Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't really see a problem with ticket prices being as high as they are.
There is much more demand for these tickets than there are supply of tickets, so my econ 101 tells me the price should go up until the demand drops to match the supply.
Any other argument just feels like sour grapes from folks who don't have the means to buy this luxury item.
Separately, Ticketmaster's monopoly is concerning, but in this case I don't see that impacting prices. In fact it seems like Ticketmaster did try to do a handful of things to artificially lower ticket prices, those things just were not effective due to technical issues (so the article title may be wrong).
Music fans like to moralize about how they "deserve" to go to concerts, but the reality is nobody deserves to go anywhere; attending a concert is not something you must do in order to survive. It's not even a thing you must do in order to enjoy an artist's music or support that artist. There is absolutely no imperative or necessity to attend this tour, and in cases like that I have no problem with pricing matching demand and supply pretty directly.
There's a lot more to monopoly harm than just pricing.
The reason ticketmaster can get away with bad tech solutions is there's no alternative. No alternative means no incentive to improve. And though consumer prices may be lower, venues and artists get squeezed, without really seeing an additional benefit and since there is no alternative Ticketmaster can call the shots.
On a related note, it's extraordinarily shameful that the culture of anti trust has centered exclusively on higher prices since the 80s. I'm glad to see enforcers in DC slowly abandoning this misguided reason and we'll hopefully get back to something resembling the trust-busting of the 30s and 40s
I've read that the artists and promoters prefer that Ticketmaster takes the heat. The top artists get almost all of the ticket face value and the promoter cut comes out of a kickback on the convenience fee. Ticketmaster also does a better job now of reducing the gap between face value and resale value. Bruce Springsteen ran real dynamic pricing for his tickets and the fans are mad at him -- better to do what Taylor Swift did and blame Ticketmaster for the high prices.
I think the thing is (a) TM's take of the sales, (b) TM's owning the scalping/auction system post initial sale, (c) TM's exclusive hold on Box Offices at venues & (d) TM's propensity to drop fees as line-items with on-the-nose labels on the tickets they sell.
Basically, they've abused a monopoly position, and painted a target on their backs by trying to nickle and dime folks.
Given the very nature of a monopoly position, I'd semantically argue that they are not abusing the position, but rather just using it. Much like a murderous criminal simply uses a garotte. That's what they're effectively for!
> I'd semantically argue that they are not abusing the position, but rather just using it. Much like a murderous criminal simply uses a garotte.
That argument has been tried in court, and doesn't work. That murderous criminal can still be punished, despite the fact the reason they killed someone was because it was part of their role as a criminal.
I think GP was basically arguing "monopolies are universally bad, whomever wields them" as a counter to a sense of "Ticketmaster is bad because it's abusing its monopoly position". You seem to have interpreted it as "this is what all monopolies do, so it's fine". No, this is what all monopolies do, and that's why monopolies must go.
The concern with Ticketmaster is the monopoly though, you are sidestepping the issue. It's about what kind of value Ticketmaster adds (minimal) to justify the exhorbitant fees they charge and can charge, because they have no competition due to all their exclusive contracts with the venues.
Sure, but that's not why The Eras Tour tickets were so expensive, which is the real reason Taylor Swift fans are upset.
Yes, TM has a concerning amount of control over venues and therefore artists, but in this scenario, that's not very relevant, given the insane demand and the basic physics problem involved with trying to stuff 12 million people into spaces (at a time) that hold a total of maybe 2.
It's just weird to me how we can't separate the issues. TM's main insult to the Swifties were the technical issues, not their potential monopoly. Ticket prices would be insane regardless.
I think you're neglecting to consider the cooling effect ticketmaster has on supply by being a monopoly. If there were more independent venues, and artists were better compensated, then far more middle tier artists could support themselves full-time, likely creating more supply of top-tier performers.
Instead, ALL monopolies have an incentive to minimize supply and maximize price. So of course demand exceeds supply.
The cooling effect on supply?? You mean Taylor Swift's inability to be in two places at once and unwillingness to drive her voice into the ground by continuing to add more concert dates?
No, this is not the right argument. She had to go with the biggest venues in the US to fit as many people as possible, and she's already added a ton of extra dates.
There is a fundamental limit to the number of people who can attend this tour, and that number is lower than the number of people who want to attend this tour, therefore prices will go up until the demand for tickets matches the supply of tickets.
Independent venues would not have made a lick of difference in this case, these ticket prices would be sky high no matter who was selling them.
I think Enginerrrd is saying that there could be a larger supply of other artists, that would satiate fans and make the demand for any one performer less impossible to meet. I’m not sure I think that’s true, but that’s my interpretation of their argument.
> There is much more demand for these tickets than there are supply of tickets, so my econ 101 tells me the price should go up until the demand drops to match the supply.
Economically, completely true. Though there's a social argument that when only comparatively rich people can access live entertainment, society suffers. I think that's a bit contrived, but it's worth considering.
Ultimately this falls on the artists to solve. If they don't want their concertgoers to be exclusively trust fund babies, it's on them to distribute their tickets better rather than everyone getting annoyed at TM and scalpers. This could be lottery and strict ID checks (e.g. Glastonbury) or it could be some way of rewarding loyal fans with reduced price tickets.
Maybe ABBA Voyage type shows are the future for improving accessibility of popular bands. Japan has the Hatsune/vocaloid concerts. Or maybe people need to consider supporting their local small bands over fighting each other for Taylor Swift tickets. I've been to plenty of small gigs for less than £20 and it's much more fun than spending £200 to sit half a mile away.
Prince did it right. His fan club members could buy tickets, with some sort of frequent flyer benefits (better tickets for more loyal fans). The genius was that you did not get the tickets or know where they were in the venue until you were literally walking into the venue. Most of the front row was reserved for fan club members, and the people sitting there didn't know they were going to be there on that night.
As the article mentions, Pearl Jam tried to solve this one way, and it did not go well.
Taylor Swift could theoretically do more shows, assuming she's physically capable, but she's already doing 2-3 shows in every venue on this tour[0].
There are weird incentives for artists, especially pop artists. They want young fans to be able to attend the shows, because that makes them fans for life. Conversely, young fans being shut out leads to them losing interest. But it's not feasible to means-test people buying tickets, so no matter what price you set them at, you can't be sure that the trust fund babies and scalpers won't get there first. In fact, you can be guaranteed the scalpers will get there first, this is what they do!
Strict ID checks are frustrating for everyone and still don't always seem to work. Fan club ticket windows are great in theory, and I've taken advantage of that myself to get U2 tickets, but all that's really doing is adding additional expense, as scalpers learn quickly that they must pay $20 to join the fan club for every four tickets they intend to scalp.
It's a tough problem, and perhaps one without a real solution. There's only so much TSwift to go around.
Because of the monopoly of ticketmaster, it is literally impossible for artists to sell their own tickets in any sizable venues. They have locked up basically all of the sizeable places in the us.
The issue is there is no competition amongst _type of auction_ being used to sell a scarce resource.
Ticketmaster essentially gives tickets to insiders + high spending fans first (this loyalty based prioritization happened in Taylor Swift sales). A new company might say reserve tranches of tickets for different age groups or income groups, etc. to reward more types of fans (not just super spenders).
You're right that it's a scarce resource, but I don't think that justifies a monopoly on the distributor of that scarce resource.
For a given show at a given venue, it probably isn't feasible for more than one ticketing service to handle the initial ticket sales (secondary market is a different matter).
I think the issue is that there is no competition amongst ticketing services. Ticketmaster is by far the biggest (and effectively the only) player, and they abuse that monopoly by demanding exclusive agreements with venues (or outright owning the venues) in order to prevent alternate ticketing services from entering the market.
But no ticketing service is really going to have any motivation to reserve tickets for low income groups or anything like that. They are going to want to sell every ticket to the buyer who is willing to pay the most for it.
Musicians don't want to maximize profit, so they would have an issue with pure supply and demand setting their prices. Which is what really matters. So other methods besides that for distributing tickets (for some definition of) "fairly" are very desirable to the musicians.
>There is much more demand for these tickets than there are supply of tickets, so my econ 101 tells me the price should go up until the demand drops to match the supply.
Maybe you should open your mind to the possibility that what you were taught in econ 101 is partly (mostly) bullshit. I have an economics degree and I've come to learn more in life that it's so much bs for the most part.
First of all, if there was relatively wealth equality, then it might be more realistic to say "ok, they will increase the price to some level until people want to stop buying it".
The problem is, there is so much wealth inequality that ticket prices just keep rising so only the top 5-10% of people can afford anything. Let's say a family is making $200k a year. A ticket price going from $50 to $100 to $200 isn't that big of a deal, they will still pay it.
But it completely fucks the rest (majority) of the population that isn't making that kind of money. They want to go to a concert as well. They want to go to a football game. But the prices are so outrageous they can't afford it.
However this well off/wealthy part of the population is willing to pay it.. so something like Ticketmaster just keeps pushing prices as much as they can.
This whole supply/demand thing is utter crap when there is wealth inequality. People like you use get this smug look on your face and talk about supply & demand like it's some kind of inherent law of nature. You know what it's based on? GREED. It's literally based on charging AS MUCH AS YOU CAN to people instead of a "fair" price. By fair I mean ensuring that the seller is reasonably compensated and that the majority of the population can still afford. Yes "fair" is not easy to define, I get that. But it's clear that "fair" is not charging as much as you possibly can just because a small majority of the population will still pay for it.
Ticket prices are not "reasonable" by any means. It's literally rich people charging as much as they can because they know rich people will just pay it. Not giving one shit about anyone else because "supply & demand"!
>Music fans like to moralize about how they "deserve" to go to concerts, but the reality is nobody deserves to go anywhere; attending a concert is not something you must do in order to survive
Ah, so the well off / rich "deserve" to go to concerts because they make more money. But people struggling don't "deserve" similar forms of entertainment. Glad you cleared that up. Seriously, that sentiment pisses me off to no end and it's literally one of the biggest problem in the world.
I make good money so I'm not coming at this from the struggling perspective. But every year that goes by this whole world pisses me off even more because there is no compassion. It's all about money. It's all about making more money. It's all about maximizing profits and squeezing as much as you can from everyone else so you get yours. It's all about getting what you want and not someone else.
Yeah I'm ranting here, but I'm not sure how one could sit back and read this "supply & demand" and "people don't deserve X because they don't make Y" without going bonkers.
If the tickets were sold in an open market where they were priced for demand, thus putting them out of reach of many of the fans, maybe those fans would defocus on this one woman/act and go do something else. There could be other concerts.
It's not just about price and wealth inequality. If everyone decides they want to go to the same event then some will be disappointed and they'll complain bitterly.
I've been to large concerts and big stadium events. It's not worth it. The events actually seared into my mind are the tiny ones, like seeing a band I'd followed for years in a small bar in Copenhagen and being within arm's reach. What am I trying to say here? Those tickets that everyone is clamouring to get probably have a very low experience value if people would only seek out other things to fill the same hole they purport to have.
There is much more demand for these tickets than there are supply of tickets, so my econ 101 tells me the price should go up until the demand drops to match the supply.
Any other argument just feels like sour grapes from folks who don't have the means to buy this luxury item.
Separately, Ticketmaster's monopoly is concerning, but in this case I don't see that impacting prices. In fact it seems like Ticketmaster did try to do a handful of things to artificially lower ticket prices, those things just were not effective due to technical issues (so the article title may be wrong).
Music fans like to moralize about how they "deserve" to go to concerts, but the reality is nobody deserves to go anywhere; attending a concert is not something you must do in order to survive. It's not even a thing you must do in order to enjoy an artist's music or support that artist. There is absolutely no imperative or necessity to attend this tour, and in cases like that I have no problem with pricing matching demand and supply pretty directly.