A Comment on the Comments from the Wilco Article
Posted in Ticket Analysis on 10. Mar, 2010
Going back to the article refered to in Monday’s posting regarding Wilco tickets, I want to visit the comments section of the article.
paulvail wrote on March, 7 8:40 PM:
Want to stop the scalping — I mean, brokering? Sell actual tickets. Stop the online sales. Get your tush down to the ticket office, have a ticket printed out, limit the number of tickets purchased at any one time to 4 or a total limit for any one purchaser. If the scalper wants to make a mint, then he can get back in line and do it all over again.
It is beyond ‘market forces’, which is often just a cute way of saying ‘greed’ anyway. Or, simply stop going to these events. Maybe the artist will wise up. It’s not like they are really maximizing their dollar with the scalping, anyway. Hats off to NIN.
Will selling actual tickets and stopping all online sales stop the resale market?
Simply put, no! You see the guys outside the stadiums, arenas and various other venues? What are they doing on Saturday mornings when the tickets are going on sale? Nothing. Guess where they will be if ticket sales are in person only? Thats right, right in front of you. How will they get in front of you? Greasing the person handing out numbers to make sure they and all their buddies get the best numbers to buy all the good tickets.
Will this ever happen?
No, online marketing is too valuable to the promoter, venue and artist to go back to the old days. The less they have to pay for advertising the more money is going in their pocket. Everyone would be incredibly happy if they could just send out emails to all the fans and never have to pay another dime for an ad. Your email address that you give for the presale password is worth a lot to the promoter, venue and artist. When you sign up for an account on Ticketmaster you agree that they can share all your purchase info for each event you purchase with the artist, venue and promoter. This is why you’ll end up getting Neil Sedaka emails when you have only purchased Vampire Weekend tickets in the past.
“Hats off to NIN”
NIN and their manager Jim Guerinot definitely thwart the secondary market as well as any team in music, but by doing that, they basically say if you don’t know how to use a computer quickly, you’re screwed. Those who can afford to pay $200-$300 a ticket and are willing to, are left out in the cold under their ticket schemes also. The youngest and most computer savvy fans benefit the most with their method of ticket selling.
