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Ticketmaster to Start Online Ticket Auction
Jason1729 writes "According to the NY Times, ticketmaster is going to begin auctioning off the best tickets to events online. They claim it's to eliminate scalping, but in truth it guarantees every seat will be scalped for the highest price with all the money going to ticketmaster. It also eliminates the possibility of getting a decent seat by waiting in line or being lucky."
Isn't this just the logical conclusion of capatilism and the free market economy? Supply is limited, Demand is large, thus the price should go up? The only reason scalpers exist is because there is a gap between the price of supply and the price at which there is still demand.
Ticketmaster has every right to dictate their business model. And I have every right not to buy from them. I applaud his efforts to take back money lost to middle-men nipping at his heels. As long as the market will bear those prices - then go for it. This means that concerts will increasingly become the past time of the rich, yes, and they will leave some of their best fans, the teenagers, out in the cold. If there's enough blowback they might go back to the 'wait in line at 8am on Sunday for cheap tickets' model - but not if they are making good money. Perhaps some alternatives will spring up to fill the gap. Who knows.
As for myself however, I find some of their business practices riotously lame, and I haven't bought tickets to a big concert in years, and I scrupulously avoid ticketmaster. Mostly because:
Maybe one day live music will return to a more sane level of operation. In the mean time I'll continue to partake of smaller venues and lesser known bands. With the money I save I can buy some albums and listen to them in the comfort of my car or on my stereo / computer at home. Obviously there are plenty of people who don't agree with me, because they fill the stadiums up with people at any price currently.
Like the situation with the RIAA, the only ones who can change it are the acts themselves. They have to conciously choose to publish independently (which is actually possible with the internet) and not use companies like ticketmaster when promoting and selling live events. It takes a serious amount of balls to be the first major act, but I believe if enough acts choose to go this route, it will reach a critical mass that will again change the industry. All it takes is for one well connected entrepreuer to convince some of his rock star friends to go in on a website where the site gets 10% of the cut and the artist gets 90%. Then you can sell songs for 25 cents or 50 cents a piece, and most of it goes to the artist. And the artist is still making directly more than he or she would than through Itunes, and the sales are good because of the low price
Ticket scalping is a sure sign of a supply/demand imbalance, just as long lines at gas stations in the U.S. were during the 1973 oil crisis, and Xbox 360's on EBay for $1000. If the market demand is high enough to sell some tickets at $500, it's almost a sure bet that someone will sell them for that price, and it might as well be the people putting on the show who earn the money, rather than some random guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time, who is contributing no economic benefit.
This isn't people being ripped off, this is everybody getting a fair price. The tickets go at the price people are willing to pay. OK, so we no longer get the chance to get lucky with a good seat for no extra money, but then again we never get unlucky with a crappy seat for the same price that people in good seats pay.
As for the comment that the scalping fee goes to the organizer, is that not better than it going to a scalper? We all talk enthusiastically about the day that the extortion of money from fans with high prices for DRM'd albums will stop and be replaced by artists earning money honestly with performances. This is a step towards making performance a more attractive source of income.
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Guess they were wanting a piece of the pie that scalpers normally would get.
At least with scalpers, while illigit, are working hard to make that buck. They stand in line, they shell out money for tickets, and resell them. They peform a useful service for those of us who can't stand in line... and that service is worth a few bucks to say the least. Better yet often times for overpriced over hyped shows they sell them at a huge discount. For example the Who's tour for their album Next seemed to have more scalpers than attendees... as also was the case for the U2 ZooTV tour.
Ticketmaster on the other hand is working with venues to artificaly infact the cost of tickets that normally would be flat rate. Call me silly, but I prefer the scalpers. It's income for the otherwise unemployed, and it sure beats selling things that are outright illegal and very much harmful like *crack*.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I wouldn't call Ticketmaster a reputable source! They are the prime reason scalpers are able to effectively function today. Now, the illegal scalpers will be gone, but there will instead be a legal one... who's making even more profit than they already do.
Personally, I completely disagree with the auction idea. I'd consider partial auctions, for limited quantities of seats (season boxes, charity auctions) where only small numbers would be affected, but auctions for every seat in the house not previously taken by the promoter or group buyers directly? Puhleeze. That's just asking for scalping to get worse, by pricing event tickets for popular events even farther out of the average person's reach. Most people who keep up with a team or a star do so because they feel that they can get tickets when they want to, even if it's somewhat expensive. This will sorely disillusion them to this.
Scalpers win huge numbers of tickets by having mass numbers of workers getting tickets for them, then collecting the tickets and reselling at high markup or at auction. This is essentially the same strategy Ticketmaster uses, except that they lock in contracts requiring the use of Ticketmaster as the sole official sales force, so they get to legally kick around every other scalper with C&D orders, but don't, because the scalpers make them so much money. Instead, they C&D the people promoting the events Ticketmaster sells tickets to, even if it's private sales to individuals/groups, so Ticketmaster gets all the sales profit that they can.
You are right. Ticketmaster SHOULD be able to get whatever they can for the tickets they sell. At the same time, I SHOULD be able to resell my ticket for whatever price I can as well. Scalping laws violate my rights. But once again, its the entertainment industry that gets these ridiculous laws passed.
But I think Ticketmaster is already gouging the public. I don't go to big name concerts anymore because a $25 ticket winds up costing almost $40 once all the "fees" are added on. And thats just for a ticket to some kids show like Dora or The Wiggles. I can't believe the people that actually will spend that kind of money to take their 3 year olds. Maybe its just me. Maybe I'm stuck in some kind of time warp. Or maybe a $50K job just doesn't cut it anymore.
The problem with your analogy is that super markets don't have a monopoly. Within 3 miles of where I live, I could get groceries at Sak'n'Save, WinCo, Albertson's, Raley's, Smith's, a handful of little ethnic grocery stores, or even Wal-Mart. All of these businesses are competing against eachother -- it is not a monopoly. Who is competing against TicketMaster?
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