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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Then the view of greed falls on the organization and the artists instead of on scalpers.

It also is up in the air of the market value is really what people are paying or if it’s being inflated by scalpers. Some people will pay it but I don’t think it’s an accurate view of what the price should be in that situation.

But we saw exactly this with the recent Lorcana release. Local game stores acted like scalpers charging scalper prices, it is hurting the perception of the game of what normal prices are.

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The scalpers can only charge what people buy it for though. So whatever the scalpers are paying are what the people are willing to pay on average. (This assumes there are any successful scalpers and it’s not just a continuously losing game)

> can only charge what people buy it for though

This can't make sense. Then where is the profit for the scalper coming from?

Its also a bit untrue. Its true that yes, people _will_ pay it, but did they need to get that high? Scalpers are like auction bots - not always going to win, but will raise the prices for those who would have bought at an otherwise lower value.

You do understand that scalpers are trying to make money right? That means whatever they pay the venue is less than what they can sell it for. So whatever scalpers pay is still clearly less than what people are actually willing to pay.

Agreed. With the recent Taylor Swift fiasco, if she charged $2k a ticket, she would be viewed as some nightmare of capitalism. Instead, she gets to hide under the guise of ticketmaster since she sold tickets at a lower dollar cost only to be resold at a market clearing price. I have anecdata to say some people won the initial lottery and paid a few hundred for floor seats when the large majority needed to pay the market clearing price on the secondary market. I'd posit this is the real purpose of ticketmaster's monopoly: In exchange for their exclusivity agreements with large venues and artists, thus filling stadiums and providing kick backs, they allow themselves to become the target of venom from the larger market instead of the artists themselves.

>It also is up in the air of the market value is really what people are paying or if it’s being inflated by scalpers

Then use some form of a Dutch auction to sell them.

When you consider how fashion- and trend-driven music is the optics of tickets getting slashed in price because they haven’t sold for a month are terrible.

You could have it go from $10k to $50 over a single weekend. It's not bad optics if you don't sell out a venue at $10k per ticket.

Having to slash the prices so drastically is also embarrassing and doesn't build hype the way the tickets being instantly sold out everywhere does.

There is nothing embarrassing about a Dutch auction. What's the point of generating hype by selling out tickets? All of the tickets get sold out either way, it's just that now more fans end up with tickets instead of scalpers.

The next location or tour people are highly incentivized to snap up the tickets as soon as possible rather than waiting. This can't be the first you've heard of such a strategy.

If it sells out either way, then you will want to buy it before it sells out in both scenarios. It's just in the action scenario you can be sure you will get a ticket.

Buyers do not behave rationally. Without the induced sense of urgency some portion of buyers are going to think better of the purchase. So there is a risk it will not sell out either way.

Have you seen how the dutch flower auctions do it?

Those guys have something like 30 seconds max to hit their mark.

Now those are professional buyers. I think for your amateur crowd you would have to provide a bit more time. perhaps a week. just make it clear what is happening.

And that big clock, have you seen the big clock? if I ever made a dutch auction ticket site A big clock would feature predominantly in the ui. Unfortunately I don't think the flower auctions use the big clock anymore. which is a shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAdmzyKagvE (tom scott)

Dutch auction + no reselling, or only reselling at the exact price bought or lower. Otherwise scalpers just buy them all as soon as they’re released, and now they do whatever kind of auction they want, with the (previously) max price as the floor.

>Otherwise scalpers just buy them all as soon as they’re released

Scalpers would end up holding the bag if they did that. If no one is willing to pay $10k for a ticket, but then scalpers buy every ticket for $10k each they aren't going to me able to find anyone to resell the tickets to and will end up losing money.

Anyone can protect themselves from being scalped by just participating in the auction.

How much "view of greed" has fallen on airline companies for fluctuating the price of their seats based on demand?

Sure thing it makes buying air tickets a lot more stressful, but we do get low cost trips if we plan ahead, or a much-needed last time seat if we can afford it.

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