The artist and TM still get the revenue, but the scalper gets inventory they can't move.
What about the fans?
Similar to airlines, let people buy standby tickets, at the event, check attendance, if there is space let the stand bys in. TM still gets paid twice, scalper has garbage, and fans get in.
What about fans who can't go? Buy the insurance at checkout, if you can't go the insurance comps for the cost of the ticket.
People just don’t want to deal with the reality that the Taylor swift tickets that start at $40 or whatever were never real to begin with
This.
Here's a much more optimal semi-auction style solution. Tickets go on sale for 20 days, each day, all the seats and spots are worth the same price, you can buy anything, the price is always the same.
Day 1, the price is $2000. Day 20, the price is $10. So you'd only pay $60 at most for a ticket? Sure, just check in on day 16.
Since we start the price at the higher-than-scalp price, there's no scalping opportunity if you are paying the 'real market price'.
The entire reason performers want their tickets sold below market value is so that non-rich "real fans" can actually afford them. All of the other shenanigans going on are there to get around this issue (and the performers definitely get a cut) while protecting the performer's shield of plausible deniability.
But inevitably, someone (such as the vocal people in this thread) is going to complain that it means only the richest fans can afford to attend the concert. No duh, being rich means you are able to afford things that some others can't.
You find similar effects at sporting events (which is part of why nearly every soccer club has a "supporters' section" with ticket prices deliberately kept very low).
In Norway they introduced a law[1] that forbids reselling for a higher price than that printed on the ticket.
I do recall there was a lot of talk about scalping in the years before this law, and I haven't heard much since. I also noticed a drastic decrease of scalpers trying to sell tickets outside the venue.
For sale, desirable ticket at face value and $500 peanut. Only willing to sell as a bundle.
Scalpers locking out fans is a universal concern. How often do you hear the success story of "I can't make the concert so I sold the ticket online". Come on. An industry has propped up. This is small potatoes.
Note that events where the promoters are actually interested in having people show up instead of in scraping for every dollar (e.g. PAX) do this, and it works fine.
Which can also happen with airplane tickets. What makes it ok for an airplane ticket to be strictly tied to an ID, but not for a show?
It seems to work OK as long as there is enough capacity to get everyone in quickly.
Refund with a small charge seems fine to me.
If it/they are picked up, you get your money back minus transaction fees and perhaps a small penalty, and if it doesn't, you don't - but at least you tried and someone else had a chance to get it.
Ticketmaster obviously doesn't GAF / care.
(The above was for a last few hours or days cancellation type scenario; there could be variations to this where if the event is months out, you could get an instant almost full refund etc - benefits could very well be linked to a premium subscription service perhaps. Lots of ways here to play.)
Or, more specifically you set your own price with the max being what you bought it for.
1) when buying for young kids. Minors don't always have ID and are rarely expected to have them in public.
2) when you buy for a group. You may not have everyone's ID on hand at once, and it makes it harder for honest friends to get tickets together. You don't need to sit together at PAX.
Have a day or two window to assign the names to the tickets. Sure it is a small window for scalpers too but not really enough to make it work properly (and you could still force at least one of the tickets to be locked to a name at the moment of sale)
- kids do not need ID because they usually don't have them
- every adult in the group needs to have their name registered at ticket purchase time
On the other hand, I had an extra ticket. I did manage to sell it for face value by organizing the deal just as I approached the pickup counter (someone else knew how to play the game), and we did a quick cash transaction for face value.
> If you tied tickets to names and required ID at the venue
What happens if I want to gift somebody a ticket? What happens if I don't want my name associated in a database for going to a gay artist's show? What happens if my wife is sick on show day so I invite my neighbor instead at the last minute?
Gifter only gets refunds in credits not tickets.
Then on acceptance, the receiver has the credit and only gets refund to them.
More effective would be having to show your ID at the venue with no reentry.
"Scalpy McScalper. Looks good to me. Enjoy the show!"
Banning resale is not about selling per se but banning the changing of ownership. The person who paid is verified to be the one attending.
It of course still happens, but in a smaller scale. You can't base a business around it, exactly.
Absolutely no resale is just shifting the risk to the consumer, and affecting the 99% of people who want to see a good show. If the agency takes away the profit of resale, while still collecting a small fee on change of ownership, and allows customers to have flexibility in changing circumstances...its a win win win.
By what surveillance method is this?
Or you mean there is a locked down trading platform, and only there can tickets be traded? What prevents additional money from changing hands via an off-platform backchannel?
A law could discourage that, like the one in Norway your sibling comment pointed out.