Ticket Economist

In August, Taylor Swift turned heads (again) when she announced a collaboration with Ticketmaster’s new Verified Fan program. The widely reported reasoning for supporting Verified Fan was to get tickets into the hands of fans, as opposed to scalpers and bots. Funny thing: in order to participate in #VerifiedFan, one needs: A verified email address; A cell phone number The ability to click on links On last check, scalpers can definitely cover these three requirements and any high school kid…

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Two weeks ago, a large population of disenfranchised Tragically Hip fans raged on the web about their inability to buy tickets for the bands final tour due to lighting fast sell outs. The blame for lack of tickets quickly pointed to ticket scalpers because as tickets were not available on the primary market, they were freely available for significantly higher prices on Stub Hub and Ticketnetwork affiliated websites, among many others. This is not the first time there has been…

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Business Week and a variety other rags were abuzz this week about Louis C.K.’s efforts to one up scalpers by selling tickets to his shows on his website for $45, period. TicketNews scooped some data on the subject from SeatGeek, which suggests that Louis’ efforts have so far been a success. Some have speculated that this is a blow to scalpers and Ticketmaster. No question, its was a big success for Louis, but I don’t think this is a sign of things to…

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Thanks to a writer for the WSJ, I was clued in on false reports that secondary market ticket prices for the Miami Marlins were in a nose dive. With the help of my friends at SeatGeek.com, I set out to do some myth debunking (sorry Miami Today and Alex Groberman). Average ticket price for 2012 are up about $13 based on secondary market prices for the first 35 games of the season. According to SeatGeek.com, average ticket prices were $35.14…

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As reported by the New York Post, among other popular press, Ticketmaster has figured out that dynamic ticket pricing could help them capture additional profits, sell more tickets and head off the secondary market. But, this announcement, almost two years after I wrote a call for dynamic pricing, two minutes too late. First, we need to understand why Ticketmaster is pursuing dynamic ticket pricing now. As The New York Post pointed out, “According to concert tracker Pollstar, total ticket revenue…

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A consistent trend in ticket resale journalism is the “drive-by” nature of reporting on the topic. Many journalists write about ticket resale (a.k.a. ticket scalping) with a seemingly narrow and incomplete understanding of the subject matter. The result is reporting that is less than complete and a public that does not truly understand what really fuels the secondary market and how it may or may not benefit the general public. A good example of incomplete reporting is John Seabrook’s piece…

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As a Wall Street Journal article from last week correctly suggests, Miley Cyrus is Ticketmaster’s guinea pig; will the test be successful? Though there is not enough information on hand to know for sure, it is clear that the decision to sell “paperless tickets” for all of Miley Cyrus shows has raised the eyebrows of fans and resellers alike putting Ticketmaster on the defensive while ticket resellers try to figure out how to carve a market in a paperless ticket system. I…

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