The problem is legitimate ticketholders don't like this. You're going to a concert with your SO that you had to buy tickets for six months in advance, then you break up and get together with someone else. Now instead of transferring the ticket you paid for to your new SO, you're stuck either going with your ex (that'll go over well) or going by yourself. People don't like this.
I’ll take not having shared seating with a potential future partner due to the breakdown of my relationship with my current partner over spending $450/person to see a band I liked back in high school.
But you still don't even get to see the band, because if they sell the tickets below the market clearing price they sell out before you can get one and then aren't available at any price.
Wouldn't this account for well under 10% of potential ticket buyers, though?
Sure, if you're in a relatively new relationship, planning anything at all 6 months out is a gamble. That's just life.
At any rate, you'd still have the option of returning your ex's ticket, and buying a new one in your new partner's name.
Or you can return both tickets, and buy a new pair that are guaranteed to be seated next to each other. Sure, presumably you didn't get full price on the ticket return, but, again, that's life.
The funny thing is that, while on occasion this situation might come up, and someone will end up paying a little more to see the show, overall they (and everyone else) will pay less to see shows in general, since scalping has been (in theory) eliminated. So for most people who see a show every now and then, they'd still come out ahead under this system.
> Wouldn't this account for well under 10% of potential ticket buyers, though?
For this specific example? Sure. But then people have other kinds of conflicts with other people.
And pissing off even 10% of your customers is bad.
> At any rate, you'd still have the option of returning your ex's ticket, and buying a new one in your new partner's name.
By then they're sold out. You can't get any other tickets. If you could exchange the ticket you have for one in another name then so can a scalper.
> The funny thing is that, while on occasion this situation might come up, and someone will end up paying a little more to see the show, overall they (and everyone else) will pay less to see shows in general, since scalping has been (in theory) eliminated.
The problem in this situation is not that you have to pay more, it's that you can't go to the concert with your current SO even though you have two tickets. You can get a refund for one or both of the tickets, but you don't want a refund, you want to go to the concert with your new SO.
That doesn't work for honest people when the person who used their ID is the one who can't go.
And you now have a new scalping model where you create a website for people to submit their IDs ahead of time and pay a fee to have someone try to get them a ticket in the two seconds before they sell out, but they buy 2-4 tickets per ID and resell the others.
Simple fix for that: require the concertgoer to physically present the ID when arriving at the concert.
They can also just disallow multiple tickets per ID.
To clarify the proposed process: you buy one or more tickets online, and you're required to put full names to those tickets when you purchase them. You are not permitted to change those names later. You can return the tickets (minus some "restocking" fee), but that's all you're allowed to do; no transfers.
When the time comes to attend the concert, everyone brings their ID, and the ticket checker matches the names on the IDs with the names on the tickets. No match, no entry.
There is certainly one hole: tickets are still scarce, so someone could set up a website where they claim they'll guarantee you a ticket (because they have fast internet connections and legions of low-paid grunts clicking furiously at the website), and then charge a large premium on top of the ticket price in order to do so. You either give them your Ticketmaster (or whatever) account credentials, or they even "give" you an account after buying the ticket for you, all with your name on it. I do think this would inflate some ticket prices, but I feel like the situation would still be much better than it is now.
On top of that, the ticket seller can just ban these sorts of websites. Again, not perfect, as they'll do everything they can to circumvent the ban, but you can probably make things difficult enough for them that their value prop doesn't really work out all that well, and they fail to get tickets often enough that they end up with a bad reputation.
Really, ticket scalping should just be illegal, and law enforcement should crack down hard on these kinds of outfits.
> Simple fix for that: require the concertgoer to physically present the ID when arriving at the concert.
That doesn't fix it. The person whose ID it is actually wants to go to the concert. They show up with their ID and activate the other tickets sold by the scalper.
> you buy one or more tickets online, and you're required to put full names to those tickets when you purchase them.
Then you're back to pissed off customers because they have multiple tickets they actually want to use and can't change who gets to go when one person can't.
> I do think this would inflate some ticket prices, but I feel like the situation would still be much better than it is now.
A lot of things like this work okay the first time you try it, then entrepreneurs find a way to improve the efficiency of the market.
Fundamentally the problem is that you're trying to violate the law of supply and demand. If you want scalpers to stop existing, raise the price of tickets to match what people will pay for them. If you want prices to go down, move to a venue with more seats.
> You’re missing the point: every ticket has a name. Not the same single name on 4 tickets. Every ticket is personalised.
At which point you can no longer exchange one for a different name and have pissed off legitimate customers. That was the point of the suggestion that you could get 2-4 tickets in the same name -- so that you could change 1-3 of them in case of a conflict. But then scalpers can too.
So what? People will always be pissed off. Millions are pissed off today because they had no chance to afford tickets to popular shows thanks to scalpers.
Plane tickets are all virtually as this person described. Someone in your party can’t go to Jamaica with you because they got sick/broke up with you/whatever? Nobody cares, AND no refunds. This Names-and-IDs policy is actually much nicer than plane tickets, because refunds at face value would be allowed. If you’re lucky you might even be able to rebuy the same ticket for your new gf if you’re quick.
> Millions are pissed off today because they had no chance to afford tickets to popular shows thanks to scalpers.
They had no chance to afford tickets to popular shows thanks to artists not providing enough seats or dates. If there is more demand than supply then your options are high prices or shortages.
> Plane tickets are all virtually as this person described. Someone in your party can’t go to Jamaica with you because they got sick/broke up with you/whatever? Nobody cares, AND no refunds.
People do in fact care, it's a common gripe about airlines screwing you, and the people who care a lot pay extra for a transferable ticket -- which are available. Which in turn allows the airlines to point to that and say you should've bought the more expensive ticket. But you can only say that if it's available, and if it is then the scalpers just buy those.
