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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."
It's they're product, and they're entitled to try to maximize revenue from it. This isn't unlike how airlines charge different fliers different amounts based on whether they're business travelers (spending freely with the company's money and not wanting to spend the weekend after the conference away from home) or vacationers (tight on money and often just going for a weekend). Price discrimination takes many forms... and some of them are fairly nuanced. Holding an auction is a fairly blunt way of going about it, but it's a legitimate business practice.
Now, I'll also point out that I sometimes scalp tickets. A local county fair usually has some very attractive acts that all go on sale on the same morning. If there's an act that I want to see (so I'm in line overnight, anyway...), then I'll buy the max they'll allow me for each act and then I sell them on eBay. My justification for doing this is that... without scalpers, those with more time than money (ie, students, slackers, etc.) would get all of the great seats. Scalpers allow those with more money than time (lawyers, doctors, etc.) a chance to get good seats, too. So, everybody gets a chance.
Before you say that I was just trying to justify my greed, I'll point out that the part about this that I do have a problem with is that it freezes out the first group I mentioned... those with more time than money. So, I think the auction is no better than having everyone stand in line. It would be nice to see some blend, where some of the tix went for auction and others were for people willing to do something incredibly boring for a long time.
That article is almost three years old!