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from the no-wonder-I-couldn't-get-tickets dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
When Adele fans went online to buy tickets to the pop superstar's world tour last year, they had no idea what exactly they were up against.
An army of tech-savvy resellers that included a little-known Canadian superscalper named Julien Lavallée managed to vacuum up thousands of tickets in a matter of minutes in one of the quickest tour sellouts in history.
The many fans who were shut out would have to pay scalpers like Lavallée a steep premium if they still wanted to see their favourite singer.
An investigation by CBC/Radio-Canada and the Toronto Star, based in part on documents found in the Paradise Papers, rips the lid off Lavallée's multimillion-dollar operation based out of Quebec and reveals how ticket website StubHub not only enables but rewards industrial-scale scalpers who gouge fans around the world.
CBC News obtained sales records from three U.K. shows that provide unprecedented insight into the speed and scale of Lavallée's ticket scam.
Despite a four-ticket-per-customer limit, his business snatched up 310 seats in 25 minutes, charged to 15 different names in 12 different locations.
The grand total? Nearly $52,000 worth of tickets at face value.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paradise-papers-stubhub-1.4395361
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday November 14 2017, @04:57PM (20 children)
Nonsense. If scalpers can make money with their reselling, and if they can sell out their stock, that means the legitimate vendors could have charged more. It's really that simple. All that stuff about artificial scarcity is for nought.
No. Either the pricepoint is acceptable to the buyers, or it's not. There's no magic about scalpers that makes people more willing to spend big with them, compared to with legitimate vendors.
If the scalpers are selling out, that means the legitimate vendors could have still sold out if they'd charged the scalpers' prices.
It's the same thing with people buying iPhones from the Apple store on day 1, and re-selling them on eBay. It's just price-point.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:12PM (5 children)
Such a simple "logical" argument, but it fails so very hard. The price points set for any event are based on the average price people will pay. Scalpers make their money off desperate people who do not represent the average. Do you even realize that your brain operates like a marketers? That you're willing to do bad things for money and then try to justify it by victim blaming?
Of course you don't
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:31PM (4 children)
And yet they still sell, so the distinction is meaningless. Anyway, sjames already posted a worthwhile reply re. the economics.
Nope. I dislike scalpers as much as anyone, but go ahead and project away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @11:01PM (3 children)
Sadly it is people such as yourself that keep the whole insane ball rolling. "Corporations are required to show profits!" "If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear!" Rationalizations for inherently irrational systems is the biggest problem we have today and it prevents people from changing things up. A small nudge into cynicism and derision for your fellow humans and you could easily switch sides, mentally you're already prepared to accept it. I wasn't projecting, but I was overly accusatory.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:36AM
You're going to make up quotes then assign them to me? Have you heard of a 'straw-man'?
Some fine armchair psychiatry, even by Internet standards.
I should really stop replying to ACs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:22PM (1 child)
I have to agree with Wootery. Sure sounds like you're projecting hard here. Sure, you have feelz. But you could have feelz some other way since you don't have a reason for why you have those feelz.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 15 2017, @05:14PM
I'm coming to believe ACs have twice as much original sin in them as the rest of us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:36PM (10 children)
No. The scalpers are rent-seeking. The lower vendor price derives from an additional value the act derives from good will and having it's larger fan base able to afford the occasional concert. That includes the buzz created by concerts where there is a butt in every seat.
The societal benefit of markets derives from keeping the seller's price low. When instead, the buyer is kept near the pain point, all of the benefits of a market are lost. Scalpers are a HUGE inefficiency in the market.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:28PM (9 children)
That's more like it!
If not price-point then, what technical measures could be taken? It's generally not well received to name-stamp tickets, but it would be effective.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @01:10AM (8 children)
Price point can work several ways. For example, setting a maximum mark-up/sewrvice fee. Setting a limit on re-sales might also work. It should be possible to re-sell one's own tickets should plans change, and perhaps with mark-ups limited, a consignment re-sale should be acceptable.
Inevitably, enforcement won't be perfect and loopholes will probably have to be addressed at some point, but it should at least take out the pros.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:04AM (1 child)
Yea.. using pure digital tickets and setting a limit on the resale value or an outright ban on increase in resale value (not the number of times one resell it) should work. If the ownership tracking and transfer is tied to the payment system then enforcement is done digitally. This will rule out direct cash payments of course.
On the lighter side of things, here's how to get this implemented.. find a VC near you and mention blockchain!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:56PM
Do we really want concert venues to be tracking people to the point that they're confirming who goes to concerts? Maybe we can have a "No Listen" list to ban the wrong people from going? I'm sure someone is doing that on a small scale.
But imagine what a disaster it would be for bands like Insane Clown Posse [wikipedia.org], which already has the problem that the FBI thinks their fan base count as a crime gang and that has legal consequences [rollingstone.com]:
[...]
[...]
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(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:28AM (5 children)
What do you mean by service fee? Scalpers aren't official resellers.
If it's possible to sell your ticket, that means it's possible for scalpers to stockpile and resell. I don't see that a limit would help - a scalper only needs to re-sell once.
Even pure-digital tickets (so that they can only be sold through the official online marketplace) aren't a panacea, as the scalpers will just take their fee outside that marketplace.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:44PM (4 children)
Typically, the ticket vendor (nearly always ticketmaster) charges a service fee. Another eaxmple would be a concierge service thet buys the tickets for you because you're busy, like to sleep late, whatever.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 15 2017, @05:09PM (3 children)
Would that help stop scalpers? I don't see that it would, it just tweaks the way the price-point works out.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @08:50PM (2 children)
With mark-up limited, there's a lot less money to be made and a lot less damage to be done. Requiring agency rather than simply buying a stock of tickets prevents the creation of artificial scarcity.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:50PM (1 child)
But it doesn't limit mark-up. The scalper will just insist on cash to initiate the transfer.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @10:16PM
And then the undercover agent cuffs him for an illegal mark-up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:30PM (2 children)
For some of the tickets. The key here is not that all the tickets could be sold for more, but rather that some can. This is the whole reason for dynamic pricing of tickets in airline flights. As the date of the flight nears, the price of the remaining tickets for sale increases.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 15 2017, @05:12PM (1 child)
But if that really was 'best for the event' as it were, wouldn't the event arrange for high-price last-minute tickets?
Similar to as I was saying in my other comment, it seems the way events are run favours non-wealthy fans who by their tickets early. Why change this? I see no reason to favour last-minute buyers over early buyers, and no reason to think the scalpers are helping anything by pocketing the difference.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @08:26PM
You already have your answer, no. Scalpers wouldn't exist in the first place, if there wasn't a demand for them.