I should think that businesses would be in the forefront against scalping, because too much difficulty in obtaining tickets (as with a huge 2nd party markup) could cause the buying public to lose interest. Aside from the part where it makes the business look bad, seeing your prices be outside the realm of possibility for a large segment of your audience just sounds like a scary idea, to a marketer.

If no tickets to Fenway were under $100, I would just never go. I'm quite the fan; but I can watch it on TV for the price of cable and for free, once a week, on network.

The issuer is perfectly capable of limiting purchase to a certain number per buyer if he wanted to privilege the time-advantaged buyer over the richer, later fan.

Most issuers I've read about do do this. But, that hasn't stopped unscrupulous resellers from setting up phone banks and buying 200 tickets, 4 at a time. (These days, the Red Sox online site makes you complete a small puzzle -- discern numbers in a cross-hatch pattern -- to proceed to buying, to kill automated buying programs.) One of the reasons, I think, that MA started restricting scalping was all those concerts in the 1980s where people lined up at the box office days in advance, but all the tickets had sold by phone before the box office ever opened.

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I presume if you buy something for a price, you value it at that price or higher. Why would I buy something for $100 if I only thought it worth $10 to me?

You're flipping my point. I'm saying that I might value something at $100, and still not be able to buy it.

they won't pony up the same money another person will, that's one reason

But maybe they'd line up, or hit the web site, make the phone call -- time is also currency here. You seem to be arguing that the richest person should be able to win. Me, I think it should come down to unarmed combat with weight-class handicaps.

Isn't the fact that scalping is illegal in places mean there is law to the contrary? Otherwise what does the law mean?

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You're flipping my point. I'm saying that I might value something at $100, and still not be able to buy it.

You're right, I missed that.

But maybe they'd line up, or hit the web site, make the phone call -- time is also currency here. You seem to be arguing that the richest person should be able to win. Me, I think it should come down to unarmed combat with weight-class handicaps.

Yeah, I think the person who will pay the most for the tickets should be able to win. I mean, at a certain point, this whole discussion indicts the entire idea of eBay. Most sellers presumably got there first at a lower price and are able to sell it for a higher because it's no longer available at that price. I don't see why tickets are any different.

I don't have a problem with privileging the people who have time over money-- my problem is with the moral judgment of the reverse.

Isn't the fact that scalping is illegal in places mean there is law to the contrary? Otherwise what does the law mean?

Yes.

Now let me explain why I think gouging can be ok...

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I don't see why tickets are any different

I don't see how they have to be the same.

Really, the people with the muscle are the ones being privileged. Sure, me with the money gets to see the NKOTB reunion concert, but the guy with the autodialer is raking in the dollars. If money is power, they win.

Someone on another board (this is even on-topic) was complaining that Browncoats had swarmed the preview ticket sales and bought everything up. I did point out to her that non-Browncoats had also bought tickets, and asked what was wrong if the insano-fans got to the tickets before the people who were only casually paying attention to their existence.

Discussion petered out before I could get deeper into her PoV.

But mostly, I think time & money are both currency, and as a ticket-seller I'd damn well want to stamp "no resale" on my tickets, because it's my shebang, and I want to control my market as much as possible.

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I mean, at a certain point, this whole discussion indicts the entire idea of eBay.

My moral or whatever problem is with how the sale is presented. On eBay, you know the person willing to pay the most wins. For tickets for whatever, it is presented that there are X number of tickets at Y price, but in practice that is not actually true. If I know there are only X/4 tickets at Y price, and the other three-quarters will be 10Y, at least I know and can make decisions accordingly.

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[link]

Pretty pictures for Gus.

All my extra tickets for the Vegas screening I sold at face value. I need the good karma more than the money.

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There's a tradition in fandom that you don't make money off of other fans. It's why selling zines at a profit is so frowned on (in addition to copyright issues). The problem comes when fandom intersects with capitalism.

I think it's shitty to exploit people by selling tickets at so high above face value. On the other hand, no one's holding a gun to the buyers' heads.

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I think Nutty's right and it's mostly a marketing issue. Sports teams are forever blackmailing the cities where they operate for stadia and tax breaks and whatnot. Consequently, they're obliged to at least act like they're available to everybody in that city, instead of just letting the market determine the upper limit of the costs.

Also, they want to shore up their fanbase, which extends well behind paying attendees to folks who watch on TV which is where the really big revenue can start. It's important enough to have walk-up fans at most stadiums that when the Giants built their new stadium they were careful to always have a bank of sets available that day even though they could have sold out season tickets at first.

So scalpers (from the team's perspective) are poaching on the profit that the team has sunk as a marketing cost.

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Everyone needs to go to Tamara's link and look at the Washasaurus. It's something else.

We need guerilla marketing stories from Boise and Kansas City and Bangladesh.

I'll see what I can do from the KC end come Friday, assuming I'm still alive.

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Just think how much better it will be seeing it for the first time with a complete score & all the neccesary tweeks done!

This is my guiding star. I have actually wondered if I *would* go, were there a screening here, because I'd like to see the finished product. But I think my decision would be that I could see it now AND in September, and that would be ideal.

...regarding all this scalping talk, back in the time of the first screening I was complaining about the people on eBay, so I feel a need to weigh in.

My take on this is ridiculously simplistic. I myself am a big fan of capitalism, and in no way have problems with resale of most anything. I don't know that I would propose or support laws to restrict resale at a higher price, though I suspect when it started hitting my pocketbook I would, because at base most people are self-interested, and I rank myself near the top of the self-interested people list. I see no legal problem with scalping.

I just think it makes you not very nice.

I have a tendency to compartmentalize things, and here I have separated "nice vs. not nice" from "good vs. evil." The people buying tickets up for the express purpose of selling them at way-high prices are not nice. This does not make them EVIL, just not nice.

Though I suppose one could argue that were it not for them, the people who were unable to get their own tickets for whatever reason might not go at all.

So, I am not looking for a long discussion of market dynamics, or a debate over the morality or immorality of scalping.

I just don't like that people are doing it for something I care about. Mine is a purely emotional reaction.

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