Music for the People
I go to as many concerts and shows as I can. I’m always interested in the big name shows coming to the area, even if I don’t plan on going. A successful show for one act could lead to another act coming here. That’s a win-win for everyone.
Jay-z is coming to New Orleans in February and tickets went on sale about 6 hours ago. I wasn’t surprised to see tickets going like hotcakes. The floor seats are already sold out. When Ticketmaster told me this, they were kind enough to direct me to Ticketmaster Auctions where I could go to bid on a ticket. Here is what I saw:
Jay-z tickets on Ticketmaster Auctions
The first 3 rows on the right side of the stage are all for sale. That means that in the last 6 hours, someone bought every one of those seats and is scalping them. (Sidebar: If you want to scalp your own ticket, I am ok with that. But buying massive tickets for the express purpose of making a profit on them is wrong.) There were more tickets than that, but I didn’t want to huge image there.
My curiosity was now piqued. I went to StubHub to see what they were offering. Around 250 tickets were already for sale, again just six hours later, including these beauties that the person paid $97.50 plus fees for.
Jay-z tickets on StubHub
If I bought these tickets and stood outside the arena to sell them for even a dollar over face value, I’m getting arrested. But I can use the internet and turn a criminal activity into a legal profession. How is that fair? It ruffles my feathers because politicians are always complaining about not getting sales tax off of the internet purchases. The RIAA and MPAA will sue you for tens of thousands of dollars if they catch you downloading one album or movie. How do we know that it’s not the artist, label, or promoter just trying to pickpocket us while they have us grabbing our ankles?
I have a solution to the ticket problem. It can go one of two ways:
1) Allow box office only ticket purchases at the venue for the first 72 hours that tickets are on sale. This will bring back the days of camping out for tickets and with social media being readily available from mobile phones, buzz marketing will rise. Perhaps passion for music that has been stripped away by a cookie cutter industry will begin to return.
If that doesn’t work, there is always…
2) Use the technology to turn every seat into a giant auction event. Don’t put every seat on sale at once. You are trying to build buzz with it. Start with your floor seats. Every seat has an auction going on concurrently. Every ticket goes for exactly the maximum that the market will bear. People shut out of the best seats will be happy to buy up the middle tier seats. And those nose bleeds up at the top which usually are way over priced would likely go for under $20 instead of the usual $70. But the promoter and venue would more than make up for it with the $1000 floor seats.
For all of the anonymity that the internet provides by letting people hide their identity, it also brings a ray of sunshine to corruption and allows things to be exposed. Let’s use the power of the internet to rid ourselves of backdoor deals with ticket brokers and start paying fair prices for tickets. Like I said, we can go old school and camp out or go completely high tech and give everyone a fair shot. What say you?
