MSE Blog: Reselling tickets for profit: Legal ticket tout or money making genius?

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Read my post above for an answer to the question you pose.

It was a rhetorical question. Anyway, just because the promoters want to sell the tickets for less than the market value, it doesn't mean that it is immoral to sell them with a markup.

Surely it's more moral for food to be sold below market value than entertainment tickets? Allowing poor people to feed themselves more affordably means fewer will go hungry. That's got to be a goal with moral value. But saving the middle-classes money on frivolous entertainment...? I can't see how morality really comes into it.

johnmcga wrote: »

Because touts are artificially inflating demand and distorting the market.

It's very hard to tell how much demand there really is when a gig sells out in seconds because touts are buying tickets in large quantities.

Touts are not artificially inflating demand or distorting the market! Not significantly, anyway. If they were they'd lose money by being unable to sell the tickets they'd bought. The optimum situation is that every ticket is sold for the highest price the market can sustain. Of course that won't happen perfectly every time since no one has a crystal ball.

What happens when the promoters try to sell the tickets at far less than market value? They artificially inflate demand and distort the market. Ticket touts correct this.

Voyager2002 wrote: »

The simple way to prevent this activity would be for venues and ticket outlets to take ID details at the time of booking, and check these details at the point of entry to the event.

Simple, but time consuming. The Barbican has stated that this is the policy for the (sold out) Production of 'Hamlet' starring Benedict Cumberbatch. There were warnings both before and during the booking process that the person who made the booking must be present with ID and that ticket holders may be turned away if this is not complied with.

It does present certain problems other than the extra time it will add to getting people into the venue. What happens if you want to buy tickets as a gift? What if the 'lead person' is unable to attend? it seems a little harsh that 5 of my closest friends will miss out on seeing Mr Cumberbatch if I carelessly develop acute appendicitis or am otherwise prevented from going...
I suspect that the theatre may end up doing random checks, rather than checking everyone, but I might be wrong!

I think perhaps a better method is to limit the number of tickets which can be sold to any one buyer.

(I do agree, by the way, that reselling at huge mark ups is a problem. And on the few occasions when I have had a ticket I couldn't use, I've always passed it on at or below face value)

Funny thing is i love ticket touts and they provide me with an endless stream of tickets at a third or maybe a quarter of face value :j
I live close to a large music venue and just turn up ten minutes b4 a band comes on - the touts always seem to have loads of ticket 4 sale at that time and virtually chuck them at you to get rid of them .
I have never failed to get in and never paid anywhere near the rip off full price for any tickets.
LONG LIVE THE TOUTS:T

esuhl wrote: »

It was a rhetorical question. Anyway, just because the promoters want to sell the tickets for less than the market value, it doesn't mean that it is immoral to sell them with a markup.

Surely it's more moral for food to be sold below market value than entertainment tickets? Allowing poor people to feed themselves more affordably means fewer will go hungry. That's got to be a goal with moral value. But saving the middle-classes money on frivolous entertainment...? I can't see how morality really comes into it.



Touts are not artificially inflating demand or distorting the market! Not significantly, anyway. If they were they'd lose money by being unable to sell the tickets they'd bought. The optimum situation is that every ticket is sold for the highest price the market can sustain. Of course that won't happen perfectly every time since no one has a crystal ball.

What happens when the promoters try to sell the tickets at far less than market value? They artificially inflate demand and distort the market. Ticket touts correct this.

Well that's total nonsense.

Not all ticket buyers are middle class! But they would be if venues sold at a higher price. Gig tickets could be anywhere between £25 and £100 at face value.

If a venue of 20,000 sells out and about half the tickets go to ticket touts, then 10,000 people could be paying more than the tickets should be. Most of those people who tried to get tickets may be working class people trying to get tickets for their kid's birthday, which they could afford at face value, but can't afford at the inflated price, or they buy them and stick it on a credit card.

It is a moral issue, lots of people are denying thousands of people at a time a chance to see their favourite bands. No one would buy a theme park ticket for example and sell it for extortionate price, so why do it for gigs?

I believe ticket reselling should be restricted so it covers the costs of the seller - so face value, booking fees and postage.

For AC/DC me, my brother and sister in law all decided to try and get tickets for it, thinking it would be hard and only one of us would get them, but we all got tickets! So we sold them to our friends at face value, who didn't get tickets.