Some of my favorite bands have done simple things which drastically (but not completely) reduce the levels of scalping.
On a previous tour, Wilco made tickets only valid for the original holder with matching photo ID at the door. So I couldn’t sell my ticket. I was able to bring any guest I wanted with my second ticket though.
For a while now Phish has done tickets via lottery and all tickets come in the physical mail not long before the show. So there’s a limited window for scalping and it can only happen at the speed of paper.
In my experience both bands get concerts full of true fans and also get to charge pretty high prices in a way that doesn’t feel unfair.
More bands could try these or other techniques but almost nobody actually cares. Ticketmaster is a front, they take PR flak to preserve the status quo.
Not that it was the best idea, but NIN made you wait in line at the venue during the last tour to buy tickets. I got there early and was still in line for at least 3 hours. When I finally made it to the counter I didn’t have any issue getting the tickets I wanted (floor, general admission).
On the one hand, I didn’t have to deal with TicketMaster. On the other hand, it took a significant amount of time out of a Saturday morning. I’m sure there’s some happy medium, like if you’re part of a mailing list or bought some merch before tickets were announced you can get a pre-release code to buy online.
Weird place you live in. In my country, scalping (selling above face value) is illegal, simple as that. Tickets still sell very quickly to popular events, and you often find people reselling them in the days/weeks before the event for below face value due to their own circumstances.
I'm unsure why the bands or the ticket vendors should be involved at all, it's a simple and sensible area for regulation.
This entire "scandal" is simply a variety of bizarre tactics and discussions to get around the fact that people expect to be able to see the most popular musicians on the entire planet for $40. No one expects to be able to go to the super bowl for $40 but for some reason people think they should be able to see Taylor Swift?
I don't think anyone wants more events like the Super Bowl besides the NFL. And there's really no comparison between that event and a single Taylor Swift concert ... the Super Bowl is big enough to have a Beyonce concert at halftime! There are also dozens of Taylor Swift concerts per tour and she does a tour every few years. For most fans their team makes the Super Bowl only once or twice in a lifetime.
Also not all sports finals are so expensive! For instance the FA Cup Final, one of the major trophies for one of the biggest sports leagues in the world, had tickets last year starting at 45GBP:
https://www.mancity.com/tickets/mens/fa-cup-final-ticketing-...
And in the UK at the time there was a lot of coverage that the tickets had gotten too expensive.
On a previous tour, Wilco made tickets only valid for the original holder with matching photo ID at the door. So I couldn’t sell my ticket. I was able to bring any guest I wanted with my second ticket though.
For a while now Phish has done tickets via lottery and all tickets come in the physical mail not long before the show. So there’s a limited window for scalping and it can only happen at the speed of paper.
In my experience both bands get concerts full of true fans and also get to charge pretty high prices in a way that doesn’t feel unfair.
More bands could try these or other techniques but almost nobody actually cares. Ticketmaster is a front, they take PR flak to preserve the status quo.