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204 points pabs3 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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hackingonempty ◴[] No.44085082[source]
The reality now is the ticket sellers and bands are the main scalpers and everyone else are now secondary scalpers.

Now that tickets are all electronic and the ticket sellers operate secondary markets there is no "face value" anymore and pricing is dynamic. Not all tickets are released at once and many are offered at "platinum" prices at first.

All through the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's concert tickets were around $40-$50 in 2025 dollars, now that is just the service charge. Just go on eBay and look at some ticket stubs then put the price / date into the CPI calculator.

It turns out that the bands couldn't beat the scalpers so they became the scalpers, charging outrageous prices with the assistance of the ticketing companies.

So stopping bots isn't as important as it was when CAPTCHAs were effective, since there is a lot less money on the table for professional scalpers to capture.

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1. Spivak ◴[] No.44091050[source]
Concert tickets are still that low, you just can't go to stadium shows for supermassive artists at that price. A saturday night at a popular EDM venue with a 2k capacity headlining an artist with ~500k monthly listeners on Spotify will run you about $25 for the floor or $50 for VIP. A "sticky floor" bar venue ticket with a capacity of maybe 300 for an alt-z band with somewhere in the realm of 250k-3M monthly listeners on Spotify will run you about the same.

Being up at the rails at a Girl in Red concert set me back $60 at a 5k person venue. If you want to see supermassive artists for that kind of unit price you have to "buy bulk" and go to festivals.

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2. immibis ◴[] No.44095593[source]
I don't think that when people say "a concert" they mean something that happens every Friday and Saturday night. I think it means a unique event.