having control both over supply of venues (by virtue of its exclusivity contracts) and distribution is a problem that needs to be solved, to introduce elasticity into the market that can respond to demand.

It's not about worship, it's acceptance of the natural order, which you seem to want to deny.

As far as your points, she did try to choose which fans got tickets -- the sale was a "pre-sale" to fan club members who has pre-registered, not the general public.

You are asking to have it both ways. TicketMaster is not the problem, it is the result of decades of influencing the market, the way you'd want it, such that it appears that tickets are available and affordable while in reality, it helps artists and venue owners maximize their revenue. It functions so well, it won out over all other competitors and consolidated its grip on the industry.

You want to eliminate TicketMaster? Simply be willing to sell tickets purely by supply and demand, the way the stock market works. I can buy 1000 shares of AMZN for less commission than a single concert ticket (and AMZN will never be sold out, the market will always "respond to demand" -- your words), because there's no artificial "influence."

You really believe in capitalist realism and this is not a bit? It's honestly really difficult to tell.

That's a terribly lame cop-out. Argue a position, disprove my points, say something substantial... or get lost.

ok, prove it's a lame cop out.

The market for concert tickets currently starts out "influenced" by the fact that the face value (for popular acts) is well below the market-clearing price. And people hate this system, because it attracts resellers who naturally see an easy profit opportunity, these resellers aggressively obtain the majority of all tickets through a variety of back channels, leaving very few actually available to be purchased at the face value. And, because keeping face value below market-clearing price means there is more demand than supply, this system, for various reasons, led to a single company monopolizing the sale of tickets and charging massive, unavoidable fees, which people hate even more.

If we actually were letting tickets be un-influenced, they would be sold via some kind of auction or like an IPO.

The point is not that you can't influence the market, it's that the market is simply a natural phenomenon that will strongly resist every attempt at diminishing it with counter-effects that may be unpopular, unwanted, unfair and unintended.

In Denmark it's illegal to resell tickets above the original price.

Occasionally you see "crate of beer 1000DKK comes with free Taylor Swift ticket" but it's rare.

> In Denmark it's illegal to resell tickets above the original price.

This is the foundation of the entire of retail and investment. Why should it be banned?

Because the positive social effect is of more value than a dogmatic belief in the market.

> But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price.

Then do more shows. If the goal is to satisfy as many fans as possible across all economic spectrums, then more shows is the only answer.

If they want to sell tickets below market price, there's not a good solution.

If they want some people to be able to buy tickets below market price, then they could use some form of scholarships.

Not particularly hard... you give a name at time of lottery entry that must match photo identification presented at the door. Making the tickets refundable would probably help too (they could be sold in a subsequent lottery round, or at the door).

> But a lot of artists want to sell tickets below market price.

IMO artists should stop trying to sell below market and instead move the market by increasing supply. TSwift tickets wouldnt sell for $1000 a ticket if she played 3 nights... It's also a contradictory goal to what basically everyone else in the industry cares about (eg vendors, venues, crews etc).

Perhaps for super super stars like tswift she'd literally end up playing 24/7/365 ... But for a lot of artists additional nights would really change the curve.

I'm curious how alternatives might effect elasticity, something like simulcast at theaters for less than live in person?

These are called Sybil attacks.

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