Artists generally want to have a diverse crowd in terms of disposable income, they don't want to have a crowd of just the people who can/will pay the most.
Also seems nearly optimal for alienating all but your richest fans. The extra profit you might extract from the concert might not actually put you ahead in the long term when fans stop caring about you because of your profit maximizing business practices.
If demand is so high that people can't afford tickets and you want to do something for the fans, put the game in a bigger stadium.
> Barry Kahn, of Texas-based dynamic ticket pricing consultancy Qcue, doesn’t believe artists should be judged for using tactics including scalping their own tickets (or it’s newer twin, “Platinum” and dynamic pricing to demand). “The issue is the transparency,” he told Billboard. “If they get caught doing something they have said is wrong, then they are deceiving their fans.”
> In this specific instance, Billboard says that Metallica’s management moved up to 4,400 tickets per show over 20 concerts on the tour through intermediaries, masking the process by packaging the tickets as if they were held back for a sponsor.
- https://www.ticketnews.com/2019/07/live-nation-admits-artist...
Take it worth a grain of salt, I have no idea how true it is but it's at least a plausible explanation as to why artists may not want scalpers eliminated.
Some festivals avoid it by requiring ID to be linked to the ticket and banning resale (though they may allow refund).
It’s funny, but “extracting maximum profit” isn’t the only motivation some people have in life. Especially when it comes to cultural events.
[citation needed]
More seriously though, it's true that people - arguably most people - have other motivations than purely materialistic ones. But, like every market, cultural events are a dynamic system. It follows a trajectory over time.
Slightly more greedy people have better outcomes than slightly less greedy ones. The least successful get filtered out. Iterate that over time. What results do you expect?
And yes, this is a general argument of why the market first makes things better, then makes them all go to shit. And it is confirmed by real world. Exceptions involve some factors that counteract the dynamics described above. Do you see such factors at play in entertainment event industry? I don't.
Define "better outcomes" and "Least successful".
The most coveted and arguable most successful music festival in the UK, Glastonbury, operates in the way I described. A variety of other festivals in the UK do too, often due to the politics of the organisers (see, for example, Beautiful Days)
> Do you see such factors at play in entertainment event industry?
Yep, where people make it happen I see them at play and working well to create systems that both the organisers and the public want, and which lock out the third-party profiteers. It would be nice to see such things become more widespread. Though I agree we are less likely to see that where 'the industry' is in control, rather than artists or passionate individuals.
That's really what money is - a transferable token to persuade other people to do stuff on your behalf.
At that point, would scalper's contribution be net positive? Net better than it was? I'm not sure how to answer that.
Namely, if you are aware of intergroup variability in ID-having rates, is choosing it anyways a conscious discriminatory choice?
What I brought up was, knowing this, is still using ID discriminatory?
Edit: Dang it, the best answers always come after I close my laptop. "It would be discriminatory if the government didn't provide people a way to get ID. As a business owner, that's beyond the scope of my responsibility. Same as if someone showed up without $5 and wanted to buy a sandwich." ...is another way to look at it.
Festival appearance rates are agreed on in advance of ticket sales, so tickets prices are the responsibility of festival organisers.