Secondary Ticketing Sites

[rivalschools.price]

8 hours ago, eFestivals said:

Is your dad buying a sandwich while complaining about it, or is he taking the piss out of you/others for buying that sandwich?

The first is an idiot. The 2nd has it sussed.

Either way, the reality is that there will not be enough people refusing on principle to buy, whether it be tickets or sandwiches so it will continue.

Yes there are idiots out there who will pay overinflated prices but the law needs to protect idiots too.

[eFestivals]

9 hours ago, rivalschools.price said:

Either way, the reality is that there will not be enough people refusing on principle to buy, whether it be tickets or sandwiches so it will continue.

Yes there are idiots out there who will pay overinflated prices but the law needs to protect idiots too.

And the law shouldn't to work to the advantage of promoters - enriching them - while fucking over punters and making them lose money.

Which is why if there's laws to stop over-priced sales there also needs to be something to stop loses on the opposite.

 

12 hours ago, ilikesimpsons said:

The other thing I noticed (prehaps I need to start wearing a tin foil hat) was a few years ago when the libertines played 3 nights at aly paly, it didn't sell out for weeks and weeks. Then on the same day all 3 sold out, tons of tickets appeared on the touting sites at inflated prices for a few days, before plummeting to under market value. 

Its like they took the tickets off sale on ticket master so they could bill the shows as "sold out" milked the last bit of cash out of people who were on the fence about going and panicked at seeing it suddenly sold out, before dropping prices to get the last few £££ in.

Im probably just mad, but seems odd 3 shows that didn't sell out fast would all sell out the same day. Convinced they're all crooks and dodgy stuff like this goes on a lot 

Marketing.

All marketing is bullshit.

People are suckers for marketing. They teach stuff like money management in schools, they're even starting to teach about fake news. But marketing? Suck it up. It's your duty to be conned by it.

[rivalschools.price]

It's not just a case of 'if you don't buy from touting sites it doesn't affect you'

If we can't buy tickets cos they're all snapped up by touts, then we are being affected, even if we don't use the sites.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, rivalschools.price said:

It's not just a case of 'if you don't buy from touting sites it doesn't affect you'

If we can't buy tickets cos they're all snapped up by touts, then we are being affected, even if we don't use the sites.

Yep.

But action against touts is about protecting the consumer. The consumer isn't protected if the consumer is fucked over by the legislation that's meant to be for their benefit.

I reckon you need to try and find the info about what happened with the govt and promoters a decade or more ago, when the touting thing first went up before MPs, to see what the govt recommended back to promoters before they'd act.

It was a very joined up and thoughtful response, that required actions from the promoters towards consumers in order to create a fair balance back against the anti-touting legislation the promoters were pushing for.

Merely banning touts protects promoters from competition, and guarantees their market position. It doesn't lead to an improvement overall.

[DeanoL]

I don't think there's anything that currently means promoters have to sell all tickets at the same price or in set price bands anyway. I mean... rich people don't go on SeeTickets at 10am and refresh until they get their ticket. They just pay five time the price to a tout to avoid the inconvenience. If that's not an option for them, what happens?

Do you think promoters will just want to leave the money on the table, and tell the rich to fuck off? Or do you think maybe they'll create their own premium ticketing options where they put 10% of the tickets aside and sell just to the rich? Touts, for all their flaws, provide competition to that sort of thing. Sure, the promoter can sell 90% of the tickets at £50 and 10% at £500, but that means a tout, or just a person who has realised they don't fancy the gig much anymore, can sell their ticket for £400 and undercut that. And of course touts compete with each other price. You ban touts, and the promoters and ticketing companies have free reign to sell at whatever price they want. 

Even when you have an organisation that's not driven by money and might want to put the punters first... it will happen. Sad to say, but look at Glastonbury. There's no real secondary market, but if you're rich, you can get tickets. You can pay for some of the glamping+ticket options. You can buy spare company VIP or hospitality tickets. I'm fairly sure the number of hospitality tickets and comps given out over the past decade has shot up hugely, the license was even increased in part to account for it. And the festival does make decent money off some of these tickets. It's far from awful, but it's telling that even Glastonbury has succumbed to this a bit. So imagine what less scrupulous companies would do.

[eFestivals]

21 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Do you think promoters will just want to leave the money on the table, and tell the rich to fuck off? Or do you think maybe they'll create their own premium ticketing options where they put 10% of the tickets aside and sell just to the rich?

To be fair to big promoters who handle the biggest events, I don't think they're chasing the money to the extent you suggest. By and large it's not them putting tickets onto in the high-price touting sites, and mostly when they are doing it's (supposedly, anyway) just a handful of tickets to try and undermine high-priced touted tickets.

I think it's much more the case that the show is priced at a price that works for them as the promoter, so they've no need or particular desire to try and cream those who'll pay over the odds.

I guess it does happen to a degree, but i don't think it's anything they're doing as a standard thing for their business plan for the sell-out gigs.

[DeanoL]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

To be fair to big promoters who handle the biggest events, I don't think they're chasing the money to the extent you suggest. By and large it's not them putting tickets onto in the high-price touting sites, and mostly when they are doing it's (supposedly, anyway) just a handful of tickets to try and undermine high-priced touted tickets.

I think it's much more the case that the show is priced at a price that works for them as the promoter, so they've no need or particular desire to try and cream those who'll pay over the odds.

I guess it does happen to a degree, but i don't think it's anything they're doing as a standard thing for their business plan for the sell-out gigs.

Maybe at the moment - but the touts and secondary ticketing sites cover that demand. Legislating against tours won't make that demand go away, and I think it'll be a lot harder for them to say to "no" if that demand is coming directly to them. 

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Maybe at the moment - but the touts and secondary ticketing sites cover that demand. Legislating against tours won't make that demand go away, and I think it'll be a lot harder for them to say to "no" if that demand is coming directly to them. 

if they were chasing the money in the way you say, tho, they'd have already put up prices to around the level where there wouldn't be over-demand.

You said "Do you think promoters will just want to leave the money on the table" - but they are already.  If they were going to do it after a law change, why wait until after the law change? They could be doing it now.

I do think that a change in the law around ticket would have them review how they handle ticketing, tho, and is likely to cause them to change how they do it, probably where 'market rates' are more-applied than currently.

[addicted2noise]

Live Nation own most ticketing sites and artists/managers so I think they clearly hold back a number of tickets for selling on secondary sites in exchange for a cut (Metallica today are an example). Considering how much money Viagogo and Get Me In make off them barely any artists have actually spoken out against them (as they're obviously getting a percentage of the sales).     

[briddj]

2 hours ago, DeanoL said:

 

Do you think promoters will just want to leave the money on the table, and tell the rich to fuck off? Or do you think maybe they'll create their own premium ticketing options where they put 10% of the tickets aside and sell just to the rich? Touts, for all their flaws, provide competition to that sort of thing. Sure, the promoter can sell 90% of the tickets at £50 and 10% at £500, but that means a tout, or just a person who has realised they don't fancy the gig much anymore, can sell their ticket for £400 and undercut that. And of course touts compete with each other price. You ban touts, and the promoters and ticketing companies have free reign to sell at whatever price they want.

 

Already exists: http://platinum.ticketmaster.co.uk/ - Tends to be front rows of events

Edited March 24, 2017 by briddj

[briddj]

On 23/03/2017 at 1:22 PM, eFestivals said:

I wouldn't place too much store in that. They launched a Viagogo-type site a number of years ago, too (tho I think they've killed it off now).

 

See Tickets promo: "See Tickets has launched an ethical ticket resale platform called 'Fan-to-Fan'. It is free to list tickets and they can only be resold by fans at the price they paid or less. We have never been involved in secondary ticketing and we never will be #toutsout"

Not true!