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Comment by ayakang31415 | Hacker News Reader

Japan has fantastic ticketing system that has reasonable ticket price that is fixed, and no scalpers can buy all the tickets because it is a lottery system.

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So rationing? I wouldn't call that fantastic. Why should someone who's barely interested but willing to go for $10 more deserving of a seat than a super fan willing to save up to shell out $150 for a seat?

I spent many all-nighters in freezing cold temps in Buffalo NY waiting in line on a sidewalk for the ticket office to open in the mid 80s. It was unpleasant, but fair.

I think artists should reserve a small fraction of their seats for "real" fans that are willing to do something like this. Make the tickets obtained this way non-transferable to prevent scalping.

Heck, a "solution" to scalping would be to implement the above, and sell the rest of tickets via an auction, so the artist captures the revenue and doesn't leave room for the scalpers to make money.

Why should a rich fan get priority over a poor superfan?

Every system has its tradeoffs.

The best systems are the points based systems where fans are rewarded for being fans. E.g. people who had seen all Chiefs games for 3 seasons would be allocated a higher chance of getting a Superbowl ticket. What you don't want is people flying in for finals and paying $10k to see just the final game.

My point is that it depends what you are optimizing for.

Your system is fantastic if you want to make sure that people who have invested the most money in the past get priority over those willing to pay the most for a future game. It still works against fans who can't afford season tickets. With your system a corporate lawyer that buys season tickets to hand out as perks to clients will get priority over a "true" fan who can only afford to go to three or four games a year.

As I said, EVERY system has its tradeoffs.

Yeah there is no perfect system. And money will always give an advantage. Compensating for that and validating that people not just bought 3 seasons worth of tickets but actually watched the games, would mean checking id:s (Which also has downsides).

I do think the loyal fan systems with their drawbacks are still much better than the purely market economic approach. In the example of Super Bowl, the people who wanted to be sure to get tickets would need to have season tickets to all teams. The only resource we are awarded fairly is time. Estimating how much time we dedicated to the team/artist is fair game.

because theyre willing to pay more

I'd be willing to chill next to the barely interested person instead of the superfan depending on the performance.

In the span of 1 comment I'm now sold on lottery rationing as my preferred option here.

Lotteries aren't rationing, but are similarly useful when supply growth is constrained and are both considered more fair ways of distribution that letting the price spike limit access to only the rich.

The problem with this approach is how the price fixing that can be involved blocks the signal needed to tell the market to modify supply. When supply is meant to be fixed, this isn't an issue.

In this particular case, the Japanese law wasn't clearly explained or referenced. My best guess for the reference is the law Japan passed before the Olympics to ban the resale of many tickets at more than their list price. This isn't price fixing so much as an anti-speculation measure. This does also have the effect of making a lottery needed for many tickets as the secondary market can't balance supply and demand.

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