In these cases, I'll sell to the first person to contact me. The price is already set, there is no negotation needed. It makes it much easier for both parties. I'm a fan too, I don't want to rip off fellow fans.
You libertarian "the free market will solve all problems!" types really need to wake up and realize that not every part of life is a competitive bidding war.
Scalpers only make it "easier" to find tickets if you're way late to the party and only find out about the show at the last minute.
And the scalpers are actually making it harder to buy tickets late, from an official source, as they buy up large amounts of ticket to sell for ridiculous profits. They're creating an artificial shortage.
It's a bad thing because it creates an unstable market for tickets and results in scalping!
You're blaming the artists, venues and ticket sellers for the scalping. No, blame the goddamn scalpers for being greedy fucks!
Your reasoning seems to be that if they simply sold the tickets at higher prices, there would be no scalpers. If they increased the prices to what the scalpers charge, they wouldn't sell out the venue.
You're really sounding like an economy 101 student right now. Newsflash: Not everything is a classical market. Hell, even Adam Smith realized that not every area is best served by a classical market.
If you want to be pissed off about high ticket prices, blame the artist for having too few performances. They can easily address the supply side of the market by playing more concerts. If a concert with $25 tickets (I just made the number up, I only wish they were that cheap) sells out and results in $250 scalped tickets the fan-savvy solution is to just perform more concerts in a given city.
It's blindingly obvious that you have absolutely no idea how touring schedules, venue booking, staffing, transportation or anything related to these subjects actually works in the real world, outside your economics textbooks.
A touring schedule has to be made in advance to accommodate extra shows, way before the tickets go on sale, you can't just add new dates willy-nilly. And if you put in room for extra shows beforehand, you'll end up with a band just wasting their time for a couple of days to a week between shows.
IMHO, the larger problem here has something to do with the nature of popular musicians (whether it's Metallica or Adele). I don't think many of them think of themselves as performing musicians, but they think of themselves as recording musicians. They don't tour that much, or if they do, their idea of a "World Tour" is 75-odd concerts in 9 months, covering the entire world, after selling 5 million records. If you can sell 5 million records, shouldn't that mean you can sell 5 million tickets at reasonable prices?
It would seem there's a short-term publicity machine at work here, that's as or more focused on short-term popularity rather than long term artistry.
Holy shit, how is it even possible to be this wrong about a subject.
The vast majority of artists make the overwhelming bulk of their income from touring and especially from merch sales at shows, probably 80-90% or more.
Putting out a record generally only makes the record companies money, the artists get a pittance, unless they're gigantic stars with their own lawyers on retainer.
No, I intentionally glossed over it, because arbitrage for iPhones usually only happens for the first 1-2 months the new model is available (in the US) and then shifts to international arbitrage, selling new models where they aren't yet available. And Apple has gotten a lot better at ramping up production to eliminate this.
Apple has been getting better at managing their artificial shortages.
And how do you propose the bands structure their touring plans for this? Keep in mind that the touring schedule is set before any tickets are sold, and they can't just hang around every city for 3-4 days on the off chance that they could sell more shows.
You're being very silly right now, and you obviously have no idea how venue booking, staffing, touring or any of this works in the real world.
Popular concerts are usually priced well below the demand price ceiling
Why is this somehow a bad thing? Sure, there is a drive to maximize profits, but it is countered by a drive to not piss off your fans and primary customers with ridiculously high ticket prices. Maybe "the market will bear it" in the short term, but at the price of pissing of a large part of your customer and fan base.
It could work if your entire customer base had large amounts of disposable income, but by and large, they don't. Music fans are generally working people with ordinary incomes. They usually have to save up for tickets, and they don't appreciate being made to feel ripped off.
this is the demand price ceiling, the price above which people will not buy and will seek alternatives
You seem to not understand how fandom works. There is no alternative for Metallica for a Metallica fan.
pple prices iPhones at about 3x their manufacturing price and has high demand and waiting lists, but almost no "scalping" because they have already priced the phone close to the demand ceiling *because* they are using their monopoly on supply to set the price. If they didn't, there would be "scalping" of iPhones at the price the demand would bear.
Uh, have you completely missed what happens whenever a new Apple product goes on sale? Within hours or less, listings pop up at Ebay, Craigslist and other sites, selling brand-new iPhones for 2-3x the price Apple is charging. I know they've been trying to curb it by only allowing each customer to buy a single iPhone, but there are relatively simple ways around that, and the profits are definitely worth it.
The price *has* to rise to control demand, and pricing tickets near the demand price ceiling is the only way to do this. Price the tickets very high and then slowly reduce the price as demand falls, but hold prices if demand is constant. This keeps the price at the market demand ceiling and eliminates the profit that scalpers need to operate.
This will also severely piss off the fans, and without fan goodwill, you are nothing as an artist. It will be seen as greedy and petty, and it will turn fans into haters.
The major flaw in your thinking is that you only think about maximizing profits. But you're completely forgetting the human element, the artist-fan relationship, the long-term goodwill and a bunch of other "soft" factors.
What? It has been done here (Denmark), and ticket reselling above face value basically doesn't exist anymore. The risk:reward factor simply isn't worth it for the scalpers.
And you can still buy tickets from people outside the venue, from people who may have an extra ticket, because a friend couldn't come. I've done that multiple times, and simply paid face value. Hell, I was even given a ticket for free once.
No, you can't just "add shows" whenever you want, based on ticket sales. When it happens, it's extremely rare, and only because the tour schedule was built around it beforehand.
You need a venue (and all associated people) and you need the time. Artists generally don't just play one concert once, they tour with a set schedule, which is set long before the tickets go on sale.
You really don't have any goddamn clue how this stuff actually works in the real world, do you?
The market doesn't really exist in this case. There is just one source of tickets, selling at a price agreed to by the venue, the artists and the ticket seller, set at a level where the expect to be able to fill the venue. There is no market when you only have a single source of the good you want to buy. And don't call it a monopoly, because how the hell would you even create market competition for the same single venue's seats?
Scalpers are scammers who artificially drive up prices, by creating artificial scarcity.
why not simply make it illegal to sell tickets at above face value?
Because making selling some things illegal doesn't work? Here in Minnesota scalping used to be illegal and it never stopped anyone, and like drugs, it only made the problems worse (fake tickets, etc).
>
It shouldn't be illegal to resell tickets. In some cases, I've bought tickets for a show, and later found out that I could not attend. I sold the tickets at face value to someone who was able to attend, but didn't get a ticket before they sold out.
It would simply be a regulation on maximum price, not an outright prohibition on reselling. We introduced this rule a couple of decades here, and it really does work.
It is possible that some people make fake tickets, and sell them to people who then discover that they can't get in. But this also happens now, allowing scalping does not curb fake tickets at all.
The bottom line is you're chasing a good priced below what the market will bear and the market will respond by pushing the ticket price up.
But it's not a "what the market will bear" situation. Ticket sales for an even are generally from one source only, with a price agreed upon by the venue, the artist's management and the ticket company. In this situation, there is no market competition. The price is set at a level where they expect to be able to fill the venue.
Scalpers are simply scammers, driving up prices by creating artificial scarcity.
My personal response has just been to see fewer "popular" shows and attend more local/indie events. They're priced reasonably and easier to get into, and quite often just plain better because the venues are more intimate. I will still go to the occasional (once a year or less) popular event, usually because my wife wants to go, but really at that point I'm happy to buy from the legal resellers we have -- I can actually *get* the tickets then and not worry about getting ripped off.
On this, we completely agree. I just came home last night from a tiny show featuring two local bands. ~50 people in a room not much larger than my apartment's living room, and we even managed to get a good mosh and a wall of death going. I love it when the artists can get right up in your face, you don't get that with big shows.
No, because you have a huge number of sellers to choose from, both first-hand and second-hand.
Not so with tickets. Generally the tickets for a particular show is only sold through one outlet, at a price that has been agreed on by the venue, the artist('s management) and the ticket company.
Scalpers unfairly deprive people of the ability to buy tickets at the agreed price, by creating artificial scarcity. Hence why regulation is needed.
No, it's more likely that Ticketmaster is in cahoots with the scalpers, in fact they've already had several convictions for this.
What I'm saying is, that instead of handing rich people another piece of society and culture on a silver platter, why not simply make it illegal to sell tickets at above face value? Because yes, scalpers can still sell tickets at way too high prices, as long as the shows sell out. And most big shows do. So the scalpers will simply buy their tickets at medium prices (no reason to overpay) and sell them at high prices once the show sells out.
And since when did people stand in line for hours to buy tickets? It's all online now.
So you basically just want the rich people with high disposable incomes to go to the shows, and no ordinary people?
And no, artists can't just add new shows as tickets sell out, it only happens for really big names, and they have a limited number of shows they can add. For one, you need a venue. And the band (or whatever) is probably moving on to the next city, so they can't exactly just hang around and do extra shows.
And how in the hell would you just schedule another NFL/any sports match?
Not necessarily. I think it's more a case of "mainstream audiences suck" or "people who aren't used to going to concerts suck". I see it all the time, especially mainstream rock concerts. There is always a segment of (usually middle-aged) people there, who only go to a concert every other year. They don't know their limits when it comes to beer, they don't know basic concert etiquette, they get angry if they accidentally get bumped, and they especially get pissed off if someone spills a little beer on them, even though they're standing in the dense crowd close to the stage.
I have never seen this type of behavior at a death metal show, for instance. And I probably attend at least 2 metal shows every month.
Make it illegal to profit from tickets, by mandating that tickets may only be sold at face value or below. This also encourages possible ticket buyers to report scalpers.
Of course, it also requires a population that's not likely to just think "screw everyone else, I'm getting my ticket!", which may be problematic in the US.
And you don't need to use batteries for your energy reservoir, you can use a literal reservoir. Pump water to large reservoirs, use gravity to feed the water to turbines when energy is needed. Artificial hydro, baby.
For instance, BMW is taking all used batteries from customers that changing to larger battery packs in their electric cars, and using them for energy storage. These battery packs still have significant capacity left, so they're ideal for applications where a slightly worse capacity:weight ratio isn't a hindrance.
I know Tesla is doing the same thing in the US, with their power banks.
I live in Denmark. A lot of food recommended by vegan blogs does not grow locally. Best-case, it's imported from southern Europe. Worst-case, it's imported from Asia or something.
What is this "lightly seasoned" bullcrap? I have a colleague who refuses to use any salt in his cooking, and you can tell simply by looking at him, how miserable his food tastes.
Season your food so it tastes right, the seasonings have no health impact*, so go hog wild. Making otherwise bland food taste palatable is good. Fat carries a lot of flavor, but is also high in calories. Remove the fat, and you remove a lot of taste, but you can compensate for this by using spices. As a side effect, really spicy food tends to sate the appetite more, at least that's what I've experiences when eating properly spicy Indian food.
But the most important thing is to consider sugar a seasoning, not a major constituent of your diet. Used in moderation, sugar will enhance a sauce and it will make fish like mackerel take on a whole new dimension of taste. Just like salt, it can be a flavor enhancer without obviously contributing a flavor of its own.
Bland food is for bland people.
* except stuff like capsaicin, which can have a small positive effect on blood pressure and metabolism.
The biggest problem with a pure vegan diet, is that it seems to require importing a significant number part of the diet. This is a significant burden on the environment compared to eating locally-grown/raised food.
Sure, be vegan if you think it helps you sleep better at night. But don't delude yourself into thinking it's better for the environment.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should they?
In these cases, I'll sell to the first person to contact me. The price is already set, there is no negotation needed. It makes it much easier for both parties. I'm a fan too, I don't want to rip off fellow fans.
You libertarian "the free market will solve all problems!" types really need to wake up and realize that not every part of life is a competitive bidding war.
Scalpers only make it "easier" to find tickets if you're way late to the party and only find out about the show at the last minute.
And the scalpers are actually making it harder to buy tickets late, from an official source, as they buy up large amounts of ticket to sell for ridiculous profits. They're creating an artificial shortage.
It's a bad thing because it creates an unstable market for tickets and results in scalping!
You're blaming the artists, venues and ticket sellers for the scalping. No, blame the goddamn scalpers for being greedy fucks!
Your reasoning seems to be that if they simply sold the tickets at higher prices, there would be no scalpers. If they increased the prices to what the scalpers charge, they wouldn't sell out the venue.
You're really sounding like an economy 101 student right now. Newsflash: Not everything is a classical market. Hell, even Adam Smith realized that not every area is best served by a classical market.
If you want to be pissed off about high ticket prices, blame the artist for having too few performances. They can easily address the supply side of the market by playing more concerts. If a concert with $25 tickets (I just made the number up, I only wish they were that cheap) sells out and results in $250 scalped tickets the fan-savvy solution is to just perform more concerts in a given city.
It's blindingly obvious that you have absolutely no idea how touring schedules, venue booking, staffing, transportation or anything related to these subjects actually works in the real world, outside your economics textbooks.
A touring schedule has to be made in advance to accommodate extra shows, way before the tickets go on sale, you can't just add new dates willy-nilly. And if you put in room for extra shows beforehand, you'll end up with a band just wasting their time for a couple of days to a week between shows.
IMHO, the larger problem here has something to do with the nature of popular musicians (whether it's Metallica or Adele). I don't think many of them think of themselves as performing musicians, but they think of themselves as recording musicians. They don't tour that much, or if they do, their idea of a "World Tour" is 75-odd concerts in 9 months, covering the entire world, after selling 5 million records. If you can sell 5 million records, shouldn't that mean you can sell 5 million tickets at reasonable prices?
It would seem there's a short-term publicity machine at work here, that's as or more focused on short-term popularity rather than long term artistry.
Holy shit, how is it even possible to be this wrong about a subject.
The vast majority of artists make the overwhelming bulk of their income from touring and especially from merch sales at shows, probably 80-90% or more.
Putting out a record generally only makes the record companies money, the artists get a pittance, unless they're gigantic stars with their own lawyers on retainer.
No, I intentionally glossed over it, because arbitrage for iPhones usually only happens for the first 1-2 months the new model is available (in the US) and then shifts to international arbitrage, selling new models where they aren't yet available. And Apple has gotten a lot better at ramping up production to eliminate this.
Apple has been getting better at managing their artificial shortages.
And how do you propose the bands structure their touring plans for this? Keep in mind that the touring schedule is set before any tickets are sold, and they can't just hang around every city for 3-4 days on the off chance that they could sell more shows.
You're being very silly right now, and you obviously have no idea how venue booking, staffing, touring or any of this works in the real world.
Wasn't it actually Adam Smith who came up with the idea in the first place?
Popular concerts are usually priced well below the demand price ceiling
Why is this somehow a bad thing? Sure, there is a drive to maximize profits, but it is countered by a drive to not piss off your fans and primary customers with ridiculously high ticket prices. Maybe "the market will bear it" in the short term, but at the price of pissing of a large part of your customer and fan base.
It could work if your entire customer base had large amounts of disposable income, but by and large, they don't. Music fans are generally working people with ordinary incomes. They usually have to save up for tickets, and they don't appreciate being made to feel ripped off.
this is the demand price ceiling, the price above which people will not buy and will seek alternatives
You seem to not understand how fandom works. There is no alternative for Metallica for a Metallica fan.
pple prices iPhones at about 3x their manufacturing price and has high demand and waiting lists, but almost no "scalping" because they have already priced the phone close to the demand ceiling *because* they are using their monopoly on supply to set the price. If they didn't, there would be "scalping" of iPhones at the price the demand would bear.
Uh, have you completely missed what happens whenever a new Apple product goes on sale? Within hours or less, listings pop up at Ebay, Craigslist and other sites, selling brand-new iPhones for 2-3x the price Apple is charging. I know they've been trying to curb it by only allowing each customer to buy a single iPhone, but there are relatively simple ways around that, and the profits are definitely worth it.
The price *has* to rise to control demand, and pricing tickets near the demand price ceiling is the only way to do this. Price the tickets very high and then slowly reduce the price as demand falls, but hold prices if demand is constant. This keeps the price at the market demand ceiling and eliminates the profit that scalpers need to operate.
This will also severely piss off the fans, and without fan goodwill, you are nothing as an artist. It will be seen as greedy and petty, and it will turn fans into haters.
The major flaw in your thinking is that you only think about maximizing profits. But you're completely forgetting the human element, the artist-fan relationship, the long-term goodwill and a bunch of other "soft" factors.
What? It has been done here (Denmark), and ticket reselling above face value basically doesn't exist anymore. The risk:reward factor simply isn't worth it for the scalpers.
And you can still buy tickets from people outside the venue, from people who may have an extra ticket, because a friend couldn't come. I've done that multiple times, and simply paid face value. Hell, I was even given a ticket for free once.
No, you can't just "add shows" whenever you want, based on ticket sales. When it happens, it's extremely rare, and only because the tour schedule was built around it beforehand.
You need a venue (and all associated people) and you need the time. Artists generally don't just play one concert once, they tour with a set schedule, which is set long before the tickets go on sale.
You really don't have any goddamn clue how this stuff actually works in the real world, do you?
The market doesn't really exist in this case. There is just one source of tickets, selling at a price agreed to by the venue, the artists and the ticket seller, set at a level where the expect to be able to fill the venue. There is no market when you only have a single source of the good you want to buy. And don't call it a monopoly, because how the hell would you even create market competition for the same single venue's seats?
Scalpers are scammers who artificially drive up prices, by creating artificial scarcity.
why not simply make it illegal to sell tickets at above face value?
Because making selling some things illegal doesn't work? Here in Minnesota scalping used to be illegal and it never stopped anyone, and like drugs, it only made the problems worse (fake tickets, etc).
>
It shouldn't be illegal to resell tickets. In some cases, I've bought tickets for a show, and later found out that I could not attend. I sold the tickets at face value to someone who was able to attend, but didn't get a ticket before they sold out.
It would simply be a regulation on maximum price, not an outright prohibition on reselling. We introduced this rule a couple of decades here, and it really does work.
It is possible that some people make fake tickets, and sell them to people who then discover that they can't get in. But this also happens now, allowing scalping does not curb fake tickets at all.
The bottom line is you're chasing a good priced below what the market will bear and the market will respond by pushing the ticket price up.
But it's not a "what the market will bear" situation. Ticket sales for an even are generally from one source only, with a price agreed upon by the venue, the artist's management and the ticket company. In this situation, there is no market competition. The price is set at a level where they expect to be able to fill the venue.
Scalpers are simply scammers, driving up prices by creating artificial scarcity.
My personal response has just been to see fewer "popular" shows and attend more local/indie events. They're priced reasonably and easier to get into, and quite often just plain better because the venues are more intimate. I will still go to the occasional (once a year or less) popular event, usually because my wife wants to go, but really at that point I'm happy to buy from the legal resellers we have -- I can actually *get* the tickets then and not worry about getting ripped off.
On this, we completely agree. I just came home last night from a tiny show featuring two local bands. ~50 people in a room not much larger than my apartment's living room, and we even managed to get a good mosh and a wall of death going. I love it when the artists can get right up in your face, you don't get that with big shows.
Is there currently a problem with "car scalpers"?
No, because you have a huge number of sellers to choose from, both first-hand and second-hand.
Not so with tickets. Generally the tickets for a particular show is only sold through one outlet, at a price that has been agreed on by the venue, the artist('s management) and the ticket company.
Scalpers unfairly deprive people of the ability to buy tickets at the agreed price, by creating artificial scarcity. Hence why regulation is needed.
No, it's more likely that Ticketmaster is in cahoots with the scalpers, in fact they've already had several convictions for this.
What I'm saying is, that instead of handing rich people another piece of society and culture on a silver platter, why not simply make it illegal to sell tickets at above face value? Because yes, scalpers can still sell tickets at way too high prices, as long as the shows sell out. And most big shows do. So the scalpers will simply buy their tickets at medium prices (no reason to overpay) and sell them at high prices once the show sells out.
And since when did people stand in line for hours to buy tickets? It's all online now.
Easier solution: Simply make it illegal to resell tickets at higher than face value.
So you basically just want the rich people with high disposable incomes to go to the shows, and no ordinary people?
And no, artists can't just add new shows as tickets sell out, it only happens for really big names, and they have a limited number of shows they can add. For one, you need a venue. And the band (or whatever) is probably moving on to the next city, so they can't exactly just hang around and do extra shows.
And how in the hell would you just schedule another NFL/any sports match?
I've found my solution to this problem: Stop going to bigass mainstream shows, they suck anyway (outside of acts like Pink Floyd).
Go listen to more interesting music, in smaller and more interesting venues instead.
This will also unfairly give people with large disposable income a huge advantage, as if they didn't have enough advantages in society already.
The fix is simple: Make it illegal to sell tickets for higher than face value. It has worked amazingly well here.
big venues suck
Not necessarily. I think it's more a case of "mainstream audiences suck" or "people who aren't used to going to concerts suck". I see it all the time, especially mainstream rock concerts. There is always a segment of (usually middle-aged) people there, who only go to a concert every other year. They don't know their limits when it comes to beer, they don't know basic concert etiquette, they get angry if they accidentally get bumped, and they especially get pissed off if someone spills a little beer on them, even though they're standing in the dense crowd close to the stage.
I have never seen this type of behavior at a death metal show, for instance. And I probably attend at least 2 metal shows every month.
Make it illegal to profit from tickets, by mandating that tickets may only be sold at face value or below. This also encourages possible ticket buyers to report scalpers.
Of course, it also requires a population that's not likely to just think "screw everyone else, I'm getting my ticket!", which may be problematic in the US.
And you don't need to use batteries for your energy reservoir, you can use a literal reservoir. Pump water to large reservoirs, use gravity to feed the water to turbines when energy is needed. Artificial hydro, baby.
massive battery reservoir
Is exactly what we're moving towards.
For instance, BMW is taking all used batteries from customers that changing to larger battery packs in their electric cars, and using them for energy storage. These battery packs still have significant capacity left, so they're ideal for applications where a slightly worse capacity:weight ratio isn't a hindrance.
I know Tesla is doing the same thing in the US, with their power banks.
Small steps, but we are actually doing it.
Why should I believe you, fake Tim Cook? ;-)
Yeah, no connectors, bluetooth for any additional devices, inductive charging.
Calling it now, they'll be doing that for the iPhone 9.
I live in Denmark. A lot of food recommended by vegan blogs does not grow locally. Best-case, it's imported from southern Europe. Worst-case, it's imported from Asia or something.
What is this "lightly seasoned" bullcrap? I have a colleague who refuses to use any salt in his cooking, and you can tell simply by looking at him, how miserable his food tastes.
Season your food so it tastes right, the seasonings have no health impact*, so go hog wild. Making otherwise bland food taste palatable is good. Fat carries a lot of flavor, but is also high in calories. Remove the fat, and you remove a lot of taste, but you can compensate for this by using spices. As a side effect, really spicy food tends to sate the appetite more, at least that's what I've experiences when eating properly spicy Indian food.
But the most important thing is to consider sugar a seasoning, not a major constituent of your diet. Used in moderation, sugar will enhance a sauce and it will make fish like mackerel take on a whole new dimension of taste. Just like salt, it can be a flavor enhancer without obviously contributing a flavor of its own.
Bland food is for bland people.
* except stuff like capsaicin, which can have a small positive effect on blood pressure and metabolism.
The biggest problem with a pure vegan diet, is that it seems to require importing a significant number part of the diet. This is a significant burden on the environment compared to eating locally-grown/raised food.
Sure, be vegan if you think it helps you sleep better at night. But don't delude yourself into thinking it's better for the environment.