Ticketmaster Surge Pricing
I guess we should talk about TicketMaster’s ‘on demand
pricing’.
I don’t
even want to talk about TM anymore. They have done it. They won. They broke me.
I just don’t bother
to go to many concerts anymore. Not when I know I have to do the impossible
pre-sale dance to get tickets to a show, or pay 3x the value.
In a twisted way, though, they have taken steps to fix that. They are now
allowing for market demand to dictate pricing. We’ll use Springsteen as an (unfortunate)
example. TM knows they will sell tickets for $125 each for floor seats. They
know that ALL of those tickets will go to scalpers. All of them. They also know
that these seats will all end up selling for two or three thousand bucks a
piece on the open market. So, TM figures “fuck the scalpers. If they are going to
sell for $3K, we should get that money! Springsteen should get that money!” and you know
what?
I agree
Prince actually invented pioneered this. About 20 years ago (giver
or take a decade or so) he did a ‘club’ tour. He knew that $75 would get snapped up and sold on the
black market for four times that much. He also can’t make a living playing a venue for $75. So, he charged $250 a
ticket. People were outraged, but I think its
brilliant. Here is why – the tickets are going to go for several hundred bucks. Should Prince get
that money, or the scalpers? By doing this, he blocks out the scalpers… AND makes a
better payday. Note, that was $250. Springsteen tickets have been doing for $5K, face
value.
I love the idea of squeezing out the scalpers. But due to the ‘dynamic
pricing’ model,
floor seats are $5k. It kills me they tested this on Springsteen, who is
notoriously pro-blue collar working folks getting his tickets. No, its not just
an imagine, he really does. His camp is notorious for never selling the front
row to his shows. Instead, those are given out to people with the worst seats
in the house… free… right before
the show.
At $5k, that person never has a chance to go see the boss. IF the tickets
go for $5K, I do believe that should all to the artist. But boy, that seems a
bit high.
Mind you, TM is no Robin Hood here, either. As you now know, their ‘convenience
fees’ run
30 to 50% of face value of ticket price. I know ‘convenience fees’ for Springsteen tickets were running
close to $1,000. Now, how is that little piece of cardstock any tougher to
print than a play that costs $14 to get into? Even better, they don’t even print
tickets anymore. Tickets are virtual, a QA code in your phone.
There is a way to squeeze out the black market. Make the seats will call.
Instead of showing a QR code… the ticket taker person scans your drivers license. I know
this technology works because I have had to use it before. That way, the person
who put the credit card down is the
person who has to show up. what about transferring tickets? Isn’t that your
right? What if you bought them and can’t go. What if you want your tickets to go
to a little blind deaf orphan? How would will call work, then? I would charge a
$30 transfer fee.
Don’t tell
me a $30 transfer fee is unjust when it means you paid $132 for a ticket
instead of $1,322 for a ticket. That fee will also be a HUGE pain in the ass to
scalpers.
As I said, I feel compelled to
journal this development since I have been hassling them for 20 years
online. Here. And here. And here. And here. And here. Also, there is here,
and here,
and here,
too. Oops, here, too.
Update – How to have avoided
the Taylor Swift fiasco
TM took a LOT of
grief for their systems freezing up and crashing during the Taylor Swift
stadium tour onsale event. Good. Fuck them.
It was SO avoidable. They put 52 football
stadiums up for sale at the same time.
Why? Stagger the sales, would
have fixed EVERYTHING. Split the onsales
into three weekends, staggered. Heck,
just split them across a day. First leg
goes onsale at 10am, second leg, at noon… etc.
The average NFL stadium holds 75 thousand people. 75,000 times 52 dates is 3,900,000. They put four million tickets up for sale at
the exact same time. Dumbfucks. Didn’t they learn from the last crash? Before this, the biggest demand TM had ever
seen at once when they the Grateful Dead reunions shows went up for sale. Back in 2015, they put onsale 3 days at
Soldier Field (the Chicago Bears stadium, and site of Jerry’s last show). That was 225 thousand tickets (75,000 times 3
shows). They got over a million
requests, and their system locked up and crashed. I remember this, I was online getting tickets
that morning. Through 9 computers
online, we got a set of four finally. I
was very happy, that was all we wanted.
So if a million
ticket requests is a strain… which I fully get.
Why would you put 4 million tickets on sale at the exact same
minute? Also, know that demand with
scalpers and all was likely double or triple.
I remember they did this in Denver years ago, on a smaller scale… but
same results. One Saturday morning (all
ticket onsales are on Saturday mornings at 10am) they put up for sale in the Denver
market a football game, a few hockey games, and some concerts. A few hundred thousand tickets all went on
sale at 10am. Wtf? How about this, you sons of bitches… “If you
are calling for the Broncos game, tickets go onsale at noon local time in your
market. If you are calling for any concert
tickets, press 1 to be placed in queue at 10am.
If you are calling for anything else, please call back at 2pm”. Stagger the sales, you rat bastards. What is your staffing model? Every TM employee works from 9:45am to 2pm
every Saturday… and that’s it?
Side bar tangent
Since we are
talking about tickets, lets talk about the actual physical thing… the cardstock
printed concert ticket. You know this,
its gone. It’s been gone for a year, and
I miss them. Concert tickets were the
perfect souvenir. It’s small, so it
takes up no space. It remains a perfect
memory. We have seen them disappear for
a while. It was a period where it was an
email, and now its fully digital. I was
seeing Bobby Weir again last weekend. As
is always the case, I have to assume I may never see him again. Him being 75 leaves me with fear that he will
retire or die before I get to see him again.
It’s been like that for at least a decade, though. Once he started growing the beard, he aged
FAST. Bobby was literally a child when
he joined the Grateful Dead… 16. Point
being, if this is the last time we see him, I’d like that souvenir ticket. I could do a frame of just Dead related bands
I’ve seen since Jerry passed: Dead and
Co, The Dead, Grateful Dead, the Other Ones, Phil and Friends
Comments