OFF: TicketMaster bidding

[M Holmes]

Paul Mather writes:

> On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 05:29:28PM +0100, M Holmes wrote:
>
> => > I've heard tell that a lot of those small-theatre shows that the
> => > Rolling Stones played "for the true fans" on their USA tour were
> => > mostly populated by Hollywood stars and corporate types that needed to
> => > be seen to be there.
> =>
> => Well OK, but that just means it was more important for them to be there
> => than it was for sonme fan.
>
> Or, alternatively, that it was easier for them to facilitate being
> there, by virtue of having deeper pockets to procure what soon became
> very expensive tickets.

Usually the folks who have those deeper pockets value their time more in
that they can earn more with that time. They're therefore perhaps
sacrificing a lot to be there. When you say "it's important for them to
be there" this presumably means that their agent says they gotta be
there to preserve their earning power in the entertainment industry. In
other words, it's a work do.

Now of course that gets in the way of dedicated Rolling Stones fan
who're there for pleasure rather than work, but ultimately that's
because this is the way the Rolling Stones play the game too: they want
to be seen being seen by the famous, in order to maintain their own
fame, and possibly earning power.

If you're saying "Unfair! It's more about money than the music" then I
agree, but that's true from the minute every band leaves their parents'
garage. It's the way the entertainment industry works. Welcome to the
wacky world of capitalism where other people put up money to enable you
to see bands and get some ability to say what's what in return. Not
everything Hawkwind does is just about the music either: Dave, Alan and
the others have to put beer and bread on the table the same as the rest
of us.

Sure it's not Utopia, but it's all we've got. Until musicians are
willing to work for what people put in a hat and we travel to them
rather then them travelling to us, then that's how it will be.

> My point in mentioning the "for the true
> fans" small theatre shows debacle is that "the true fans" were priced
> out of attending by those with peripheral interests (*musically
> speaking*) but with very deep pockets.

I believe you. I guess if the true fans aren't going to sell their cars
etc to compete in the auctions with others then some sort of subsidised
seating might be set aside for them. That's down to the promoters and
bands to decide if they want to do the subsidising. I know how I feel
about that when it's the Common Agricultural Policy and French and
German farmers (PJ put it best when he talked about a cow with a
farmer's hand stuck up its bottom). I suppose we might look on subsidies
for can't pay/won't pay fans as much the same as the subsidies we
already give to opera and classical music fans (how do we feel about
those by the way). What always enters my head at such points is that if
we weren't all paying the damn taxes to subsidise other people's
hobbies, perhaps we could actually earn enough to pay for our own. But
maybe that's just me: Minority Of One isn't an unusual barricade for me
to be manning.

> => OK, I'm not sure I get all this but basically I'm happier to get into a
> => bidding war than I am to sleep on the pavement all night and to some
> => extent scalping came down to basically paying someone to do the pavement
> => thing.
>
> I mention this because, IMHO, "keen fans" are ultimately not measured
> by the size of their bank balance.

Not what I claimed. It's down to how much you're ready to pay in an
auction, not how much more you've got after you've done so. I know a lot
of people who say they can't afford to go out driniking at a weekend/go
on a skiing holiday/etc. Whenever I look, these people have more assets
than I do: cars/houses/etc. What's really going on is that they're
spending their earnings servicing those cars and houses, and possibly
children and then saying there isn't enough left over to drink or ski or
go to festivals. What that means is that for them, having a car or kids
or a house is more important than the gig whereas to me, the gig comes
first. They're richer, but I'm willing to pay more because it's more
important to me.

I'm sure the scenario where someone has no assets at all and wants to
bid does happen, but I'm ready to bet that it happens very rarely
compared to people who have assets that they're not willing to pledge in
the bid. From where I'm standing, that really means they're not as
interested in winning as the folks who bid above them.

> To me, it takes more dedication to
> sleep out to get tickets than it does to add $39 to daddy's annual
> credit card bill.

Perhaps so, but let's compare like with like: sleeping out for X hours
or staying at work for Y hours to get the money instead. Suddenly we're
just comparing two different sorts of personal discomfort.

> Sure, the new system is more convenient, but I
> think it is all about money, not how much of a fan you are.

It's about the companies making money at the expense of the scalpers.
For the fans, there's no reason to believe that the average ticket price
will change if we include the scalper prices into the "Before" column.

What it does is make it a little more convenient for the guy who'd have
paid the scalper to get in to now just log onto a web site and bid.

> If tickets were priced according to what percentage of your assets
> they represented

That's just socialism. Do you think beer should be priced at a
percentage of your assets? Do you think people should be paid less for
an hour's work if they already have more assets? Would you personally be
willing to work the same hours for less on that basis? Should we do the
same with CD's even if the band starves? As I said above, given people's
attachment to assets, I suspect that those with more are often only willing
to bid less anyway.

> then I would concede that the highest-bidding fan
> was indeed the keenest.  But they're not.

Just about every economist in the world disagrees. The common reckoning
is that people will bid what something is worth to them.

> Someone with a large
> disposable income can bid a large amount that represents an
> insignificant blip on his or her income---perhaps even bidding an
> amount that exceeds the total resources of an avid fan.  That high
> bidder may have a negligible interest in the band, but see the high
> ticket price as no barrier whatsoever to attendance.

People can only outbid other people so long before they have less money
than the folks they've been outbidding.  If I have 50 credits and 10
other people have 5 and we're all very determined then I'll be paying 6
credits at the start of the tour and I'll see 8 gigs.  After that I'll
have 2 credits and everyone else will have 5.  I'm seeing no more gigs
and each of them will see one of the next 10 gigs at half what I paid.
After that we all have 2 credits for the next tour.

Note that for my cash, I see half the return that they do in terms of
gigs since I'm paying twice as much.

> I don't believe there is any correlation between fan loyalty and the
> size of your wallet, measured in absolute terms.

Me neither. I do believe there's a correlation in what's bid. It's what
you'll give up, not what you have let afterwards.

> => Scalpers had the money before anyway and that didn't do us much good. At
> => least if Ticketbastard can get some monopoly profits then it raises the
> => return on organising more concerts, so it's still a plus to us.
>
> Or, by increasing their monopoly profits, they may be able to cement
> further that monopoly, which may degrade service overall by reducing
> choice and introducing further potential for monopolistic abuses.  So,
> I am undecided whether it is a plus to us.

If they get a better monopoly then what else are they going to do but
organise more gigs??? The *only* point in getting a monopoly is in order
to maximise the extra (monopoly) profit that you take. The way to do
that is to increase the opportunities to take it.
>
> => > Until that time, I guess an
> => > ever-shrinking number of buyers will dominate the prices upwards.
> =>
> => That doesn't make sense: if there are monopolistic profits to be had
> => from gigs, it raises the gain from having more gigs.
>
> But the choice of how many gigs you can have is limited by the touring
> calendar, the availability of cash cow bands, and the geography of
> venues.

All of which can be increased with investment of that extra money.

> Most concert goers are not "repeat offenders," in that they
> probably will not see the same band more than once on a tour (and with
> many bands it's not worth doing so as you get the same show anyway).

You forgot about all those folks priced out in the bidding. They're now
ready to roll...

> Given that venues have finite capacity, profits can still be increased
> despite shrinking numbers of buyers in the face of rising ticket costs
> because you are effectively weeding out those that can't afford/won't
> pay but still have enough high-rollers to fill up the place.

If the others will still pay more than the marginal cost of extra seats
then you lose profit by not bringing them on board.

FoFP