Maybe facial recognition is the way to go?
I book seats from the organiser and send them a picture of all the people I am buying seats for. At the door, the scanner matches faces or you don’t get in.
But again, if they just sold them for what the market would bear, it would all be irrelevant and unnecessary.
The way I would see it if I were a performer is that “I” would be selling non-transferrable licenses to see me perform, and that is what I would call it in any advertisement, not a “ticket”. I set the price, no one else. Think of it as a private party where I say who comes in and what they pay (if anything). If you think I’m selling low, tough shit, it’s none of your business. I am not giving permission to allow an after market on my property. I only want people in who want to be there. You are not allowed a “license” if you’re not coming.
And they’re getting backlash from segments of the theater fanbase accusing them of being too greedy. Given Hamilton’s popularity, it doesn’t initially seem like the face-value price hikes will hurt them much. Nevertheless, over and over again, you see that fans can behave irrationally. It genuinely matters to some fans who exactly gets the $849 that was paid. $200 to the producers, $649 to brokers/resellers/scalpers, no problem. $849 all to the producers, “Greedy!”. The PR aspects to intentional ticket underpricing are very real.
Yeah, as we saw with the Taylor Swift example. I just don’t understand why people don’t see that the morality of this distinction is completely backwards. It’s much worse for middleman who don’t create any value to take the lion’s share of the cost of a ticket, vs. the people who actually create the product that’s on stage. This seems so blindingly obvious, I just can’t remotely comprehend why people would see it the other way 'round.
Sometimes I wonder if performers care that they are playing to the same group of rich assholes over and over and over.
Probably not.
I’m not sure “morality” is the proper term here, but in any case, when your business is entertaining others, the image you project becomes relevant. Rightly or wrongly, many fans care about who you are, or at least who they think you are. It’s not enough to put on an entertaining show; many fans want their entertainers to be “nice people”, to be “not too greedy”, to be “doing it for the fans”, and so on. The entertainers need to try to meet those expectations in some capacity, or they risk losing popularity. The fact that ticket pricing is not so much about greed and is instead more a function of supply and demand, this is not necessarily relevant to people’s perceptions.
Even on here, in IMHO, there are sometimes discussions about whether an artist’s perceived personality or actions affect one’s enjoyment of their work. If you find the artist’s work entertaining, then rationally, it shouldn’t really matter who the artist is when he/she isn’t entertaining you. But it matters to many people.
The key I think is #3.
Point #1 isn’t a big deal because, at least in my limited experience, season tickets don’t really confer a big discount, just a marginal one.
A good illustrative example of all this is tickets to Toronto Maple Leafs games. I can’t remember the difference between season ticket rates and ticket face values but it’s just a small percentage per ticket. It’s completely insignificant compared to the multiples of face value that tickets often sell for through resellers.
This is all driven by the city being a maniacal hockey town like no other, to the point that single-game tickets are pretty much unavailable (they do come online a few times per season but there are a very limited number because almost all seats are held by season ticket holders) and sell out within minutes. Meanwhile those seeking season seats as an alternative find that the waiting list for the affordable upper bowl stretches, literally, into future generations.
By the logic of supply and demand, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment should be able to double or triple ticket prices and still fill the arena every single game. The problem, to say the least, is PR: they are already the richest, highest valuation team in the NHL by far, with (I believe) already the highest ticket prices, and are being rightfully criticized for avaricious greed. They have currently managed to combine this with the worst season in the league and the longest Stanley Cup drought ever (since 1967). What do you suppose would happen if they doubled their ticket prices? I doubt the NHL would condone it for a second, but even if they did, it would definitely cause mass bailouts among season seat holders. Would replacements come flooding in? The lifeblood of a sports team is its fans, and becoming universally loathed is not exactly a winning business strategy.
So bumping ticket prices and going hog wild on donations to community projects, jumpstarting local charities, building affordable housing, etc, etc.
This is a great idea!
Same thing happens here at Wimbledon. Most seats on Centre court are ‘owned’ by corporations, but there are some kept back for the fans who are keen enough to queue all night and pay at the gate. The latest problem is people who pay others to queue and just turn up at the last minute.
The truly rich bring the concert to them. https://youtu.be/I8WirP7QojY
Sure, most artists have set prices for private shows. Our annual sales conference has let me see Lenny Kravitz, Kid Rock, Maroon 5, Gladys Knight, Blondie, Poison, a few others from very up close. Many in sales and the corporate world have similar experiences. They are expensive, but… not that expensive.
A while ago some agency accidentally put their price sheet out in public. Fascinating to see the going price. If I win the lottery, first thing I’m doing is hiring Pete Townshend to play my birthday party.
I am a burner, a regular attendee of Burning Man. The number of tickets that could be sold has always been limited by the Bureau of Land Management but until 2011 that did not matter – there were always tickets still available on opening day and beyond. 2011 that all changed; the tickets ran out in May. This caused quite a scramble as a lot of camps had the habit of prepping for the event but put off buying a ticket until the later. Things were smoothed over a bit by making some 10,000 tickets that were being held back for last-minute purchasers available to established camps so they could get at least their core people there.
Since the point of the event (believe it or not) is not to make money, the organization keeps the price as low as possible, commensurate with costs, and takes a dim view on tickets being sold for more than face value. While tickets can be found offered on StubHub and similar sites (currently beginning about twice face-value), if the ticket number is discovered, it will be cancelled, the original purchaser refunded, and the ticket’s number disclosed on an ever-updated list. To best serve the different demands made, a really complicated process has evolved.
If you have more money than patience, you can buy during the pre-sale for a higher price. This pretty well guarantees you a ticket (they did not sell out this year) but besides that, all you get for the higher price is the warm, fuzzy feeling it helps subsidize the lower ticket tiers.
Next is the directed group sale. A camp that has a proven track record will be given the right to buy a certain number of tickets at face value to ensure at least the core members of the camp will be there. The guy in charge determines who gets these tickets. I am in a camp of about 200; last year we got 18 tickets.
Next the bulk of the tickets are sold through the main sale. They’re gone in a matter of seconds and historically the remand to ticket ratio has been 4:1
Next, a small group of tickets are sold for a lesser price through the Low Income Ticker Program. These always completely sell out because they go through the list of applicants until the last one is gone.
Finally is the OMG sale where a really small (1,000 plus the cancelled and any pre-sales that didn’t go) amount are sold for the regular price.
For those who bought extra tickets or wind up not being able to go after all, there is the Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP) People with tickets put them into the system for a refund and they are parcelled out to those who need them.
This, of course, is far more complicated than most venues or acts are willing to go through but it is effective. The estimate is that last year about 1% of Burning Man tickets were sold for more than face value.
Interesting. Going to Burning Man is on my bucket list, but it sounds like I may not be able to cross that one off.
It helps to be a member of the community as people with extra tend to sell/give them to people they know before submitting them to STEP. Because not everyone gets to go, there’s been a Burning Man diaspora and you can be a Burner without having attended That Thing in the Desert. Regional burns and more frequent, more local meet-ups have taken up the slack.
Richard Thaler just won the Nobel for, in part, examining this phenomenon:
And since this is all about PR and brand image, it makes perfect sense that venues and promoters would have a strong incentive to secretly sell tickets under an alternate identity as a scalper, as long as they aren’t found out by most of their customers.
You package the seats with some nominal cost add-ons (parking pass, some concert tchotchkes, etc) and sell it at a 1000% markup as a “Platinum package”.
Clever! And premium seats are only available this way?
That’s my understanding.
I was reminded of this thread when I went to look at Hamilton tickets. Out of a 1,500 seat theater in Chicago, nearly 600 seats on a particular date (Fri, Jan 19) were available for sale via a ticket broker. Despite their efforts, they’re obviously leaving quite a bit of money on the table.
At the same time, TicketMaster has seats available direct that are “Premium Seating” and still unsold. So one seat (center section, row U) sells on a broker for $315 because they bought it for $180. Meanwhile, TM is selling the seat directly in front of it for $497 + TM Fees.