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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."
If the price being asked for a ticket is too much then maybe you didn't really want to go that much
As long as there are safe guards in place to create a safe / fair auction, eg single blind bid
This is such a great thing!! ...Because Ticketmaster's monopoly and average $10 per ticket fee (half paid by promoter, half paid by customer) is not enough profit. Plus, they even make you pay $2.50 extra when you want to print out tickets on your own printer since they just scan in the barcodes anyway. Sometimes Ticketmaster charges up to 35% of the face value of the ticket.
When was the last time you have been to a major ticketed event where Ticketmaster didn't control everything? Ticketmaster is the primary ticket seller for 27 of the 30 NHL teams and 28 of 30 NBA teams. An anti-trust case has been brought against them in the past, but it was unsuccessful. Ticketmaster has even been accused of signing you up for services you never ordered.
The end-user has really very little choice in matters like this, aside from not going to ticketed events.
Sound to me like the free market in action, the average libertarian slashdotter should be just fine with it. Tickets are pretty damned scarce, the market will sort it out.
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.
At first I read this article, and felt bad about the near monopoly that ticketmaster holds on the industry, but then I saw this article is from September 2003, and we haven't seen this yet. Maybe they thought better of the idea?
Slashdot, where news is relevant... but let's just pretend this is a slashback. Does anyone know what happened to this plan? It seems like it makes a lot of sense for ticketmaster.
1. cut-out middle-man (e-bay)
2. take a percentage of a premium for tickets
3. profit
no ??? needed
It's as simple as supply and demand... the basis of our whole economy. It's a function of a free market and with the internet as a huge enabler, I wouldn't be surprised to see more goods and services sold this way. Just look at how popular sites like ebay, ubid, etc. are. This move attempts to cut out the middle-man and allows ticketmaster (along with the event operators) to reap in even more profits. The only person who gets screwed is the average consumer who can't justify paying increasingly expensive ticket prices. Ticketmaster has nothing to lose by doing this, and only a lot more profit to gain. It's a brilliant business move and one of the side effects of capitalism.
But did it happened?
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.
foo mane padme hum
...in truth it guarantees every seat will be scalped for the highest price with all the money going to ticketmaster.
Don't you mean, "with all the money going to the artist who's performing"?
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
This article was posted on September 1, 2003... but it could still happen.
RTFA. Most of the "extra" money goes to the performers, promoter, venue, etc. TicketMaster gets a percentage or a flat fee. As someone who has purchased tickets from scalpers, I'd be happier paying the (inflated) price on a ticket that was guaranteed to be legitimate, rather than have to carry lots of cash to pay for a questionable one. On the other hand, TFA doesn't explain how the auction process will work. Will they auction a few seats each hour, or a few dozen once a day, or some other scheme? Or do you just bid on some number of seats within a specific area, and they dole them out to the high bidders? If I am willing to spend, say, $200 on the "best available at the price" seat, will I be guaranteed to get some seat somewhere (assuming that not all the seats in the house went for more)? What if I'm flexible on the exact date? What about groups of 5 that want to sit together? And how long do I have to wait to find out if I got a seat or not? It seems like it would be tricky to come up with a scheme that even just keeps all the rich people happy. There's also an existing "TicketExchange" feature, where customers can re-sell their tickets for more or less than they paid for them. TicketMaster is getting close to establishing a REAL market here, where you could even sell a ticket short! Now that's exciting -- "I think this upcoming mega-show with the big stars is going to be a flop, so I'll sell a ticket I don't own yet, wait for the bad reviews to come out, and then cover my short sale by buying a ticket that's now really cheap". How about a Broadway Futures market? Or Mutual Funds (an unmanaged portfolio of dramas; or a basket of musicals with no more than 20% revivals; etc.)?
What we are approaching is a graded experience; from right at the front with a great view, great sound (and atmosphere); through the also rans in the arena; to those watching live at home, and finally those watching the concert DVD. People will pay varying amount depending on the quality of that experience. Particularly stupid people will pay very, very large amounts. At the same time, the performer may well want demonstrative fans at the front to feed off. That brings in the concept of 'fan points', offsetting pure money will other contributions to the event.
The smart promoter will do more than a simple auction of seats - they will optimise on the value of the event and the contributions to that both on and off stage; and in reputation and future album sales.
I wonder if there actually are any smart promoters out there?
Sure it fights scalping at the gates; now it's just Ticketmaster doing the scalping.
Obviously, Ticketmaster was jealous of some of the profit margins of the professional scalpers. This is like the government fighting the War on Drugs by taking over the dealers' businesses...
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
There is no simple way of releasing tickets for big events. If you go 'first-come first-served' online, then many of the first in line will be scalpers selling on the tickets at very high prices to those who couldn't press refresh quick enough, or were at work. If you allow everyone who wants a ticket to apply and then draw the winners out of a hat (a lottery, used by Wimbledon and other events), many of those in the hat will be scalpers (or touts) and once again those who actually want to be there, have to pay through the nose, because they lost in the ballot.
Ticketmaster's new scheme, seems to be to legitimize touting and pricing tickets out of the reach of those who want to attend the event, instead of preventing touting.
Some might say that this is just the free market at work, but normal people (more important normal families) wont be able to make it to any major events, under the two schemes above they at least have the chance to be there.
It seems to me that the most obvious way of making sure that there is a minimum of black market activity (you will never eliminate it) is to sell the tickets with the intended recipients name and check ID on entry to ensure the name of the person taking the seat is the one on the ticket.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Will I be able to get an unsold seat at a never-sold-out event like a Minnesota Twins baseball game for $1?
i believe the contract is with the venue not the band, so if the band wants to play at the venue, they have to sell their tickets via ticketmaster.
Besides Ticketmaster, Broadway shows have also instituted "premium" ticket pricing (up to $400+ a ticket!). If someone's willing to pay that price, more power to them. If the new economy of ticket pricing puts the tickets out of range for most patrons, that's fine by me. The market will provide more local, "lower-scale" entertainment -- more regional theater, more minor league ballclubs, more local bands and performers -- all within reach of the average audience.
For entertainment (at the very least), a free market can correct itself in very short order.
- Richie
When tickets are auctioned, the amount of money made by the act is more closely related to the number of people who want the tickets.
When you have a lot more money coming to you based on the number of fans you have, it becomes much more tempting to release your music for free to make it back on the concerts.
The better technology gets at distributing bands' music for them, the more attractive this gets.
paintball
The ticket agents (scalpers) have networks of people (smurfs) who buy tickets for them to the desriable shows. When ticketmaster limits sales to 2 tickets per address, they don't really affect the ticket agents because the agents each have dozens of smurfs buying tickets. That's why popular shows sell out within 5 minutes of going online on ticketmaster.com. I can see what the idea is here. If the ticket agents had to compete with the fans on the same level, then the advantage would go to the fans. Currently, the ticket agents are gaming the system to get the best tickets for themselves and then mark them up at a high price to the fans. If fans could buy tickets at the price the ticket agents would pay, it would put the ticket agents out of business.
Of course, I'd rather see a real competitor to TicketMaster.
My other first post is car post.
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.
Strange that things are always good to do when you've thrown ethics out the window and they're bad if you try to replace ethics in economic activity.
Ticketmaster is once more proof positive that "free market" systems can fail. Start with the allowance of an endgame that is rewarded inversely of what ethics you practice, back it up with a hollow "it's a want, we arent pointing a gun to your head" justification, and you have market failure.
Regulation is all that is needed - and enforce it, even if it is unprofitable. Even things that are pure wants deserve protection. Just be sure to lock out the lobbyists out of the process, to ensure that the regulation isnt watered down.
Perhaps some alternatives will spring up to fill the gap.
Not in my lifetime- that's going to be quite a long one presuming ethics still is present in the economics of healthcare (given that it left us this year).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If enough bands revolt agains the venue, the venue will be forced to cancel their Ticketmaster contract and go with something more agreeable. Route around...route around...
Performers aren't going to be very happy their fans are going to be treated on a two track system, which obviously further alienates the regular working class fanbase. I imagine some shows can be bought off with the lure of extra revenue sharing, but I also think most artists recognize the good duty and sense to undermine structural societal shifts of this nature.
Pay attention as arguments and policies designed for 'free'ing the market continue to wither those 80% who are labor-dependent. And by that I mean you without a portfolio that has you set for life. The era of the post-WWII/New Deal is over and the consequences for being you and your children will only grow harsher.
I kid, I kid. This is a great idea. Anyone know if Ticketmaster is a public company? Ack.. I may have just given away my scheme to make it to the other 20%.
They already do auctions for the best seats. Where has the author been? I just bought some tickets this way a few weeks ago, and it's a total scam. They also end the auction one day *after* general ticket sales, so if you don't win that auction, you get nothing. Totally evil, and designed to make you bid to the max so you don't get left in the cold. I really wanted to see that concert, though (I rarely find one I want to see), so I bid high just like they wanted.
Ticket prices will go up initially... but I suspect that in the long run this will give a shot in the arm to theaters, which have been doing poorly and ending up doing a lot of annoying advertising. If this works out well for them, they will end up building more theaters and the initially high prices may drop...
What does worry me is that they will try to game the system. With anonymous bidding run by ticketmaster it would be pretty easy for ticketmaster to bid on its own tickets to boost the price, then if they accidentally win just award the ticket to whatever real bidder bid the highest.
If they did that, would it actually be illegal? Otherwise, it seems like something they almost should do to boost profits. They are beholden to their shareholders after all.
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.
Ok, first of all, as many people have already pointed out (but few seem to notice), this article is from September, 2003.
In any case, their auctions are not replacing their current ticket selling system, it is just a way for them to make some extra money, and people to be able to score a few last minute tickets at prices that they would be paying scalpers anyways (so basically it is just a way for ticketmaster to make more money). For certain big-name concerts they apparently hold a few sets of tickets and auction them off after the rest of the tickets have sold out. I regularly get concert updates from ticketmaster and it seems like once every month or so there is one of these auctions (the last few I remember are Roger Waters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna...), and they have rarely been of any interest to me... for one thing, these are the kinds of concerts which often have face value prices of $100+ to begin with.
I think most everyone here agrees that ticketmaster has way too much of a monopoly over ticket sales, and their fees are ridiculous. But this whole auction thing is nothing new, and it just moves some money from money-grubbing scalpers to money-grubbing ticketmaster executives, and hardly changes anything. The fact that nobody here seemed to notice that this auction thing has already been going on for some time pretty much proves my point.
On one hand, we have Ticketmaster selling tickets tickets for 1k that otherwise would have been scalped for 1k. The difference here is that the band now gets some of that 1k instead of a person with connections in the office.
BUT Ticketmaster is doing this in an auction format. Something that scalpers already do on eBay. Couldn't it be possible that the bands just avoid Ticketmaster's probably 40% (I'd think it would be even more) comission and just put them on eBay themselves for a substantially reduced cost?
I'd imagine that it wouldn't be that difficult for eBay to implement a system just for concerts. I mean, I imagine that most of Ticketmaster's business is online anyways, eBay is a lot more popular and could easily promote and develop something for tickets.
I mean, the only benefit I can see Ticketmaster has over a tickets.ebay.com type setup would be the physical presence at a few locations... but I believe they hire a different company for that (at the venue). How hard would it be for companies that already sell Ticketmaster tickets to create a business account on ebay to purchase set-priced tickets for customers and print them right there?
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
If too many people get ticked off at Menudo or New Kids on the Block for the incredibly high ticket prices perhaps these groups will find ways to play without having to use Ticketmaster.
Menudo? New Kids On The Block? Incredibly high ticket prices? Let me be the first to welcome you to the future, young time-traveler! Reagan is dead, we're back at war, and there's 3 new Star Wars movies! Don't be scared by any of this; sit back, relax, and surf your way through our new "cyberspace".
This is indeed excelent news! Fixed prices for shows have the same problems that fixed prices for everything else: either a) they're too much, so those people who can't afford the price simply don't go and you end up having empty seats, or b) they're too low, so more people than available seats are able to afford them and you end up having tons of people unable to attend the show.
Please note that the above is the case even when you include scalpers in the equation. Why? Because in that case you'll have "x" seats scalped, and "y" seats unscalped, so at the same time "a" and "b": "a" for the "x" seats and "b" for the "y" seats. Only at the instant the show is beginning and the doors are closing the scalpers' prices drop to the middle point to fill the remaining few seats.
So, by having the seats auctioneed way before the show, you solve almost all of the above problems, since the seat price will approach the best it can the ideal offer/demand equilibrium point. Of course this won't be always perfect, but even so, it will be better than what we have today.
Now, I only wish movie theatres start doing this too. If you wish to see the movie the day it's launched, it's just that you pay a premium, with the added bonus of no queues. And if you're price concious with a very limited budget, you can simply wait until the price to drop enough to reach your price point. And in all of this the theatre owners would guarantee many more full houses compared to what happens today, thus more profit, what would in time prompt more theatres to open, thus dropping the prices again. Everyone wins.
Many times (not always, of course) a free market approach is the way to go. This one is a clear example of such a case.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
So now Ticketmaster is providing you a service whereby you don't have to stand in line to get the ticket you want.
Of course, the greed factor here is you have to buy the tickets ahead of determining whether the venue is going to sell well or not. And if it doesn't sell well, you'll have paid more than what you would have through scalpers.
But at least the scalpers won't be losing (counting their time standing in line for you) money on overhyped events.
Remember, in Capitalist United States, what's illegal for people to do, is OK for a monopoly corporation to do.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
i hate to say it, but this is good for the consumer. when was the last time any of you tried to get good tickets for a REALLY high-demand show? it is impossible. I recently tried to get tickets for the Tool concert. At 10am when tickets went on sale, I was on 3 different computers, with an IE and Firefox open on each. At 9:59 I was hitting refresh on every screen. Guess what? I didn't get through once- not even for crappy seats. I ended up paying a broker $300 each for tickets.
But here's the most annoying part: at 9am- long before tickets went on sale to the public, there were at least 30 tickets for sale on ebay. They were all brokers, and the all said "seats will be revealed at 10am." The brokers are not working hard for their $.
This has happened to me for several other high-demand events- White Sox playoffs, Seinfeld stand-up. I either get no tickets, or nose-bleed seats, yet every broker in town has tons of front-and-center seats. I always end up paying the brokers. At least with the auction system I still over-pay, but it will be some sort of "fair market" price- and the brokers can't scam the auction by running up the price because they don't make a dime.
Personally I think brokers are total scam artists, and as much as I don't like ticketmaster, I still prefer to remove the brokers.
- You won't pay $500 for a bogus/counterfeit ticket.
- You won't have to wait 3 days in line for front row tickets.
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
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.
No bias there at all. Just to add a little counter-spin, it also means it is possible to get good tickets for a show when you want them. Right now the good tickets are, at best, chaotically distributed, meaning there is no way to ensure you get an optimal seat. Really want a good seat? A band you've been a fan of for ten years? Want to treat your girlfriend to an extravagent night out? Tough.
Why can't you get them? Since the best tickets go for the same price as the good tickets, there is no upside in selling the best tickets. They all go to concert promoters and wind up being given to local celebrities in exchange for a possible sound byte on the local news, or given away on the "Annoying Morning Stupidity" show. How does that benefit the real fans?
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