CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

I can’t claim I’m the first one to think about this, but every time Ticketmaster shows up on HN I keep coming back to this idea:

Sell the tickets with regressive price based on time. Sales starts say 2 months before event, initial price is truly exorbitant, say one million dollars. Price decreases linearly down to zero (or true cost price). At any point, people can see current price and the seats left.

Now every potential spectator is playing a game of chicken: the more you wait, the lower the price, but also lower are the chances that you’ll have a ticket. That would capture precisely the maximum amount of dollars that each person is willing to pay for it.

This idea sounds extremely greedy, because it is, so I can’t fathom that no one ever pitched this in a Ticketmaster board meeting.

My idea, however, was a bit less greedy. Once you sold the last ticket, that would be your actual (and fair) price-per-ticket for the concert, and everyone would be refunded the difference. You’ll never know how low it will go, so you shouldn’t overpay and hope it will lower later. I’m pretty sure Ticketmaster will skip this last part if they decide to implement this.

There are multiple issues with my idea, it’s elitist, promotes financial risks on cohorts poorly capable to bear them, etc etc, but it will definitely fix the scalpers problem. Pick your poison.

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low.

If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

I think a significant portion is that artists like leaving money on the table. being perceived as greedy can cause reputational harm significantly greater than the increased ticket revenues that the market will bear.

It's hilarious to read this discussion on HN, because the mentalities of artists and corporate business folks are so different. Artists aren't making a rational decision to reduce reputational damage by keeping ticket prices low. They're employing empathy to imagine themselves in the position of their audience - as music fans themselves first and foremost.

Why do people create at all? It's certainly not the most effective route to maximum income. It's a form of connection. Performing is sharing the joy of music and creativity with a group of people who've formed a connection to you through your art.

Now while the industry certainly selects for people who do not think this way (i.e.: performers rather than artists), despite itself it's full of artists whose values are not aligned with whatever kind of homo econominicus maximal self interest, war of all against all that pervades here.

Source - I'm not a musician, but I am a writer and I've directed music videos for numerous artists over the years. The idea that they're all motivated by the same mechanics as faceless entities like ticket master is silly.

Artists charge what they get told to charge. And ticketmaster owns all the venues so if you want to play anywhere, you're going to list at whatever prices the venue lists artists of your level. Humans are all statistically similar for large cohorts. Artists want money as much as other people, specially the ones playing big venues.

First thing to help would be to break up the venue monopoly that ticketmaster created.

The vast majority, hard to quantify, but I'd guess well over 99% of professional musicians (certainly outside the US) never play a ticketmaster venue. They're not operating at that scale. When they tour it's at smaller venues - there are orders of magnitude more small bars and dedicated venues not owned by ticket master.

> Artists want money as much as other people, specially the ones playing big venues.

This is exactly the kind of projection I'm referring to. What makes you believe that most humans want as much money as possible - to the exclusion of all other values? Again, difficult to quantify, but I'd suggest a majority of people would put pure wealth lower down on their priority list than health, family connection, social connection, travel, time to spend on interests etc. This goes double for people who've chosen professions rooted in their own creative expression. All else being equal we'll all choose wealth - but if the cost is exploitation, all else will not be equal for most people.

It seems clear that you're conflating the microscopic numbers of 'major label' artists playing to vast audiences - effectively as employees of 360 label / marketing companies like Live Nation with the supermajority of professional touring musicians.

I'm reminded of the chap I attended college with who sold a salacious story about one of our mutual friends to a tabloid. When we found out this was happening I had a another mutual friend approach him to intervene, but heard back that it was 'too much money to turn down'. Fifteen or so years later this guy is a multi-millionaire who just lost a civil suit (and is under criminal investigation) for fraud and sexual misconduct. Most people do not operate like this - empathy is dimensional.