From our Swindon correspondent:
Tom Morello is the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine. Their political opinions are roughly like your teenage communist ones, only you grew up.
I mean, what’s the real problem with scalping? You got paid. “but the fans didn’t get the tickets”. How do you know that someone willing to pay $500 isn’t a bigger fan than someone who paid $125? We’re not kidding ourselves that people going to see Rage Against the Machine are “the kids”, are we, rather than middle-aged accountants?
But I can’t quite figure out why the gig industry can’t get this right. The likes of airlines manage it, adjusting flight prices based on demand. Advanced tickets on railways are basically about soaking up when trains are quiet. Couldn’t this be done by dutch auction? Tickets go on sale at $500 and you see if there’s some left and if so, drop it to $400? It’s not like people are camping out at the box office to buy tickets any longer. It’s all done via the internet.
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Me, I find annoying (but not inherently involuntary) the travel industry's attempts to match its prices to the likely amount of cash in one's bank account, and likewise the car dealer's prying about how much money you anticipate spending. Though I prize the ability to buy day-old bread at a discount.
Many fans of rock groups want to bask-in-reflected-glory and be seen doing so. Those who want to nail this down before the tickets even go on sale are surely willing to pay extra, even if it goes to the middleman. They might even weave this into the story they'll tell all their friends.
Popular sports teams like the Red Sox have the legislature's cooperation to ban the street-corner businessmen through which latecomers get our tickets. Recently, teams have allowed online agencies to set up to match supply to buyer's budget. The touts are still illegal.
I began typing lead is girl, then hesitated on Machine. I was thinking of:
Florence and the Machine
She looks more pleasing than the Raging Ragamuffin Machine
@Tim
Labour did 3rd para at an "Oh Jeremy" concert, didn't end well - tickets given away for free to bolster attendees and payers demanding refunds.
A Dutch auction stock sale method may be solution for concert tickets, then accept secondary market
Tom Morello is lead guitarist, not singer. I preferred him when he was with Audioslave.
I'd welcome our host's opinion on "Ticker" auctions for tickets: it seems to be a Dutch version of eBay's "pledge what you're willing, pay what you have to" auction.
https://static.squarespace.com/static/52f00d90e4b0407116229ee5/t/5304c508e4b0c23125972a8c/1392821512569/tickerFeb17.pdf
Seems sensible enough. Not entirely sure how it would survive contact with reality and humans but sensible enough on paper.
What's most annoying is that the make no effort to find a different way to distribute the scare resource. They could have a lottery, as Wimbledon do for example, or a waiting list, as East Germany did for Trabants. Instead, they pick a lowish number and are then horrified that some people are willing to pay more that that. They simply refuse to confront the problem, but whine when others do.