Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans(hollywoodreporter.com)
hollywoodreporter.com
Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/spotify-will-start-reserving-concert-tickets-for-superfans-1236603106/
377 コメント
This sounds like what fan clubs and artists run communities are built for.
Does Spotify putting itself as a middle-man help much, considering the artist has become a big enough operation to have to care about the issue in the first place ?
Does Spotify putting itself as a middle-man help much, considering the artist has become a big enough operation to have to care about the issue in the first place ?
In an ideal world, the artist's own mailing list or fan community would be the canonical place for this, because it's closer to a direct relationship
This already happens. Most artists I listen to have a mailing list presale, then a spotify / promoter / venue presale, and finally the open sale in that order.
Subscribing to a mailing list is not a relationship at all.
I know areosmith, phish and the Dave Mathews band gave fan club members dibs on good tickets, though this was year ago. My friend was a huge phish fan and he’d always get a bunch of new years tickets in the 90s.
Yeah but fan clubs and artist communities are trivial to join with just an email address. Scalpers can just have their accounts join them all.
The point of a listening history is that it's so, so, so much more work to generate one that has been active for years and looks genuine and each one can only focus on a few artists at a time.
The point of a listening history is that it's so, so, so much more work to generate one that has been active for years and looks genuine and each one can only focus on a few artists at a time.
Do you really want (would you even be able) to be engaged in a distinct fan club / community for every artist you listen to? I'm pretty average in how much music I listen to, and that'd probably be several dozens just for the "big" bands
So you aren't a "biggest fan" of _everything_ you listen to, that seems pretty much in line with the expected meaning.
[deleted]
If an artist is just someone you listen to, you're not the demographic for a feature like this. You can't have several dozens of favorite bands. The idea is to get tickets to the hardcore fans, not the casual listeners.
> Does Spotify putting itself as a middle-man help much
Yes, with discovery and lowering the barrier to entry. There's quite a few bands I'd have considered joining their fan-club for if it was easy as clicking a button and not having to trust yet another third-party site.
Yes, with discovery and lowering the barrier to entry. There's quite a few bands I'd have considered joining their fan-club for if it was easy as clicking a button and not having to trust yet another third-party site.
Actually the artists set aside tickets specifically for resale. At a company i worked at we did this on behalf of the artists and content-rightsholders directly to maximize their profit. Your favorite artist loves money and resale more than affordability
That's not what a resale is.
You've just described a direct sale by the artist. These tickets always come with additional perks that you don't get buying normal tickets.
Resale would be someone buying those tickets then selling them again (hence the re in resale).
You've just described a direct sale by the artist. These tickets always come with additional perks that you don't get buying normal tickets.
Resale would be someone buying those tickets then selling them again (hence the re in resale).
How does resale help the artist? By inflating expectations for ticket prices for the next show?
If the artist sells them directly at the market price set by the resale auction, they get more than if they sell at face value.
The question was about actual resale (although I'm beginning to wonder); you're talking about something for which I don't believe the word "resale" is accurate.
so this is a price discovery mechanism in an early tranche of tickets?
Isn't scalpers a solved problem with nominal tickets?
I'm pretty sure some bands were doing this a decade ago.
Even UEFA, among the most corrupt organizations in the world, does this for football tickets, you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once or sell them back to the organization.
At this point if you allow scalpers it's a decision not a technical problem.
I'm pretty sure some bands were doing this a decade ago.
Even UEFA, among the most corrupt organizations in the world, does this for football tickets, you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once or sell them back to the organization.
At this point if you allow scalpers it's a decision not a technical problem.
> ...you can buy 2 tickets and can change one name exactly once...
Unless you're forced to buy exactly two tickets [0], I don't see how that prevents scalpers? Pay people 100% of their purchasing cost and -IDK- 5% of the scalping profit to use their name to purchase the ticket and hand over the creds to do the ticket owner reassignment.
[0] In which case, I suppose it's a huge "fuck you" to people who aren't particularly social.
Unless you're forced to buy exactly two tickets [0], I don't see how that prevents scalpers? Pay people 100% of their purchasing cost and -IDK- 5% of the scalping profit to use their name to purchase the ticket and hand over the creds to do the ticket owner reassignment.
[0] In which case, I suppose it's a huge "fuck you" to people who aren't particularly social.
1 ticket: you can only sell back, no name change. You’re solo, not going with anyone, this works.
2 tickets: you can either sell them both back, OR change ONLY one name once. This means you have the option of buying two tickets up front, before you lock-in your companion.
It works well, I’ve experienced this for festival tickets.
2 tickets: you can either sell them both back, OR change ONLY one name once. This means you have the option of buying two tickets up front, before you lock-in your companion.
It works well, I’ve experienced this for festival tickets.
you can buy 1 ticket, but then you can't change the name.
It does not prevent scalpers altogether, but it makes it harder and less profitable.
Generally, people do not want to go to an event alone, you'd go with a friend, partner, spouse, whatever.
So the scalper's profitability calculation goes from "buy 10 tickets for 100$ and sell them at 10x price to anyone" to "buy 2 tickets and sell 1 of them at less than 10x to people who want to attend the event alone". The profitability went from 10000 to less than 80.
It does not prevent scalpers altogether, but it makes it harder and less profitable.
Generally, people do not want to go to an event alone, you'd go with a friend, partner, spouse, whatever.
So the scalper's profitability calculation goes from "buy 10 tickets for 100$ and sell them at 10x price to anyone" to "buy 2 tickets and sell 1 of them at less than 10x to people who want to attend the event alone". The profitability went from 10000 to less than 80.
It helps make it difficult to do scalping at scale. They can't reliably sell seats next to people. Always having to pay people their cut to use their name means the refund mechanism is still costly to the scalper.
It doesn't have to be perfect to be effective.
It doesn't have to be perfect to be effective.
I can’t imagine the overlap between football fans and people who like to attend football games alone is big enough to matter.
seems like it would just get botted like anything else and also make it harder for fans of an artist who don't use spotify to get tickets
Surely this will get arbitraged like anything else, where fans who get picks will onsell tickets
You can also make non-transferable tickets. If it’s a decent discount for a specific intended person it makes sense.
The majority of concerts lack sufficient demand for scalpers to make money. It's only the Taylor Swifts and Beyonces whose ticket values exceed the sticker price.
"Stream fraud" is already a thing, so if anything this would make botting more profitable. Great synergy to be had here by fraudsters
Sounds like a good way to pump the numbers
there's always a criticism, something has to give.
lest you desire verifiable gov based ID tracking?
lest you desire verifiable gov based ID tracking?
This would be a huge incentive for fans to use Spotify, because it would be like a lottery for tickets of your favorite bands, then that will be huge leverage for Spotify to slash artists' commissions further. This is vendor lock-in.
>But it should be pretty easy for Spotify to look for signals that indicate real human listeners
It's not easy. There's already a market for fake listens that require real looking accounts. That existing infrastructure can be directly reused to harvest these tickets.
It's not easy. There's already a market for fake listens that require real looking accounts. That existing infrastructure can be directly reused to harvest these tickets.
Way back when I used Spotify, I felt they should go this way instead of dabbling with (fake) podcasts, pivot-to-video, audiobooks, and slop music. All of that stuff is a distraction from my core subscription model: listening to music from artists that I love, and finding new artists to love! Much better to lean into something complementary to that core model.
To keep the spammers out, limit the model to paid accounts. And just let Spotify provide the incredibly useful service of carving out a chunk of tickets for the biggest (Spotify) fans of every artist. It's hard to hate on it as someone who doesn't use Spotify -- after all, they're reserving tickets for proven fans. I hope Bandcamp and other streaming services do something similar so non-Spotify listeners can benefit and we can really squeeze the scalpers out.
To keep the spammers out, limit the model to paid accounts. And just let Spotify provide the incredibly useful service of carving out a chunk of tickets for the biggest (Spotify) fans of every artist. It's hard to hate on it as someone who doesn't use Spotify -- after all, they're reserving tickets for proven fans. I hope Bandcamp and other streaming services do something similar so non-Spotify listeners can benefit and we can really squeeze the scalpers out.
> cheaper price
lower price /psa
lower price /psa
It seems like a step in the right direction to combat scalpers.
I've wondered though... Why not have a non-transferrable ticket system? If you can't go then you return your tickets to the pool and if they sell you get your money back.
I've wondered though... Why not have a non-transferrable ticket system? If you can't go then you return your tickets to the pool and if they sell you get your money back.
Non-transferable tickets suck for their own reasons.
Someone in a group gets sick or otherwise can't make it? Their seat is now either empty, or their ticket goes back to the pool. They can't give that ticket to someone else.
That's a big deal for a whole slew of reasons. Let's pick just one reason and run with it.
Five 11-year-old-ish girls want to go see Olivia Rodrigo. These kids haven't ever even been inside an arena before and aren't experienced enough to go on their own, and the tickets are expensive. One of the moms of the group decides that she'll take them all. No problem, right?
Except: This mom gets sick. She can't go.
And she can't just give her ticket to one of the other moms or dads because it is non-transferable. And the kids still aren't big enough to turn loose in a crowd without an adult.
The end result of this is stupid: "Sorry, kids. None of you get to go to the concert that you already have a ticket for. Life is hard."
Someone in a group gets sick or otherwise can't make it? Their seat is now either empty, or their ticket goes back to the pool. They can't give that ticket to someone else.
That's a big deal for a whole slew of reasons. Let's pick just one reason and run with it.
Five 11-year-old-ish girls want to go see Olivia Rodrigo. These kids haven't ever even been inside an arena before and aren't experienced enough to go on their own, and the tickets are expensive. One of the moms of the group decides that she'll take them all. No problem, right?
Except: This mom gets sick. She can't go.
And she can't just give her ticket to one of the other moms or dads because it is non-transferable. And the kids still aren't big enough to turn loose in a crowd without an adult.
The end result of this is stupid: "Sorry, kids. None of you get to go to the concert that you already have a ticket for. Life is hard."
This is a pretty niche problem compared to the every-ticket-of-every-big-show scalper problem. This affects <1% of ticket buyers. Scalpers currently affect 100%. Seems like a pretty reasonable trade-off.
Also, solvable. Everyone needs an ID that matches ticket or to be accompanied by someone with an ID that matches a ticket purchased in the same transaction (cap number of non-ID tickets per ID ticket, don't let people appearing over 30 in on a non-ID ticket). Then, when buying tickets, allow specifying a named alternate for each ID ticket in case the person can't make it.
Also, solvable. Everyone needs an ID that matches ticket or to be accompanied by someone with an ID that matches a ticket purchased in the same transaction (cap number of non-ID tickets per ID ticket, don't let people appearing over 30 in on a non-ID ticket). Then, when buying tickets, allow specifying a named alternate for each ID ticket in case the person can't make it.
The UK is proposing a law that will make it illegal to resell a ticket for greater than the face value.
That honestly seems like a very pragmatic solution to me.
That honestly seems like a very pragmatic solution to me.
I don't know how naive the actual wording is, but fighting these kind of resells is an arms race.
If for instance they allow reselling the ticket at the same price, processing fees could be exempted from that calculation. So charging the nominal price, but with enormous fees that go to the seller's pocket in a roundabout way will work.
If processing fees are caped, the seller can request payment through a middle item that is nominally valued the same as the ticket but can actually be paid for more.
Or the reseller will accept generous tips in exchange for the ticket at the nominal price. etc. etc.
As long as there's someone willing to pay, money will find the way to the reseller.
If for instance they allow reselling the ticket at the same price, processing fees could be exempted from that calculation. So charging the nominal price, but with enormous fees that go to the seller's pocket in a roundabout way will work.
If processing fees are caped, the seller can request payment through a middle item that is nominally valued the same as the ticket but can actually be paid for more.
Or the reseller will accept generous tips in exchange for the ticket at the nominal price. etc. etc.
As long as there's someone willing to pay, money will find the way to the reseller.
Except you are losing yourself in technicalities, technicalities which court will not care about. Most judicial systems (including UK) are based on both letter AND spirit of the law : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law
Most courts will not convict your only for your actions but for the intention that fulfilled your actions. That's also why in most countries, murder and attempted murder will have the same consequences.
So you can hide your fees however you want, the court will interpret your intentions, and you'll have a hard time justifying your $250 processing fee for reselling a concert ticket.
Most courts will not convict your only for your actions but for the intention that fulfilled your actions. That's also why in most countries, murder and attempted murder will have the same consequences.
So you can hide your fees however you want, the court will interpret your intentions, and you'll have a hard time justifying your $250 processing fee for reselling a concert ticket.
Enforcement of small-scale commerce is hard, black markets exist, people will go advertise on shady sites if they have to.
Imagine you've instituted this ban, and some concert has face-value $100 tickets that now have $400 market value. The reality isn't going to be "there's now lots of $100 tickets available on StubHub", it's going to be "StubHub has no tickets, and some shady black-market website has tickets available for $400 with no consumer protections".
That said, I'm not totally against this world, since all of these inconveniences will add friction and make it less attractive and profitable to buy and scalp lots of tickets. But since I often find out about concerts kind of late, I'm also happy that there's tickets available for me at any price. I'd probably end up going to fewer concerts if we killed the legal resale market.
Imagine you've instituted this ban, and some concert has face-value $100 tickets that now have $400 market value. The reality isn't going to be "there's now lots of $100 tickets available on StubHub", it's going to be "StubHub has no tickets, and some shady black-market website has tickets available for $400 with no consumer protections".
That said, I'm not totally against this world, since all of these inconveniences will add friction and make it less attractive and profitable to buy and scalp lots of tickets. But since I often find out about concerts kind of late, I'm also happy that there's tickets available for me at any price. I'd probably end up going to fewer concerts if we killed the legal resale market.
Ireland has this and honestly I hate it now. It's impossible to get tickets unless you win the lottery to buy them when they first go on sale. Paying a premium to buy them on the second hand market sucked, but at least I could make that calculation and decide which bands I was willing to pay to actually see. Now, I can't see any of the big bands anymore. I just wish they'd reserve like 1/3 of the tickets for an auction system or something.
Well it seems like it’s still an excellent idea to have laws like this in place but like you say also have some tickets that sell at an auctioned price
Seems like that would be an easy thing to bypass. Include a free ticket with some overpriced merchandise. £600 for a T-shirt, but you get a free ticket with it.
"Great news, gentlemen! We've made [drugs/gambling/guns/scalping] illegal! That problem is solved!"
Perfect is the enemy of good. If a law can end the easier parts of the problem then the overwhelming majority of the issues go away.
For example, the UK banned the private ownership of 'short guns' in 1997 and there hasn't been a mass shooting since. The second order effect of that was an increase in knife crime, but that's OK (in the sense that it's another problem to deal with). Trading fighting gun crime for fighting knife crime is a huge win if it removes a problem like random mass shootings.
In this case, removing all of the incentives for legal ticket scalping at source would mean people can mostly benefit from access to tickets. The second order effects are likely to be an increase in ticket prices because now people with more money will be willing to pay more at source, and an increase in 'sniping' services that automate buying as fast as possible. Those are acceptable downsides if it removes people from the market who only skim profits by scalping and offer no useful additions.
For example, the UK banned the private ownership of 'short guns' in 1997 and there hasn't been a mass shooting since. The second order effect of that was an increase in knife crime, but that's OK (in the sense that it's another problem to deal with). Trading fighting gun crime for fighting knife crime is a huge win if it removes a problem like random mass shootings.
In this case, removing all of the incentives for legal ticket scalping at source would mean people can mostly benefit from access to tickets. The second order effects are likely to be an increase in ticket prices because now people with more money will be willing to pay more at source, and an increase in 'sniping' services that automate buying as fast as possible. Those are acceptable downsides if it removes people from the market who only skim profits by scalping and offer no useful additions.
The UK has done amazingly well at removing short guns from society. It was perhaps erroneous of me to include that.
But do you really think that selling/having illicitly overpriced concert tickets will have the same domestic ire as illicitly selling/having a short gun does? Will the incentive really be gone?
Or do you think that perhaps it will be seen ~the same as selling/having some weed is, instead?
But do you really think that selling/having illicitly overpriced concert tickets will have the same domestic ire as illicitly selling/having a short gun does? Will the incentive really be gone?
Or do you think that perhaps it will be seen ~the same as selling/having some weed is, instead?
Will the incentive really be gone?
The incentive will remain, but doing it at scale will be much harder. That automatically reduces the scale of the problem to what individuals (or small groups) can do. Essentially the law is stopping the mechanisation of scalping rather than scalping itself. That's probably good enough.
The incentive will remain, but doing it at scale will be much harder. That automatically reduces the scale of the problem to what individuals (or small groups) can do. Essentially the law is stopping the mechanisation of scalping rather than scalping itself. That's probably good enough.
This seems unnecessarily cynical.
It may be the case that your perspective differs from my own. I've gambled, and bought drugs, and done all kinds of other illegal things in my life.
I knew that it was illegal. I did it anyway.
I haven't bought or sold any illegally-overpriced concert tickets yet, but I'm not yet done living my life, either.
I knew that it was illegal. I did it anyway.
I haven't bought or sold any illegally-overpriced concert tickets yet, but I'm not yet done living my life, either.
Good example. In the U.K. many guns are illegal and schools don’t get shot up. In the us they are legal and school frequently get shot up.
Then allow resale through the platform at the original purchase price.
You still have no scalping, but you recover the ability to back out due to unforeseen events
You still have no scalping, but you recover the ability to back out due to unforeseen events
If there were a caveat for something like that, like say, "adult supervision for minors is required. Transfer between legal guardians is permitted, provided they can prove ..." or some kind of language like that.
Are there other common cases that would apply? I assume there are probably some other situations, but I can't think of what they might be. I also find it hard to understand why a little bit of leeway couldn't be baked into the language of the transferable nature under certain circumstances. Presumably the venue wants people to have a good time so they will want to come back again and again, right?
Perhaps something as easy as "If one friend can't make it, you can give it to a different friend." Then, at the door, the guards can look at the ID of someone and ask basic questions; "What is (person)'s name? What town does (person) live in?" Etc.
Are there other common cases that would apply? I assume there are probably some other situations, but I can't think of what they might be. I also find it hard to understand why a little bit of leeway couldn't be baked into the language of the transferable nature under certain circumstances. Presumably the venue wants people to have a good time so they will want to come back again and again, right?
Perhaps something as easy as "If one friend can't make it, you can give it to a different friend." Then, at the door, the guards can look at the ID of someone and ask basic questions; "What is (person)'s name? What town does (person) live in?" Etc.
So how do those rules work, exactly?
How do we even prove that the kids are kids? How do we prove that the kids even exist?
> or some kind of language like that.
There's nothing accomplished here but handwaving and added burden.
---
> Perhaps something as easy as "If one friend can't make it, you can give it to a different friend." Then, at the door, the guards can look at the ID of someone and ask basic questions; "What is (person)'s name? What town does (person) live in?" Etc.
In this second scenario, scalping goes like this: "For sale: Two tickets to $hot_show. Entry instructions provided upon delivery."
And then the buyer buys the tickets at whatever that price is, and goes to the show. They give their ID, the "guards" ask them basic questions, and they answer those questions. After that, they get turned loose inside like every other concert-goer.
This is just handwaving and extra burden, as well.
---
Unless... unless we make it totally Gestapo-like. Because the best part of going to see a show is the lengthy interrogation that happens beforehand. (If the goal is to make shows less popular, then this is a sure-fire way to improve that metric!)
How do we even prove that the kids are kids? How do we prove that the kids even exist?
> or some kind of language like that.
There's nothing accomplished here but handwaving and added burden.
---
> Perhaps something as easy as "If one friend can't make it, you can give it to a different friend." Then, at the door, the guards can look at the ID of someone and ask basic questions; "What is (person)'s name? What town does (person) live in?" Etc.
In this second scenario, scalping goes like this: "For sale: Two tickets to $hot_show. Entry instructions provided upon delivery."
And then the buyer buys the tickets at whatever that price is, and goes to the show. They give their ID, the "guards" ask them basic questions, and they answer those questions. After that, they get turned loose inside like every other concert-goer.
This is just handwaving and extra burden, as well.
---
Unless... unless we make it totally Gestapo-like. Because the best part of going to see a show is the lengthy interrogation that happens beforehand. (If the goal is to make shows less popular, then this is a sure-fire way to improve that metric!)
An actual transfer is needed when selling to someone you don't know/trust. But for the moms in your example, handing over the ticket just means temporarily handing over the account: share the password (assuming no password reuse habits), send over the MFA OTP, whatever it takes.
It's not ideal, but it avoids the scalping that comes from more streamlined transfers; scalpers can't easily sell burner accounts if account creation needs a non-VoIP phone number or similar.
It's not ideal, but it avoids the scalping that comes from more streamlined transfers; scalpers can't easily sell burner accounts if account creation needs a non-VoIP phone number or similar.
That doesn't work, either. We can't assume that mom-passwords aren't being reused. We can't assume that mom-phones are secure. We can't assume that the requisite moms are even aware of the same kinds of things that we here on HN are aware of.
We can't assume anything, except this promotes a new friction.
But even then: So we're letting anyone in with a valid ticket-holding account on a pocket supercomputer, without verifying that they are who they say they are?
Great! This means that the scalpers have moved on from just selling tickets, and pivot over to selling entire ticket-holding accounts.
(This is just more theatrical burden.)
We can't assume anything, except this promotes a new friction.
But even then: So we're letting anyone in with a valid ticket-holding account on a pocket supercomputer, without verifying that they are who they say they are?
Great! This means that the scalpers have moved on from just selling tickets, and pivot over to selling entire ticket-holding accounts.
(This is just more theatrical burden.)
> We can't assume that mom-passwords aren't being reused. We can't assume that mom-phones are secure. We can't assume that the requisite moms are even aware of the same kinds of things that we here on HN are aware of.
Fair enough. So rather than mom1 telling mom2 how to use mom1's account on mom2's device, mom1 lets mom2 borrow mom1's device for the show. Not her main phone where everything is logged in, but a tickets-only device where the only thing she logged into was the ticketing app.
> this promotes a new friction.
Yes, but again, the alternative is letting scalpers have their way.
> So we're letting anyone in with a valid ticket-holding account on a pocket supercomputer, without verifying that they are who they say they are?
Yes, this is how tickets work. If you show ID, it's to be able to drink, and you're doing that with a different employee than the one who takes your ticket. Note that I'm not talking about will-call or guest list entry, I'm talking about arriving with a ticket. The shift from "dumb" paper/email/PDF tickets that can be shared freely to "smart" tickets that require an app that mixes something TOTP-like into your ticket isn't for the venue to know your identity, it's to prevent multiple people from showing up with the same ticket following improper duplication.
> This means that the scalpers have moved on from just selling tickets, and pivot over to selling entire ticket-holding accounts.
No, because creating an account requires a non-SIP phone number.
Fair enough. So rather than mom1 telling mom2 how to use mom1's account on mom2's device, mom1 lets mom2 borrow mom1's device for the show. Not her main phone where everything is logged in, but a tickets-only device where the only thing she logged into was the ticketing app.
> this promotes a new friction.
Yes, but again, the alternative is letting scalpers have their way.
> So we're letting anyone in with a valid ticket-holding account on a pocket supercomputer, without verifying that they are who they say they are?
Yes, this is how tickets work. If you show ID, it's to be able to drink, and you're doing that with a different employee than the one who takes your ticket. Note that I'm not talking about will-call or guest list entry, I'm talking about arriving with a ticket. The shift from "dumb" paper/email/PDF tickets that can be shared freely to "smart" tickets that require an app that mixes something TOTP-like into your ticket isn't for the venue to know your identity, it's to prevent multiple people from showing up with the same ticket following improper duplication.
> This means that the scalpers have moved on from just selling tickets, and pivot over to selling entire ticket-holding accounts.
No, because creating an account requires a non-SIP phone number.
Jesus. So mom1 now has two phones, just in case she gets sick and can't take the kids to the party.
I stopped reading after that. I'm not sorry.
I stopped reading after that. I'm not sorry.
Reminds me of how there are people selling single game steam accounts now, to take advantage of regional pricing.
That doesn't solve anything, you can just create event-specific accounts as a scalper (which you can reset after the event has happened).
Non-transferable tickets are bound to a specific name iiuc.
Non-transferable tickets are bound to a specific name iiuc.
Tough fucking luck. I missed out on Alive 2007 because I was too young, on Lady Gaga because my partner got sick and we had to resell the tickets (at the exact same price we bought them for. And someone else bought them for that exact same price). Will I ever see Muse? Fuck if I know.
> The end result of this is stupid: "Sorry, kids. None of you get to go to the concert that you already have a ticket for. Life is hard."
Life is hard and they missed Olivia Rodrigo. The kids will survive through it, I promise. It's life, they'll see another concert. Most children in the world do not go to see concerts at 11 either.
> The end result of this is stupid: "Sorry, kids. None of you get to go to the concert that you already have a ticket for. Life is hard."
Life is hard and they missed Olivia Rodrigo. The kids will survive through it, I promise. It's life, they'll see another concert. Most children in the world do not go to see concerts at 11 either.
Understood: Kids aren't important.
Or perhaps: The suffering is the point.
Copy! Over!
Or perhaps: The suffering is the point.
Copy! Over!
Kids aren't important when you're trying to make everyone's lives worse, indeed.
I sure hope I wont't find anything in your history protesting against widespread surveillance, because as we know, its's to protect the children. But you're not a hypocrite picking and choosing your arguments to make shitty points on HN, right ?
I sure hope I wont't find anything in your history protesting against widespread surveillance, because as we know, its's to protect the children. But you're not a hypocrite picking and choosing your arguments to make shitty points on HN, right ?
> Kids aren't important when you're trying to make everyone's lives worse, indeed.
Understood it the first time, thanks: Kids aren't important. Their feelings might not even be real; and even if they are real, then the disappointment will just toughen them up (the suffering is the point).
I do not agree with what I think you're repeating, but I do believe that I've heard it twice, now.
> I sure hope I wont't find anything in your history protesting against widespread surveillance, because as we know, its's to protect the children. But you're not a hypocrite picking and choosing your arguments to make shitty points on HN, right ?
Go ahead and dig around. My writings here are an open book. My words can live in your head for as long as you want them to.
You don't need me to tell you that you're free to make as many comparisons as you wish, regardless of any incongruity in those comparisons. You're a free-thinking adult like [most of] the rest of us here on HN are.
What say you?
Understood it the first time, thanks: Kids aren't important. Their feelings might not even be real; and even if they are real, then the disappointment will just toughen them up (the suffering is the point).
I do not agree with what I think you're repeating, but I do believe that I've heard it twice, now.
> I sure hope I wont't find anything in your history protesting against widespread surveillance, because as we know, its's to protect the children. But you're not a hypocrite picking and choosing your arguments to make shitty points on HN, right ?
Go ahead and dig around. My writings here are an open book. My words can live in your head for as long as you want them to.
You don't need me to tell you that you're free to make as many comparisons as you wish, regardless of any incongruity in those comparisons. You're a free-thinking adult like [most of] the rest of us here on HN are.
What say you?
How is this different from, let's say, plane tickets?
And nobody says that tickets must not be cancelable. Just no reselling on your own.
And nobody says that tickets must not be cancelable. Just no reselling on your own.
Let's not make air travel the customer experience bar for anything please
What seperates _your_ tickets from any other returned ticket?
Wouldn't a proportional return not be better?
Wouldn't a proportional return not be better?
Don't really get why people are saying letting ticket prices rise to the maximum of what the market will bear, even if it's unaffordable to most fans, is the only solution. I've been attending shows by a certain Japanese artist since 2009, and e-tickets have pretty much killed scalping without preventing transfer to a friend (though it is a bit more annoying to do).
I suppose in theory some scalper somewhere could be demanding "venmo me $1000 in a separate transaction or I won't give you the ticket," but in practice it doesn't appear to be happening to any great extent, or to be a workable business model like standing outside the venue once was. I think it just feels a lot more of a scam-risk to the average person than meeting someone at the venue who is clearly holding a physical ticket. You don't have to 100% eliminate any possibility of scalping, just shrink the market enough to make it not worth the bother.
(And I say this as someone who kinda liked the option to overpay for tickets if I missed out on getting them at face value).
I suppose in theory some scalper somewhere could be demanding "venmo me $1000 in a separate transaction or I won't give you the ticket," but in practice it doesn't appear to be happening to any great extent, or to be a workable business model like standing outside the venue once was. I think it just feels a lot more of a scam-risk to the average person than meeting someone at the venue who is clearly holding a physical ticket. You don't have to 100% eliminate any possibility of scalping, just shrink the market enough to make it not worth the bother.
(And I say this as someone who kinda liked the option to overpay for tickets if I missed out on getting them at face value).
How do these e-tickets work?
Your ticket is tied to a particular platforms app. And you have to transfer it to another mobile number which also has to be tied to that particular platform. Both of you need to click accept or whatever in your respective apps for the transfer to go through.
Mobile number => single human has limited number of accounts and there is a limit to how many tickets an account can buy.
So scalping does happen, but only a relatively small limited amount.
Mobile number => single human has limited number of accounts and there is a limit to how many tickets an account can buy.
So scalping does happen, but only a relatively small limited amount.
How is this not just a "Spotify tax" on tickets? I don't use Spotify, and I don't want to, because it's obnoxious crippleware. Now Spotify will reserve tickets, forcing me to prove my loyalty to their platform for some reason, before attending a concert? This doesn't make any sense. And if Live Nation cares about selling to authentic people, why do they not just take the proplem into their own hands and go after the scrapers?
Auction. Auction is the answer.
Or, when a tour is announced, start tickets at 10X the regular price and have it drop down to the regular price over the course of a couple of weeks in a simple time based mechanism. After that, if tickets are not sold out it continues to drop until sold or it hits a reserve price for Door tickets.
Good for artists, fair from a market perspective and gets rid of scalpers
Or, when a tour is announced, start tickets at 10X the regular price and have it drop down to the regular price over the course of a couple of weeks in a simple time based mechanism. After that, if tickets are not sold out it continues to drop until sold or it hits a reserve price for Door tickets.
Good for artists, fair from a market perspective and gets rid of scalpers
You are overlooking the secondary effect — what happens if you, a musician, a person who lives off having a positive public image, becomes known as the kind of musician who uses free market forces to effectively price fans out? Fans will not like it. It is not rational but nothing in music is. You win the pricing battle but lose the PR war. It's bad for your business and the entire business of concerts in the long run.
And with your particular pricing scheme, there is arguably still nothing stopping scalpers from scooping up the tickets after the price drops to a level likely to be profitable for them but before fans had the time to react. In fact it would probably benefit the scalpers even more because they will have more time to track price drops than your average fan!
And with your particular pricing scheme, there is arguably still nothing stopping scalpers from scooping up the tickets after the price drops to a level likely to be profitable for them but before fans had the time to react. In fact it would probably benefit the scalpers even more because they will have more time to track price drops than your average fan!
What about both? Artists want money, fans want entry, reserve a portion for hardcore fans and the remainder by auction. Artists get to sell their $10k seats to the rich while looking like they’re giving an amazing discount to their fans.
This is a better idea, but you run into the problem of determining who are the more deserving fans, and you circle back to what Spotify is planning to do.
If you're selling out venues at 5x a normal ticket price you will quickly be playing in much larger venues until you can't sell them out except at face value
The people whose tickets get scalped are already playing in sports stadiums. There aren’t bigger venues.
The average event either doesn’t sell out or takes a while to sell out.
The average event either doesn’t sell out or takes a while to sell out.
Are the people who pay lots of money not fans?
Get a ticket to a premium area and count the "influencers" who are there just to produce content, instead of enjoying the show
> Good for artists, fair from a market perspective
Bad for fans,
just because you can pick a solution that can extract the most amount of money from the thing, doesn't mean you're required to do so, (nor are you required to suggest it.)
Bad for fans,
just because you can pick a solution that can extract the most amount of money from the thing, doesn't mean you're required to do so, (nor are you required to suggest it.)
Didn't you ever wonder why artists don't do that? Because they don't - at least not openly.
I think it's because extracting maximum value from your fans in the short term is not great if you want to have a musical career. The ones ending up with tickets will ideally, for themselves at least, be more or less indifferent to going to the concert: yes, they may get a lot out of it, but they also paid so much it was barely worth it.
Worst case, they will suffer from winner's curse, like auction winners often do: they won the auction because they were the ones who, more than everyone else, overestimated how much they'd get out of the concert.
Can you imagine the crowd mood if half the audience regrets spending so much money, and the other half is largely indifferent?
It's because artists dread this outcome that they hate scalpers, rather than becoming scalpers themselves.
I think it's because extracting maximum value from your fans in the short term is not great if you want to have a musical career. The ones ending up with tickets will ideally, for themselves at least, be more or less indifferent to going to the concert: yes, they may get a lot out of it, but they also paid so much it was barely worth it.
Worst case, they will suffer from winner's curse, like auction winners often do: they won the auction because they were the ones who, more than everyone else, overestimated how much they'd get out of the concert.
Can you imagine the crowd mood if half the audience regrets spending so much money, and the other half is largely indifferent?
It's because artists dread this outcome that they hate scalpers, rather than becoming scalpers themselves.
Not good for fans. And happy fans are good for artist. So not good for artist.
This is basically what is already happening with dynamic pricing. Tickets are now most expensive at the original sale and get cheaper over time until sold
Terrible idea. The venues would taking on all the risk and could even cancel a show if there are not enough ticket purchases because its steepest discount is only the day before the show.
A person purchasing a ticket a month or two in advance prior to the show off loads the risk from the venue. They purchase the ticket thinking they can make the show in two months because the event is a long ways away. People know what they are going to do a week advanced most of the time and therefore might just forego purchasing the ticket a that point in time, because there it has instant depreciating value at the point of sale.
A person purchasing a ticket a month or two in advance prior to the show off loads the risk from the venue. They purchase the ticket thinking they can make the show in two months because the event is a long ways away. People know what they are going to do a week advanced most of the time and therefore might just forego purchasing the ticket a that point in time, because there it has instant depreciating value at the point of sale.
Good for artist, bad for those fans who have shallow pocket.
The answer to what question?
The fact there are more people want X than the total number of X.
That’s not a question, that’s just a situation.
The live music experience would be terrible if only the richest fans can get in. Every crowd would be old and square.
Not really. The vast majority of live music isn't even able to sell tickets as nobody would pay a penny, let alone a fortune. Getting in isn't much of a problem.
Only the megastars that can command high-priced tickets would attract the old and square, which is okay because the megastars are old and square themselves by the time they've built that old and square audience. The hip and with it music fans have already moved on to seeing the next up-and-comers that play for free.
Only the megastars that can command high-priced tickets would attract the old and square, which is okay because the megastars are old and square themselves by the time they've built that old and square audience. The hip and with it music fans have already moved on to seeing the next up-and-comers that play for free.
For those against this: I'm curious to hear your take on how you'd stop/mitigate scalping.
There are many solutions.
For example - allow ticket resale only through the official platform and cap it at the original sale price.
Another approach - check IDs at the door and only let the original ticket purchaser through.
The real problem is that scalping is insanely profitable for Ticketmaster & co. They take a cut of the original sale and every subsequent transfer, most of them at highly inflated prices, from both buyer and seller. Why would they give that up?
For example - allow ticket resale only through the official platform and cap it at the original sale price.
Another approach - check IDs at the door and only let the original ticket purchaser through.
The real problem is that scalping is insanely profitable for Ticketmaster & co. They take a cut of the original sale and every subsequent transfer, most of them at highly inflated prices, from both buyer and seller. Why would they give that up?
I have some tickets to big gigs coming up and they cannot be resold. On Ticketmaster.
Because it's up to the event promoter if they want to enable it
Sure, it’s still the same Ticketmaster.
> allow ticket resale only through the official platform and cap it at the original sale price.
That obviously doesn’t work because money can still change hands outside the official platform, unless you mean resale to a random buyer selected by the platform, in which case the resale is not terribly different from a refund and restock for any event where scalping is a problem.
You simply can’t stop scalping if you allow resale. Heck, people even attempt to scalp things where there’s no official resale mechanism (e.g. I change my id at this second, you immediately change yours).
That obviously doesn’t work because money can still change hands outside the official platform, unless you mean resale to a random buyer selected by the platform, in which case the resale is not terribly different from a refund and restock for any event where scalping is a problem.
You simply can’t stop scalping if you allow resale. Heck, people even attempt to scalp things where there’s no official resale mechanism (e.g. I change my id at this second, you immediately change yours).
A lot of festivals in Europe use ticketswap, your ticket gets raffled off to a list of people interested in buying it. It's the only way to sell your ticket. It's a the original price plus a small fee
Go back to the old way. Get in line physically and go get the tickets. This is one of those "technology should help here but actually makes the problem worse in weird ways" type of situations.
Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor did this in 2018 and it was infinitely better (I also met a lot of people just standing in line—we recognized each other at the show later and ended up throwing each other around in the mosh pit—a great time) [1].
[1] https://www.nin.com/tickets2018/
Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor did this in 2018 and it was infinitely better (I also met a lot of people just standing in line—we recognized each other at the show later and ended up throwing each other around in the mosh pit—a great time) [1].
[1] https://www.nin.com/tickets2018/
I like it. Your last bit is good marketing against those who think paying a linesitter / spot holder is all upside.
Also economics of paying linesitters make it relatively much less attractive than all-digital scalping. So I think you have a solid plan. Should greatly reduce scalping.
Reminds me of technologically-inclined woman who pointed out the flawed thinking behind a grocery store handing out first-gen iPads to their shelf stockers. “I love my iPad at home but this will cost them so much time compared to pen and paper.” (Gotta go find out whatever happened to putting an RFID tag in every product, maybe they needed to hit 1/10 of a cent instead of a penny or something)
Also economics of paying linesitters make it relatively much less attractive than all-digital scalping. So I think you have a solid plan. Should greatly reduce scalping.
Reminds me of technologically-inclined woman who pointed out the flawed thinking behind a grocery store handing out first-gen iPads to their shelf stockers. “I love my iPad at home but this will cost them so much time compared to pen and paper.” (Gotta go find out whatever happened to putting an RFID tag in every product, maybe they needed to hit 1/10 of a cent instead of a penny or something)
If it can still be resold online, it won’t mitigate scalping much for on-demand shows. You can see that on any scalping-heavy items that require a person to be there physically to purchase the item (cards, collectibles from restaurants, and etc.).
Above-face-value ticket resale is illegal here and it helps a lot. But you need to make sure this gets prosecuted hard.
Above-face-value ticket resale is illegal here and it helps a lot. But you need to make sure this gets prosecuted hard.
That excludes all fans who don't live in big cities. A lot of people travel just to go to shows.
Some people drove in. A few hardcore fans came into town (Chicago) the night before and had tents set up. There were also people coordinating with friends who did live in/close to the city to get the tickets and pay them back later.
Overall, that was the last really "old world" experience I had that reminded me why technology isn't always the right solution to a problem. Since then it's felt like this [1].
[1] https://youtu.be/fnVQlwKAuLk?si=hVr30353SlKfnyRz&t=106
Overall, that was the last really "old world" experience I had that reminded me why technology isn't always the right solution to a problem. Since then it's felt like this [1].
[1] https://youtu.be/fnVQlwKAuLk?si=hVr30353SlKfnyRz&t=106
Not really. In the past you could buy tickets in tonnes of places. Ticketmaster had physical 'stores' all over and most of the big music retailers also sold tickets. Admittedly these aren't widespread anymore which poses a problem. It's also a terrible solution because it excludes people with jobs.
There used to be a Ticketmaster counter at the grocery store. You could buy groceries for the week and pick up tickets for a show at the same time.
It was a far more sane (and exciting) experience.
It was a far more sane (and exciting) experience.
> That excludes all fans who don't live in big cities. A lot of people travel just to go to shows.
Not really. The place that sells the tickets doesn't have to be the performance venue itself.
This sort of distribution was quite common pre-Internet. In theory it's even easier now, because so many of the venues have (unfortunately) consolidated under vertically integrated ownership (e.g. directly owned by Live Nation). Which incidentally, after scalping, is the biggest reason that ticket prices are so high in the first place.
Not really. The place that sells the tickets doesn't have to be the performance venue itself.
This sort of distribution was quite common pre-Internet. In theory it's even easier now, because so many of the venues have (unfortunately) consolidated under vertically integrated ownership (e.g. directly owned by Live Nation). Which incidentally, after scalping, is the biggest reason that ticket prices are so high in the first place.
[deleted]
This doesn't solve the problem and selling on the internet has become easier in the last 8 years. As we've seen recently with the Swatch Watch Riots and Pokémon Cards, professional and have-a-go scalpers are happy to stand in line for hours and resell on the internet for massive markups.
I lived through the '90s when all presales were physical and scalping absolutely happened.
It's actually a lot easier, the scalper would just hand a wad of cash to the teller and walk away with a stack of tickets to resell.
It's actually a lot easier, the scalper would just hand a wad of cash to the teller and walk away with a stack of tickets to resell.
Named tickets, like airplane seats?
Sorry, I only thought about this for 5 seconds, but there are markets where scalping doesn't cause issues. We could look at those.
Sorry, I only thought about this for 5 seconds, but there are markets where scalping doesn't cause issues. We could look at those.
This is the answer, Ive seen it in practice. You just have to show id at the door when your ticket/QR gets scanned as normal, and the names have to match. Obviously only works for over 18 events though, unless you purposely sell under and over 18 tickets seperately.
On the other hand, airplane ticketing is also notorious for stuff like overbooking flights with the assumption people won't show up and then in the rare circumstances where too many do show up, forcing people to give up their seats (in some cases even by force). I don't disagree with your thinking, but I'm hesitant to consider "what airplane tickets do" a good model for just about anything.
Concertgoer Bill of Rights - get bumped? Massive stipend, hotel room, free VIP ticket in future, & transportation+entry to a partner venue in the city with other music.
They haven’t all universally built in overbooking as a critical part of their competitive price structure or whatever, and we can stop it before it starts.
EU version for flights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passengers_Rights_Regulati...
They haven’t all universally built in overbooking as a critical part of their competitive price structure or whatever, and we can stop it before it starts.
EU version for flights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passengers_Rights_Regulati...
Fair enough, I might just be extrapolating from a few of the larger American players in the industry.
Oh could’ve mentioned we’d have to fight so hard for that hypothetical legislation… your point was totally right
I still appreciate your point here too though; when I'm concerned about a hypothetical change in a system ending up negative in the long run, failing to account for existing precedents for mitigation is something I want to be corrected on
Still have the issue of transferring tickets to friends or such if you can't make it. Axios and some providers handle this.
Anything requiring transferring "to friends" will be attempted to be used for scalping of course.
I suppose if we're requiring showing ID to attend anyway, it's not a lot worse to add an online ID verification step in order to be allowed to be a "sender" in the transfer system, and an identity is only allowed to have like 5 distinct "friends" in a rolling 12-month window.
Part of me thinks that Ticketmaster/Live Nation probably makes so much money from their own in-house scalping operation that they don't want to fix any kind of scalping problems for fear they would be somehow obligated to not participate themselves.
I suppose if we're requiring showing ID to attend anyway, it's not a lot worse to add an online ID verification step in order to be allowed to be a "sender" in the transfer system, and an identity is only allowed to have like 5 distinct "friends" in a rolling 12-month window.
Part of me thinks that Ticketmaster/Live Nation probably makes so much money from their own in-house scalping operation that they don't want to fix any kind of scalping problems for fear they would be somehow obligated to not participate themselves.
> Part of me thinks that Ticketmaster/Live Nation probably makes so much money from their own in-house scalping operation that they don't want to fix any kind of scalping problems for fear they would be somehow obligated to not participate themselves.
My dad used to joke about how many signs he'd say at baseball games saying scalping is against the rules but somehow hearing loads of StubHub ads whenever he would listen to a game on the radio.
My dad used to joke about how many signs he'd say at baseball games saying scalping is against the rules but somehow hearing loads of StubHub ads whenever he would listen to a game on the radio.
Transferring tickets to friends is functionally indistinguishable from scalping
The problem with scalping is scale. A single person reselling a single ticket is completely fine, because that is not a viable business model for enough people to distort the market. Just limit the number of tickets someone can buy to 3-5.
A scalper just pretends to be 200 different people. With 200 different emails and 200 different credit cards.
Limiting the number of tickets someone can buy doesn't protect against scalping.
Limiting the number of tickets someone can buy doesn't protect against scalping.
Or they just hire other people to move tickets around.
It works at a small scale: 5 people, 5 tickets each, and $100 profit on each seat after everyone else gets paid? That's not so hard to keep track of, and it brings in $2,500.
It also works at a larger scale: 50 people. 5 tickets each, and $100 profit on each seat? Keeping that all in-line is definitely sounding like Real Work, but it also sounds like a tax-free $25,000.
It works at a small scale: 5 people, 5 tickets each, and $100 profit on each seat after everyone else gets paid? That's not so hard to keep track of, and it brings in $2,500.
It also works at a larger scale: 50 people. 5 tickets each, and $100 profit on each seat? Keeping that all in-line is definitely sounding like Real Work, but it also sounds like a tax-free $25,000.
[deleted]
isn’t scalping selling at profit? if i sell to a friend at the same i paid it’s not really scalping …
Yes, but you can't know if the transfer happens at a profit. You can always ask the person to pay you extra on top of a "monitored" transfer.
UEFA limits this for football games by allowing you to purchase only two tickets and changing only one name, and the two tickets must go together. Or you sell back the ticket to the organization and they sell it back to random fans.
UEFA limits this for football games by allowing you to purchase only two tickets and changing only one name, and the two tickets must go together. Or you sell back the ticket to the organization and they sell it back to random fans.
Would need to provide a decent refund system alongside named tickets, offering quick and easy refunds for maybe 10% cancellation fee.
Handle it the same way airlines do. If you think you might not be able to go, then pay extra for a refundable ticket.
If you "can't make it", you just have to eat the loss. True fans will make it.
True fans don't have any loved ones fall ill? Or get called to work against their will?
If something happens to your family, maybe the last thing you should think about is grieving that you lost some juicy, juicy money on tickets which you couldn't use?
I've missed concerts due to delayed/cancelled plane flights or other booked transportation.
Darn, guess I'm not a true fan or I would've booked a private jet.
Darn, guess I'm not a true fan or I would've booked a private jet.
It's not your fault. But it's not their fault either. It's the same for events as for most other reservations: You don't get your money back if you miss it.
[deleted]
My first thought is a bunch of 12 year old girls that want to see Taylor Swift. They won't have national IDs. On the other hand, how does it work for children's airline tickets? Again, they won't have national IDs, but we know that children fly all the time -- with and without their parents.
This is how all the big video game conventions do things to prevent it, it’s very effective.
Some festivals work just like that, you upload some ID when buying your ticket which they see when you enter the venue. Feels really nice and stress free.
FIFA’s solution seems reasonable. The tickets are auctioned. EDM festivals usually have an earlier round for people who attended previous iterations which is similar to this approach by Spotify.
One way is to run an auction and provide every attendee on site with a credit code they can apply to next year’s auction. That way you tip the scales slightly towards previous attendees in a way a scalper can’t reliably access.
Another way is to run separate auctions: one for previous attendees, one for fan club members, and one for GA.
The aversion to auctions transforms everything into a lottery but I can see why they do it. The event operator takes all the heat and the artist keeps much of the benefit.
One way is to run an auction and provide every attendee on site with a credit code they can apply to next year’s auction. That way you tip the scales slightly towards previous attendees in a way a scalper can’t reliably access.
Another way is to run separate auctions: one for previous attendees, one for fan club members, and one for GA.
The aversion to auctions transforms everything into a lottery but I can see why they do it. The event operator takes all the heat and the artist keeps much of the benefit.
It's a bandaid and not a particularly good one. Spotify reserving a ticket allotment is really no different to American Express doing the exact same thing. Amex uses their allotment to attract premium members through concierge services. Spotify doesn't quite have this same upsell potential (yet?) but they're doing it to make money. We just don't know how that'll happen yet.
Defeating bot buyers, scalpers and resellers would actually be a noble goal but its' really the tip of the iceberg. If anyone was actually interested in tackling this (hint: they aren't) then you need to tackle a much bigger problem: the venue monopoly with Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
Many venus, particularly larger venues, have exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster also has an official platform for reselling tickets, of which they get a cut. In a more equitable world, you would only be able to resell tickets for their face value. It's alleged (and I believe this) that Ticketmaster only releases a tiny portion of tickets to the general public. The rest they have arrangements to sell through scalpers and resellers and their own platform because, hey, they make more profit that way.
There was a time when businesses were a tool to generate income. Small businesses still work this way. But any sufficiently sized company now is just a tool to speculate on and make a capital gain on. Ticketmaster doesn't need to grow into a trillion dollar company but they want to and, at a cewrtain point, the only way companies can continue to grow is by cutting costs and raising prices.
Back in the nascent days of Internet music piracy it was pointed out that almost no bands make enough money from selling music to live on. It's why the biggest anti-piracy advocates were huge bands like Metallica. Most bands make their living for performance fees ie playing concerts. And even then they might make barely enough to cover gas. What really gets them over the line is selling merch at the venues.
I'd say that music would be in a better state if bands could see more of the value of their labor from playing concerts. But even concerts aren't about bands or their fans anymore. They're about upselling premium services to high-net-worth clients. You ever notice that at sports venue, for example, general seating always gets mysteriously ripped out and replaced by suites? Same principle: venues make more per square foot from a corporate suite than they do from sports fans. There was a time when ordinary people would be fans of their home teams and just go to every home game. That's increasingly out of reach.
In short, the entire system is broken. Spotify participating in it won't change anything.
Defeating bot buyers, scalpers and resellers would actually be a noble goal but its' really the tip of the iceberg. If anyone was actually interested in tackling this (hint: they aren't) then you need to tackle a much bigger problem: the venue monopoly with Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
Many venus, particularly larger venues, have exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster also has an official platform for reselling tickets, of which they get a cut. In a more equitable world, you would only be able to resell tickets for their face value. It's alleged (and I believe this) that Ticketmaster only releases a tiny portion of tickets to the general public. The rest they have arrangements to sell through scalpers and resellers and their own platform because, hey, they make more profit that way.
There was a time when businesses were a tool to generate income. Small businesses still work this way. But any sufficiently sized company now is just a tool to speculate on and make a capital gain on. Ticketmaster doesn't need to grow into a trillion dollar company but they want to and, at a cewrtain point, the only way companies can continue to grow is by cutting costs and raising prices.
Back in the nascent days of Internet music piracy it was pointed out that almost no bands make enough money from selling music to live on. It's why the biggest anti-piracy advocates were huge bands like Metallica. Most bands make their living for performance fees ie playing concerts. And even then they might make barely enough to cover gas. What really gets them over the line is selling merch at the venues.
I'd say that music would be in a better state if bands could see more of the value of their labor from playing concerts. But even concerts aren't about bands or their fans anymore. They're about upselling premium services to high-net-worth clients. You ever notice that at sports venue, for example, general seating always gets mysteriously ripped out and replaced by suites? Same principle: venues make more per square foot from a corporate suite than they do from sports fans. There was a time when ordinary people would be fans of their home teams and just go to every home game. That's increasingly out of reach.
In short, the entire system is broken. Spotify participating in it won't change anything.
Two options, both of which seem to work well in venues near me:
1. When an event sells out you can join the 'waitlist' and people can offer their tickets back to the ticket company who give the person at the top of the waitlist the opportunity to purchase. All at face value. Good for the artist too as there is less chance of empty seats when people can't make it.
2. QR code tickets that rotate meaning they can't be screenshotted and sold.
1. When an event sells out you can join the 'waitlist' and people can offer their tickets back to the ticket company who give the person at the top of the waitlist the opportunity to purchase. All at face value. Good for the artist too as there is less chance of empty seats when people can't make it.
2. QR code tickets that rotate meaning they can't be screenshotted and sold.
The only real way is to pass a law against reselling tickets above face price, which is what many European countries have done
Why should anything be done? If people are willing to pay five times the face value for a ticket, then it signals that tickets are priced too low. Let the market price itself.
Harry Styles is playing in my city, he's apparently very popular, but there's still plenty of tickets available for as low as 47€ for tomorrow.
Harry Styles is playing in my city, he's apparently very popular, but there's still plenty of tickets available for as low as 47€ for tomorrow.
>Why should anything be done?
For the same reason anything is ever done about anything -- because it upsets a large enough portion of your community.
For the same reason anything is ever done about anything -- because it upsets a large enough portion of your community.
I never understood the issue with scalping and reselling tickets for a higher price. At all. And I've read a bunch of opinions here and on other forums and articles. None make any sense to me. It's a good that's being resold for profit. Not an essential one like rare medicine during a pandemic.
I think some artists want to appeal to the poorer people so pricing their tickets higher or letting the free market work out the price would damage their reputation. So it doesn't seem to be a real problem we need to solve. It's a problem some artists feel they have. Let them figure it out.
If I was an artist and I expected a full venue with tickets that cost 10, I'd start selling them at 1000, then at 500, 200, 100, 50, 20 and finally 10. If someone buys all of them at 1000 and only that person shows up - awesome! Maybe there will be less drug sales because 1 person bought all tickets but that 100x per ticket could be used to pay the vendors.
I think some artists want to appeal to the poorer people so pricing their tickets higher or letting the free market work out the price would damage their reputation. So it doesn't seem to be a real problem we need to solve. It's a problem some artists feel they have. Let them figure it out.
If I was an artist and I expected a full venue with tickets that cost 10, I'd start selling them at 1000, then at 500, 200, 100, 50, 20 and finally 10. If someone buys all of them at 1000 and only that person shows up - awesome! Maybe there will be less drug sales because 1 person bought all tickets but that 100x per ticket could be used to pay the vendors.
If you want view ticket pricing as a pure economics problem (it is not), consider that live shows are also a way to build up and expand a fanbase. If only a handful of rich people (or people who bought tickets the second they went on sale) are at your show, you are not expanding your audience. Since streaming has decimated most artists' income from record sales, it makes sense to try and build a large fanbase who will regularly come to shows as well as buy merchandise. Tours often have exclusive merchandise than fans will want to buy, so all the more reason to attract more people.
As a side note, this notion that a phenomenon being the result of market forces means it is fair and has no issues seems to be a blinkered view of the world. Surely enjoying high quality art should be possible for a broad section of society?
As a side note, this notion that a phenomenon being the result of market forces means it is fair and has no issues seems to be a blinkered view of the world. Surely enjoying high quality art should be possible for a broad section of society?
Why would "only a handful" of rich people show up? If I'm a scalper, and demand is lower than expected, I'm incentivised to resell at any price, even at a 90% discount, because I can't just sit on my stock hoping for demand to pick up later.
If anything, as an artist, I'm incentivised to seek out the whales that can absorb ridiculous prices, because they are the ones that will buy the 25 limited editions of my album.
It's not necessarily a choice between the 1000 genuine fans vs the 10 posers. If the artist is popular enough, it's between the 1000 rich genuine fans, and the 1000 broke genuine fans, so might as well please the rich. It's a selection that already happens when picking the venues. It's always London, NYC, Paris, Tokyo, and never Skopje or Pine Bluff, AK.
I'd also like the news to talk about the show "so popular people are willing to pay a fortune to see" rather than the one with plenty of cheap seats still available.
I was reading an article earlier this week about "blue dot fever". Promoters like ticketmaster show the available seats as blue dots on a plan of the venue. The more blue dots, the more seats available, which seems to lower the demand even more, by signalling that the show is not popular, which drives the status-seekers away.
If anything, as an artist, I'm incentivised to seek out the whales that can absorb ridiculous prices, because they are the ones that will buy the 25 limited editions of my album.
It's not necessarily a choice between the 1000 genuine fans vs the 10 posers. If the artist is popular enough, it's between the 1000 rich genuine fans, and the 1000 broke genuine fans, so might as well please the rich. It's a selection that already happens when picking the venues. It's always London, NYC, Paris, Tokyo, and never Skopje or Pine Bluff, AK.
I'd also like the news to talk about the show "so popular people are willing to pay a fortune to see" rather than the one with plenty of cheap seats still available.
I was reading an article earlier this week about "blue dot fever". Promoters like ticketmaster show the available seats as blue dots on a plan of the venue. The more blue dots, the more seats available, which seems to lower the demand even more, by signalling that the show is not popular, which drives the status-seekers away.
I understand what you're saying but it still mostly an issue for the artist - building a fan base. Otherwise if you have X amount of tickets to be distributed, you'll get X people at the venue, at most. Since the same number of people will show up, it's a matter of distribution. What should the distribution be? You, and many others, say it shouldn't be the richest people, or more accurately those who'd pay the highest price for the ticket. What about the poorest people, if we're talking about fairness? Should we have a quota for homeless people, too? For people of certain ethnicities, political views, sexualities, etc.? That's what I see when you talk about fairness outside of market forces - we should try to include "everyone", whatever that means. Maybe it's the most hardcore fans? So first allow people with tattoos of the artist on their chest? Yes, it's a ridiculous example, but what is fair to you? What makes a fan that will only be able to pay 10 $ not less worthy than a fan who will pay 1000 $? Will they be more worthy to attend than a fan who can only afford 0.01 $?
To me it seems it IS an economics problem - the artist needs to make money and they need to decide whether they want to optimize for the profit from ticket sales or for the profit from merch or from a broader fan base. But it's an economic problem for the artist, it's not really a societal problem or anything more major.
As a disclaimer, I'm not rich and I don't care for concerts anyway. It just doesn't make sense to single out tickets for concerts as some special thing. As an example, I'm OK with not being able to buy some fancy ethically sourced gourmet food yet I still support the company that makes it. Or maybe I won't buy it often, but I'll save up and buy it once in a while. Many parallels to be made, but of course not perfect. Still, it's not a necessity, so it's strictly an economic problem (not a moral one), mainly for the artist. Whether they want to solve it and how they want to solve it is their issue. Whether it's non-transferable tickets or ID-bound tickets with a strict policy on how they're transferred or an auction or a lottery or whatever.
To me it seems it IS an economics problem - the artist needs to make money and they need to decide whether they want to optimize for the profit from ticket sales or for the profit from merch or from a broader fan base. But it's an economic problem for the artist, it's not really a societal problem or anything more major.
As a disclaimer, I'm not rich and I don't care for concerts anyway. It just doesn't make sense to single out tickets for concerts as some special thing. As an example, I'm OK with not being able to buy some fancy ethically sourced gourmet food yet I still support the company that makes it. Or maybe I won't buy it often, but I'll save up and buy it once in a while. Many parallels to be made, but of course not perfect. Still, it's not a necessity, so it's strictly an economic problem (not a moral one), mainly for the artist. Whether they want to solve it and how they want to solve it is their issue. Whether it's non-transferable tickets or ID-bound tickets with a strict policy on how they're transferred or an auction or a lottery or whatever.
> What should the distribution be? You, and many others, say it shouldn't be the richest people, or more accurately those who'd pay the highest price for the ticket. What about the poorest people, if we're talking about fairness? Should we have a quota for homeless people, too? For people of certain ethnicities, political views, sexualities, etc.?
Geez. It is really not that hard to imagine a better outcome here.
A reasonable distribution distribution could be whatever is the result of the following: (a) each seat is priced by the artist/venue/whatever however they wish, and (b) everyone who genuinely intends to attend the concert themselves and/or is purchasing on behalf of another known person whom they believe would genuinely attend the concert themselves gets an equal opportunity to purchase the tickets at the time of release.
How you achieve such an outcome is an interesting question with lots of possible approaches, but what outcome would be adequate to achieve than the status quo really isn't some sort of unanswerable question.
Geez. It is really not that hard to imagine a better outcome here.
A reasonable distribution distribution could be whatever is the result of the following: (a) each seat is priced by the artist/venue/whatever however they wish, and (b) everyone who genuinely intends to attend the concert themselves and/or is purchasing on behalf of another known person whom they believe would genuinely attend the concert themselves gets an equal opportunity to purchase the tickets at the time of release.
How you achieve such an outcome is an interesting question with lots of possible approaches, but what outcome would be adequate to achieve than the status quo really isn't some sort of unanswerable question.
People leave out that the first selection has already happened before the tickets are even on sale, by picking the cities where the tours will stop. The new trend is for artists to stay for longer, in fewer cities, which saves them a ton of money. Like mini-residencies.
Harry Styles is giving more than 20 concerts in Europe, but only in Wembley or Amsterdam.
Harry Styles is giving more than 20 concerts in Europe, but only in Wembley or Amsterdam.
Is that bad? It's economics. The artist likely decided they'll make more money that way. Hardcore or richer fans will be able to travel to Wembley or Amsterdam. Less enthusiastic and poorer fans won't.
I can't attend most of the concerts I would go to if they were in my city and cost nothing because they're far away from where I live org because they cost a lot. I still enjoy the recordings I can download. I treat concerts as a luxury, not a necessity or a right.
I can't attend most of the concerts I would go to if they were in my city and cost nothing because they're far away from where I live org because they cost a lot. I still enjoy the recordings I can download. I treat concerts as a luxury, not a necessity or a right.
This would make sense if they were an airline and only need to maximise profits. An artist – even one who really wants to make as much money as they can – still needs to think about other things, like atmosphere (that gig with one very rich person won't be much fun), and happy fans. If she sells all tickets at $10k each then maybe she'd clear the market, but she'd piss off a lot of fans, so maybe there won't be as much demand next time.
There's a very easy solution. Put the name of the owner on the ticket. Limit the number of tickets per person. Verify the identity before entering the premises. Allow the resale at face value via the organiser's platform. Allow to resell your ticket at face value to a specific person, for the case where the friend who bought the tickets six months ago is suddenly sick.
I don't know why this is being made to look like an insurmountable problem. We're talking about multi-billion dollar companies, organising billion dollar tours.
> If she sells all tickets at $10k each then maybe she'd clear the market, but she'd piss off a lot of fans
If I was conspiracy-minded, I'd say blaming "the scalpers" would be a very convenient way of dodging responsibilities while taking a cut.
I don't know why this is being made to look like an insurmountable problem. We're talking about multi-billion dollar companies, organising billion dollar tours.
> If she sells all tickets at $10k each then maybe she'd clear the market, but she'd piss off a lot of fans
If I was conspiracy-minded, I'd say blaming "the scalpers" would be a very convenient way of dodging responsibilities while taking a cut.
> Allow to resell your ticket at face value to a specific person, for the case where the friend who bought the tickets six months ago is suddenly sick.
This allows scalping.
And then, since scalping is not prevented, all that these measures really accomplish is to theatrically increase the burden for everyone else.
This allows scalping.
And then, since scalping is not prevented, all that these measures really accomplish is to theatrically increase the burden for everyone else.
It does not, because you can only resell at face value. There's no profit incentive.
This utopia wherein everyone is completely law-abiding and eager to follow every rule does not exist.
What utopia? Each person can buy a maximum of 4 tickets. A ticket has a name on it. You can't use it if it's not yours. To change the name on the ticket, you need to go through the official platform, where you can only resell it for at most face value.
It's not exactly a project Manhattan level of breakthrough we're talking about here. The incentives to scalp are vastly reduced. Sure, I could buy four tickets and resell three of them, but I would still need to physically go to the venue to walk people in. It just doesn't scale.
It's not exactly a project Manhattan level of breakthrough we're talking about here. The incentives to scalp are vastly reduced. Sure, I could buy four tickets and resell three of them, but I would still need to physically go to the venue to walk people in. It just doesn't scale.
If I can sell a ticket to a specific person, then I can also set my own price for that ticket.
The platform doesn't need to support it, not do the rules and laws.
It's very straightforward: The buyer either meets my terms or there is no sale.
The platform doesn't need to support it, not do the rules and laws.
It's very straightforward: The buyer either meets my terms or there is no sale.
Then skip the resale to specific persons, ask for each participant's name at purchase time like for airplane tickets. Problem solved.
> Then skip the resale to specific persons, ask for each participant's name at purchase time like for airplane tickets. Problem solved.
Awesome. Let's just add the frictions of flying to the concert-going experience.
That's a pretty good way to eliminate scalping: Just make it such a pain in the ass to attend that the seats never sell out to begin with.
Other than being terrible, this sounds like a great idea!
Awesome. Let's just add the frictions of flying to the concert-going experience.
That's a pretty good way to eliminate scalping: Just make it such a pain in the ass to attend that the seats never sell out to begin with.
Other than being terrible, this sounds like a great idea!
You're letting middlemen profit from providing zero value to society. Artists don't benefit. Fans don't benefit. Scalpers benefit.
It should be obvious we want a system that is optimally beneficial to artists and fans rather than middlemen.
It should be obvious we want a system that is optimally beneficial to artists and fans rather than middlemen.
> Why should anything be done?
Because there is demand for it. A lot of people like going to live music and theatre events and scalpers make it more difficult and more expensive for them.
Why shouldn't anything be done? Because capitalism is God?
Because there is demand for it. A lot of people like going to live music and theatre events and scalpers make it more difficult and more expensive for them.
Why shouldn't anything be done? Because capitalism is God?
A lot of people like going to live music and theatre events and scalpers make it more difficult and more expensive for them
Scalpers make it possible to get a ticket at market price, instead of maybe being able to get it for less and maybe not being able to get it at any price. It's not at all clear that the latter is better.
Scalpers make it possible to get a ticket at market price, instead of maybe being able to get it for less and maybe not being able to get it at any price. It's not at all clear that the latter is better.
The "market price" you're talking about, is set by how many scalpers are creating scarcity. If the number of scalpers is 0, then the "market price" is different. It becomes the price that both the vendor is willing to sell for, and the event visitor is willing to buy for. Which is a more desirable "market price" to achieve.
The only thing scalpers make possible, is pricing out people that the vendor wanted to sell tickets to.
The only thing scalpers make possible, is pricing out people that the vendor wanted to sell tickets to.
Scalpers are the primary reason it’s practically impossible to get a ticket at face price in the first place
The only way that could possibly be true is if the price the scalpers charged was the face price they had to pay.
In that world, there wouldn't be scalpers.
In that world, there wouldn't be scalpers.
Are you unaware that scalpers are set up to hoover up as many tickets as possible before an actual person that wants to visit the event can get one? Because it seems like you are?
I'm aware. But I'm also aware that in the absence of customers, the scalper's prices will fall to zero.
If the scalper has enough customers that he can sell out the show above the face price of the tickets, the existence of those customers is sufficient to make it "practically impossible to get a ticket at face price" whether the scalper exists or not.
If the scalper has enough customers that he can sell out the show above the face price of the tickets, the existence of those customers is sufficient to make it "practically impossible to get a ticket at face price" whether the scalper exists or not.
I'm probably one of the least capitalism-minded commenters on HN, but this is a case where I'm happy to let the market sort itself out. It's not food, shelter, medicine, or housing.
I'm absolutely not convinced that the problem is as widespread as people make it out to be, outside of a few big names or events.
> Why shouldn't anything be done? Because capitalism is God?
Because it's just the system manifesting itself. There are winners and losers, and the winners are usually those with the most money.
I really find it odd to see people being this vocal for Taylor Swift tickets or Pokemon cards. If I use my capital to buy ten houses to rent, then I'm an investor. If I use it to outbid a city for electricity to feed my data center, then I'm a captain of industry. But the shiny charmander card is where people draw the line?
I'm absolutely not convinced that the problem is as widespread as people make it out to be, outside of a few big names or events.
> Why shouldn't anything be done? Because capitalism is God?
Because it's just the system manifesting itself. There are winners and losers, and the winners are usually those with the most money.
I really find it odd to see people being this vocal for Taylor Swift tickets or Pokemon cards. If I use my capital to buy ten houses to rent, then I'm an investor. If I use it to outbid a city for electricity to feed my data center, then I'm a captain of industry. But the shiny charmander card is where people draw the line?
>But the shiny charmander card is where people draw the line?
this isn't just about trendy commercial items. Michael Sandel in 'The Moral Limits of Markets' called this 'Skyboxification'. These mechanisms like scalping affect sport events where people of different classes used to sit next to each other and where now low income earners are either priced out or delegated to the backrow. Cultural spaces that do not separate people into 'winners' or 'losers' but treat people equally are the basis of any civil society. It's where people from different walks of life come into contact.
One guy driving a nicer car or having a nicer watch than another person is fine but when you start tearing apart culture, sports, art, music you end up with well, the US of today https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-money-cant-buy_b_1442128
this isn't just about trendy commercial items. Michael Sandel in 'The Moral Limits of Markets' called this 'Skyboxification'. These mechanisms like scalping affect sport events where people of different classes used to sit next to each other and where now low income earners are either priced out or delegated to the backrow. Cultural spaces that do not separate people into 'winners' or 'losers' but treat people equally are the basis of any civil society. It's where people from different walks of life come into contact.
One guy driving a nicer car or having a nicer watch than another person is fine but when you start tearing apart culture, sports, art, music you end up with well, the US of today https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-money-cant-buy_b_1442128
The only real solutions to scalping are to impact supply/demand by increasing supply (extra show in each city) or lower demand (raise prices). As a jazz fan I don’t know much about shows that sell out and attract scalpers, but I’m curious why the artists don’t double prices to cut out middlemen.
> by increasing supply
Er, I don't feel like you're thinking of what "supply" means here. We can't clone humans (yet). How many times do you expect a singer to sing in each city in a tour?
Er, I don't feel like you're thinking of what "supply" means here. We can't clone humans (yet). How many times do you expect a singer to sing in each city in a tour?
Jazz clubs book the same act for a week at a time. If there’s enough demand to fill a stadium for 4 nights in a row for a pop star, that sounds super efficient to me.
> but I’m curious why the artists don’t double prices to cut out middlemen
That is essentially what they have done. Ticketmaster is basically "We take PR heat to make you more money".
That is essentially what they have done. Ticketmaster is basically "We take PR heat to make you more money".
They would to multiple the prices multiple times to even discourage the middlemen, gentrifying at the same time the fan base, which is sad
It is, but it still feels better that the money goes toward the artist than it does to go to a middleman.
Reality is there is no good solution IMO, no matter what you do, someone is missing out. Just the reality of supply vs demand.
Reality is there is no good solution IMO, no matter what you do, someone is missing out. Just the reality of supply vs demand.
Perhaps it depends on your "Ship of Theseus" perspective, but we have all kinds of evidence that demonstrates music fans are quite often more than happy to see a live performance of a set of songs they've come to love even when not performed by the original artists. Look at how many bands are still selling out arenas even when original members are no longer with us.
Presumably individuals involved in these cases are already tapped out for how many performances they can do, so why not have other people put on the same show to expand the supply?
Presumably individuals involved in these cases are already tapped out for how many performances they can do, so why not have other people put on the same show to expand the supply?
I'd rather them just go straight to lottery limited by government ID.
Spotify's solution can't remain completely anonymous because Spotify will need to limit botters and verify attendee identity at the door. So we're all just pretending that ID isn't involved, and there's no reason Spotify needs to be in the middle.
Spotify's solution obviously sucks for non-platform users, and if the implementation is "sort fans by listen hours in the last month to find true fans", it would also suck for fans who can't listen at work, fans who were on vacation, fans who don't like the latest album as much, etc. This is basically the modern equivalent of JPop/KPop acts putting concert lottery tickets in CDs and forcing a gross incentive on the fan.
Spotify's solution can't remain completely anonymous because Spotify will need to limit botters and verify attendee identity at the door. So we're all just pretending that ID isn't involved, and there's no reason Spotify needs to be in the middle.
Spotify's solution obviously sucks for non-platform users, and if the implementation is "sort fans by listen hours in the last month to find true fans", it would also suck for fans who can't listen at work, fans who were on vacation, fans who don't like the latest album as much, etc. This is basically the modern equivalent of JPop/KPop acts putting concert lottery tickets in CDs and forcing a gross incentive on the fan.
I recently bought tickets to a concert in France (I live in Germany) and ended up not being able to travel and had to resell my tickets. Apparently according to French law you are not allowed to resell a ticket above its face value and so I had to resell it through the same ticketing company I bought it. They allowed me to set a price with up to a maximum amount which was less than how much I bought it (by a Euro or two) to cover their fees. It was also possible to name a specific buyer who would then get be able to buy your ticket.
Maybe there’s still another way for scalpels to game this system, I don’t know, but I’ve been to a few concerts in Paris and I’ve never seen scalpels hanging outside the venue selling tickets, which would be the norm in Germany, so maybe the system does work.
Maybe there’s still another way for scalpels to game this system, I don’t know, but I’ve been to a few concerts in Paris and I’ve never seen scalpels hanging outside the venue selling tickets, which would be the norm in Germany, so maybe the system does work.
I assume the scalpers demand their additional payment first and upon receipt, name the buyer who can buy the ticket "for face value".
It's trivially easy for scalpers to game that system.
Of course, but not by "hanging out outside the venue selling tickets".
So if not seeing them there means the problem is solved, this problem is in fact easy to solve.
So if not seeing them there means the problem is solved, this problem is in fact easy to solve.
so they're partnering with Live Nation, the same company that's part of the vertically integrated monopoly on ticketing, venues, and resale. Nobody is buying these tickets for cash from a scalper outside of the venue. My 2-min tought: tie use of the ticket to the payment method or id of the purchaser; allow limited transfers. If LN/TM actually cared they'd provide for risk-free transfer without charging ridiculous mark-up. Since they sell the orginial ticket 95% of the time they have almost complete control over the pricing and consumer's id.
New idea: You have to tie a valid credit card to a ticket in order to transfer it, if the card doesn't authorize for $500 at the gate, admission is denied, and the ticket can be used to charge unlimited concessions and merch to the original buyer's card. If a scalper sells a ticket to a stranger, the customer could bankrupt them at the show.
Have the tickets debut at a very high price and get cheaper towards event day. This encourages folks to wait and scalpers to lose money. Enables privacy, although other factors are working to eliminate it.
Not a direct answer to your question but go to see local bands. The ticket prices are way better and so is the crowd and the show.
I know this doesn't work for most subscribers to mass media culture, but I'm right there with you. Personally I kind of hate celebrity as a social phenomenon, and I love seeing an amazing talented set and then getting to talk with the musician afterward. I don't give Live Nation my money.
My 12 year daughter REALLY doesn't care about the local band scene. Avoiding mass media culture is alright for weirdos and nerds like us that can get in line physically for NIN tickets because of feelings and nostalgia, but that is not viable for 90%+ of people.
As a parent, you have an opportunity to help her experience music on a different level. I know that is not a trivial thing to do, I have teenagers in my life too.
Make it illegal to sell tickets above face value.
I was a big fan of what the Cure did, they played our town and they did not allow any tickets to be resold for anything above what they originally went for.
Non-transferable I think? But you could resell them via ticketmaster maybe for facevalue?
It was amazing, we sat on the ticketmaster page, refreshed over the course of a day and we got 8th row for I believe $75 - it was an amazing concert, and being able to pay a reasonable price for tickets like that was amazing.
Non-transferable I think? But you could resell them via ticketmaster maybe for facevalue?
It was amazing, we sat on the ticketmaster page, refreshed over the course of a day and we got 8th row for I believe $75 - it was an amazing concert, and being able to pay a reasonable price for tickets like that was amazing.
How does this not just bias who gets ticket to those with more time preference.
willingness to stand in line for a ticket probably correlates well with fandom
Standing in line is (today) a digital process that a scalper can trivially scale
It seems unlikely they'd continue to do do that if they weren't able to flip it at a higher price later
X$ for the ticket plus a convenience fee/service fee for standing in line.
It seems baked into the concept of "reselling can't be done at a higher value" that transfers would have to be limited to a platform where that sort of thing is prevented. For example, if the reselling market is just "add your ticket to the pool for people to buy, and if someone does, they get the ticket and you get the money", there's no way for the sellers to contact the buyers, so I'm not sure how you'd envision an out-of-band payment occurring.
Why bother if there’s no profit?
How does willingness to pay more money not correlate with fandom?
Willingness to pay is not the same as ability to pay.
Livestream more things and sell digital tickets. Doesn’t do anything directly, but acts as a substitute to shift demand away. Not much point in scalping tickets to a livestream unless the supply is limited, either by an artificial cap or technical constraints.
Spotify is another entity dipping into the limited pool of available tickets and further limiting supply. I don't pay for/use Spotify and don't want to, so as far as I'm concerned this is only worsening the problem by further constraining the supply of tickets available to me.
Yeah, I’m not against the idea, but I don’t have a Spotify membership. They’re simply not my music vendor of choice.
Why should that lock me out of a reasonable reservation system?
We have a massive centralization problem in these industries and this doesn’t fix it.
Why should that lock me out of a reasonable reservation system?
We have a massive centralization problem in these industries and this doesn’t fix it.
They might limit supply early on but they also increase supply when they later sell the tickets, so the net effect on supply is zero (unless they leave many tickets unsold, which would be stupid of them).
Same here.
I’m against it from these angles:
1. I like live concerts but I don’t spend my days listening to a lot of music. I would be considered “not a fan” by these metrics.
2 The monopolistic aspect. I subscribe to a much smaller Spotify competitor, now I’m at a disadvantage.
3. I don’t consider scalping a problem. The market price is determined by demand. It’s also been a problem that has been solved by artist presales and fan club gates.
I also think that as a recognized monopoly Ticketmaster should have more limitations on its business model. For example, their compassion on resale tickets should be limited. At present, they are encouraged to double dip on fees by finding ways to send more tickets to the secondary market.
1. I like live concerts but I don’t spend my days listening to a lot of music. I would be considered “not a fan” by these metrics.
2 The monopolistic aspect. I subscribe to a much smaller Spotify competitor, now I’m at a disadvantage.
3. I don’t consider scalping a problem. The market price is determined by demand. It’s also been a problem that has been solved by artist presales and fan club gates.
I also think that as a recognized monopoly Ticketmaster should have more limitations on its business model. For example, their compassion on resale tickets should be limited. At present, they are encouraged to double dip on fees by finding ways to send more tickets to the secondary market.
You are just being punished for your poor judgement for not backing the winner. Not sure why you should be rewarded.
It's the same logic for de-googlers. You can't De-Google yourself and then bitch about some Google products work better on Google products.
If you are a proud edge-lord/hipster with your obscure choices, you should also learn to deal with consequences.
Scale brings advantages. You can't have it both ways
It's the same logic for de-googlers. You can't De-Google yourself and then bitch about some Google products work better on Google products.
If you are a proud edge-lord/hipster with your obscure choices, you should also learn to deal with consequences.
Scale brings advantages. You can't have it both ways
So your view is “accept a monopoly and become their bitch?”
I use a competitor to Spotify because I like the other product better overall. It’s a better value and better suited to my needs. I never said I’m using something else just to stick it to Spotify or become an edgelord.
I’m perfectly happy to be “punished” by missing some concerts. I think you misunderstand my comment as complaining about the situation. I really don’t care that much, I just am giving my opinion that this is a system that doesn’t seem ideal to me.
Many artists are struggling to fill seats right now. The industry can have fun trying silly schemes like this while they cancel tours in oversized venues.
I use a competitor to Spotify because I like the other product better overall. It’s a better value and better suited to my needs. I never said I’m using something else just to stick it to Spotify or become an edgelord.
I’m perfectly happy to be “punished” by missing some concerts. I think you misunderstand my comment as complaining about the situation. I really don’t care that much, I just am giving my opinion that this is a system that doesn’t seem ideal to me.
Many artists are struggling to fill seats right now. The industry can have fun trying silly schemes like this while they cancel tours in oversized venues.
Tickets can’t be resold. You can get a refund, but the ticket goes back to the vendor and the seat goes on sale through their site, with a randomized delay.
In the UK they're making it illegal to resell tickets for more than the original cost. That should deal with the majority of the problem.
Scalpers will just do two transactions, one high one for the privilege of being able to buy the ticket, and then the sale at the listed limit.
No, the real solution is to make tickets strictly id-bound and non-transferable in any way.
No, the real solution is to make tickets strictly id-bound and non-transferable in any way.
> Scalpers will just do two transactions, one high one for the privilege of being able to buy the ticket, and then the sale at the listed limit.
I don’t understand this. If you can’t resell for higher than ticket price, how do they make any profit? Are you saying they’d sell the cheaper ticket for the more expensive ticket’s price? Wouldn’t price stick to the ticket, since presumably different price tiers afford different location/etc?
I don’t understand this. If you can’t resell for higher than ticket price, how do they make any profit? Are you saying they’d sell the cheaper ticket for the more expensive ticket’s price? Wouldn’t price stick to the ticket, since presumably different price tiers afford different location/etc?
First transaction would be outside the channel. e.g., scalper may require high-value Venmo or Zelle transaction, then enter buyer ID / name on ticket website at listed limit.
But buying from scalpers only really works when they’ve already bought out the supply. Couldn’t people just go right to the ticket site instead of through a scalper? The only way this would work is if the scalpers got all the tickets into the temporary hold, but that would be a huge coordination problem to do that and connect with potential buyers in the 7 minute window or whatever.
This reads like you just made up a workaround without reading the proposed law or without looking at the reality of the situation in other countries that it has been implemented. Your suggested workaround doesn't work.
[deleted]
I'm a perfect world, artists would rent a facility and sell/resell their own tickets (or partner with a ticket processor that offers price caps on resales) thereby controlling the issuance and resale of tickets. In reality, the facilities often have their own deals with people like ticketmaster and the artist has no control. It works out for the artist because they lock in the msrp of every ticket and don't have to deal with demand. But it sucks for the fans. Capitalism.
This is ultimately a supply and demand problem. If tickets sell out on the secondary market for 10 or 100x the face value, then that's the fair market price. Either artists should charge more, or perform more shows.
No, it‘s an audience/artist experience problem. I worked for one of Australia's biggest outdoor summer music festivals through the 2000s (I built a direct ticket selling platform for them). Their popularity grew each year, and, sure, they could have just raised their prices to try and match supply and demand. They 100% did not want to do that because they knew it would completely change the audience demographics and make a less fun event for everyone to attend and a less fun event for the artists to perform at, thus making it harder to attract audiences and artists in future years.
They ended up being acquired by a company that was much more into charging top dollar to big-spenders. The company was ultimately acquired by Live Nation and the ticket prices kept increasing until suddenly ticket sales stopped, and that whole category of festivals is now largely dead in Australia.
They ended up being acquired by a company that was much more into charging top dollar to big-spenders. The company was ultimately acquired by Live Nation and the ticket prices kept increasing until suddenly ticket sales stopped, and that whole category of festivals is now largely dead in Australia.
It sounds like they found the price ceiling. Trying to pick your customers is a fools errand, particularly with a music festival where tastes change and people age out.
The point is that it's not simply “a supply and demand problem” when you factor in downstream effects. The product is not merely the performance; the audience makeup and energy is a crucial part of the experience, and they also influence the artist's ability to deliver the best performance.
It's no good optimizing for simple supply and demand in one year if it destroys the product and therefore demand in subsequent years, which is what we're seeing the market. I'm familiar with libertarian principles, but every libertarian economist I've paid attention to has emphasized the importance of second-order effects.
It's no good optimizing for simple supply and demand in one year if it destroys the product and therefore demand in subsequent years, which is what we're seeing the market. I'm familiar with libertarian principles, but every libertarian economist I've paid attention to has emphasized the importance of second-order effects.
I mean sure, you don;t want to drive away your audience, but the existence of a second hand market with much high prices clearly means you aren't pricing tickets correctly. The existence of the scalper with the 10 or 100x price is the second-order effect of under pricing, and everything Ive read already suggests that audience makeups are changing at music festivals as more tickets are bought second hand at these considerable markups.
> the existence of a second hand market with much high prices clearly means you aren't pricing tickets correctly
Only if you think spending power is the only criterion that matters when considering who you want coming to the event, and my whole point is that this is not (always) true, given that audience demographics influence the experience and the quality of the performance.
> everything Ive read already suggests that audience makeups are changing at music festivals as more tickets are bought second hand at these considerable markups
For some events, sure, like Coachella and concerts promoted by Live Nation, whose approach is to maximize ticket revenues and who are able to take a cut of the resale price via Ticketmaster's official resale marketplace (though, as I explained in the first comment, this can damage the experience and destroy the brand value of the festival over the long term, as happened in Australia).
Other festivals, like Glastonbury, actively eschew this approach, and have remained relevant and youth-oriented for five decades now.
And the very reason we're having this conversation is that some artists want to reserve at least some of their tickets for buyers who can be qualified more by authentic enthusiasm than spending power, with listening time on Spotify being an interesting proxy for authentic enthusiasm.
Only if you think spending power is the only criterion that matters when considering who you want coming to the event, and my whole point is that this is not (always) true, given that audience demographics influence the experience and the quality of the performance.
> everything Ive read already suggests that audience makeups are changing at music festivals as more tickets are bought second hand at these considerable markups
For some events, sure, like Coachella and concerts promoted by Live Nation, whose approach is to maximize ticket revenues and who are able to take a cut of the resale price via Ticketmaster's official resale marketplace (though, as I explained in the first comment, this can damage the experience and destroy the brand value of the festival over the long term, as happened in Australia).
Other festivals, like Glastonbury, actively eschew this approach, and have remained relevant and youth-oriented for five decades now.
And the very reason we're having this conversation is that some artists want to reserve at least some of their tickets for buyers who can be qualified more by authentic enthusiasm than spending power, with listening time on Spotify being an interesting proxy for authentic enthusiasm.
The last/marginal ticket in the venue sells for 10x face value. The majority of tickets don’t sell for much more than face value.
Taylor Swift can’t realistically play more shows than she did during the Eras Tour, and it’s unlikely that she’d have sold a million seats in London if she were charging much more than she did.
Taylor Swift can’t realistically play more shows than she did during the Eras Tour, and it’s unlikely that she’d have sold a million seats in London if she were charging much more than she did.
It seems like you could sell tickets in tranches at tiered prices. It seems very tractable. I suspect artists don't want to look greedy by personally charging what fans are often willing to pay.
> The last/marginal ticket in the venue sells for 10x face value.
That's only if the event sells out. The ticket should have sold for a higher price such that the demand was exactly the number of seats available.
That's only if the event sells out. The ticket should have sold for a higher price such that the demand was exactly the number of seats available.
There is a physical limit to how many shows you can put on and the Economics 101 explanation of ticket pricing misses the part where the price of the ticket is a part of the whole image the musician is selling to the audiences.
Taylor Swift can probably still sell out if she raises the price ten fold, but what kind message does this send to her average listeners? What does it mean if the most popular popular musician of our times prices the populace out? You can of course dismiss the likely negative responses as emotional and irrational, but that's the whole deal with art and culture. You can't build a fan base without catering to their emotions.
And then on the other extreme of music you have people like Fugazi, whose low ticket pricing is very obviously a part of the band's entire artistic and ideological project.
If you want to see what happens when you apply supply and demand to ticket pricing, you can just look at your nearest big league sports team. The recent trend seems to be jacking up the prices as much as they can get away with and catering more and more to VIP guests who spend a fortune in one of those "hospitality" suites. Perhaps not a coincidence that less and less people, especially younger people, around me are casually into sports these days. They got told that they are not welcome in the corporate owned sports venue and they take their attention elsewhere, and all it's left are a dwindling set of diehard fans and C-suite people who are there not for sports but for overpriced steak dinners and are too nicely dressed to cheer for their home team.
Taylor Swift can probably still sell out if she raises the price ten fold, but what kind message does this send to her average listeners? What does it mean if the most popular popular musician of our times prices the populace out? You can of course dismiss the likely negative responses as emotional and irrational, but that's the whole deal with art and culture. You can't build a fan base without catering to their emotions.
And then on the other extreme of music you have people like Fugazi, whose low ticket pricing is very obviously a part of the band's entire artistic and ideological project.
If you want to see what happens when you apply supply and demand to ticket pricing, you can just look at your nearest big league sports team. The recent trend seems to be jacking up the prices as much as they can get away with and catering more and more to VIP guests who spend a fortune in one of those "hospitality" suites. Perhaps not a coincidence that less and less people, especially younger people, around me are casually into sports these days. They got told that they are not welcome in the corporate owned sports venue and they take their attention elsewhere, and all it's left are a dwindling set of diehard fans and C-suite people who are there not for sports but for overpriced steak dinners and are too nicely dressed to cheer for their home team.
I think its more complicated than that. An artist is pretty constrained by how many shows they can play in a given area which makes the total market for any given show really small and trivially manipulated for profit.
This may come as a shock to capitalists, but some artists don't want to charge their fans more. Fugazi famously capped their ticket prices at $5 because they wanted their shows to be affordable.
Fan club lottery.
I agree with the libertarians on this. Scalping isn't an issue. People who are willing to pay more for tickets should get them. Concert tickets are not basic needs like housing or food.
If there is room for arbitrage (which is what scalping really is) then the tickets are too cheap in the first place.
If there is room for arbitrage (which is what scalping really is) then the tickets are too cheap in the first place.
I agree with supply and demand dictating the price on scarce items. I don’t agree with letting middlemen butt in and drive the price up by exacerbating the scarcity, and making a profit with no value add to the market.
> no value add to the market.
Markets are more efficient than you give them credit for. If there was no value-add it wouldn't happen. The value-add is that the scalpers take the risk and hassle off of the artist/venue. They can instantly sell out and then get back to worrying about the actual performance. Selling the tickets at their fair market value initially sounds good in theory, but then you have to spend weeks and months trying to get them sold, which is not a core competency a musical artist really wants to have. It is advantageous to underprice and know that you are sold out upfront and let someone else deal with the slog.
It's much the same as why wholesalers sell to Walmart for pennies on the dollar instead of trying to capture the retail market themselves. Selling direct to retail seems like a good idea... until you have to do it and realize you'd rather get back to what it is you're actually good at producing.
Markets are more efficient than you give them credit for. If there was no value-add it wouldn't happen. The value-add is that the scalpers take the risk and hassle off of the artist/venue. They can instantly sell out and then get back to worrying about the actual performance. Selling the tickets at their fair market value initially sounds good in theory, but then you have to spend weeks and months trying to get them sold, which is not a core competency a musical artist really wants to have. It is advantageous to underprice and know that you are sold out upfront and let someone else deal with the slog.
It's much the same as why wholesalers sell to Walmart for pennies on the dollar instead of trying to capture the retail market themselves. Selling direct to retail seems like a good idea... until you have to do it and realize you'd rather get back to what it is you're actually good at producing.
Yeah, it's just arbitrage.
They're just profiting from the difference between the cost of the item and what people are willing to pay for an item. Simple market economics, right?
As should be obvious: Since it can be explained by capitalism and we even have a nice neat concise word with which to describe it, then there's nothing to hate there. /s
> It's much the same as why wholesalers sell to Walmart for pennies on the dollar instead of trying to capture the retail market themselves. Selling direct to retail sounds good... until you have to do it and realize you'd rather get back to what it is you're actually good at.
It is not the same. Unlike Wal-Mart, scalpers do not buy truckloads of tickets at wholesale prices. They instead buy truckloads of tickets at retail prices -- and then increase the price even more.
And unlike a manufacturer like Proctor & Gamble (with zero or very limited direct-to-consumer sales), the combination of venue, artist, and ticket broker (eg Ticketmaster) is already equipped to handle direct consumer sales. They're quite good at doing so and their entire business model revolves around maintaining this ability.
The scalper is just an added, unnecessary layer. If scalpers somehow disappeared completely today, then yesterday's sell-out shows will still be sell-out shows tomorrow.
Scalpers provide zero value to the transaction.
They're just profiting from the difference between the cost of the item and what people are willing to pay for an item. Simple market economics, right?
As should be obvious: Since it can be explained by capitalism and we even have a nice neat concise word with which to describe it, then there's nothing to hate there. /s
> It's much the same as why wholesalers sell to Walmart for pennies on the dollar instead of trying to capture the retail market themselves. Selling direct to retail sounds good... until you have to do it and realize you'd rather get back to what it is you're actually good at.
It is not the same. Unlike Wal-Mart, scalpers do not buy truckloads of tickets at wholesale prices. They instead buy truckloads of tickets at retail prices -- and then increase the price even more.
And unlike a manufacturer like Proctor & Gamble (with zero or very limited direct-to-consumer sales), the combination of venue, artist, and ticket broker (eg Ticketmaster) is already equipped to handle direct consumer sales. They're quite good at doing so and their entire business model revolves around maintaining this ability.
The scalper is just an added, unnecessary layer. If scalpers somehow disappeared completely today, then yesterday's sell-out shows will still be sell-out shows tomorrow.
Scalpers provide zero value to the transaction.
> They instead buy truckloads of tickets at retail prices
Clearly that's not true. Retail charges what the consumer is willing to pay. If the tickets were sold retail there would be no consistent arbitrage opportunity.
There may have been some point in history where artists tried to sell retail, which may be the source of your confusion, but nowadays these tickets are purposely sold below retail value so that they can sell out fast to the retailers, removing the risk at the origin.
Smaller/lesser known acts still have to focus on the retail market as there is no middleman willing to step in and take on the retail role, which may also be the source of your confusion, but that isn't the segment of the market we're talking about.
> Scalpers provide zero value to the transaction.
Aside from the value of knowing that all the tickets are sold, which is of enormous value. It is estimated that it costs around five million dollars to put on a single Taylor Swift performance. At that scale, things get scary fast if you find out that tickets still aren't sold at the last minute.
Markets are pretty efficient. It wouldn't happen if there was no value in it. Why would an artist give up the profits captured by the retailers if there was no value in having a retailer? They wouldn't, of course. Even if they have no personal need for even more money, that is money that can be used to better serve the fans. It is not given up lightly. It is given up because it is worth it.
Clearly that's not true. Retail charges what the consumer is willing to pay. If the tickets were sold retail there would be no consistent arbitrage opportunity.
There may have been some point in history where artists tried to sell retail, which may be the source of your confusion, but nowadays these tickets are purposely sold below retail value so that they can sell out fast to the retailers, removing the risk at the origin.
Smaller/lesser known acts still have to focus on the retail market as there is no middleman willing to step in and take on the retail role, which may also be the source of your confusion, but that isn't the segment of the market we're talking about.
> Scalpers provide zero value to the transaction.
Aside from the value of knowing that all the tickets are sold, which is of enormous value. It is estimated that it costs around five million dollars to put on a single Taylor Swift performance. At that scale, things get scary fast if you find out that tickets still aren't sold at the last minute.
Markets are pretty efficient. It wouldn't happen if there was no value in it. Why would an artist give up the profits captured by the retailers if there was no value in having a retailer? They wouldn't, of course. Even if they have no personal need for even more money, that is money that can be used to better serve the fans. It is not given up lightly. It is given up because it is worth it.
>> And unlike a manufacturer like Proctor & Gamble (with zero or very limited direct-to-consumer sales), the combination of venue, artist, and ticket broker (eg Ticketmaster) is already equipped to handle direct consumer sales. They're quite good at doing so and their entire business model revolves around maintaining this ability.
Read that again.
Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do, from the same retail outlets that you or I also buy from.
They then raise the price.
The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me.
(And to be very clear: I don't give a fuck if scalping adds value to the artist, the venue, the scalper themselves, or any entity other than myself. You can keep trying to persuade me to believe that I am motivated by something other than my own self-interest, but you'll just be wasting your time.)
Read that again.
Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do, from the same retail outlets that you or I also buy from.
They then raise the price.
The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me.
(And to be very clear: I don't give a fuck if scalping adds value to the artist, the venue, the scalper themselves, or any entity other than myself. You can keep trying to persuade me to believe that I am motivated by something other than my own self-interest, but you'll just be wasting your time.)
> Scalpers buy tickets at the same (retail) price that you or I do
The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules.
> The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me.
The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a show that cost five million dollars, which is presumably the appeal. If the risk was all on her shoulders, why would she take the risk? There'd be no incentive to. That would be insane, frankly.
I mean, I'd personally much rather watch some unknown artist in a dingy bar that can't find a market that is willing to buy tickets, but if you're attending performances where these retailers are prevalent and tickets are worth thousands of dollars I expect you are going to be disappointed if it is no different than a dingy bar experience. The five million dollar spend is necessary to appeal to the audience. Ain't nobody dropping five million big ones for no reason...
And, well, if you are like me and don't care about those big shows then scalpers aren't even involved. They aren't touching tickets from small time, unknown artists even with a ten foot pole. In that case, sure, there is no positive value to you if you have no interest in seeing Taylor Swift in the first place, but in that case Taylor Swift herself doesn't provide positive value to you either, so who gives a shit?
> You can keep trying to persuade me
Of what benefit would there be in persuading you? You're not going to find any. This might be the most hilariously out of touch thing I've read on HN yet.
The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules.
> The additional price of scalping adds no positive value to me.
The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a show that cost five million dollars, which is presumably the appeal. If the risk was all on her shoulders, why would she take the risk? There'd be no incentive to. That would be insane, frankly.
I mean, I'd personally much rather watch some unknown artist in a dingy bar that can't find a market that is willing to buy tickets, but if you're attending performances where these retailers are prevalent and tickets are worth thousands of dollars I expect you are going to be disappointed if it is no different than a dingy bar experience. The five million dollar spend is necessary to appeal to the audience. Ain't nobody dropping five million big ones for no reason...
And, well, if you are like me and don't care about those big shows then scalpers aren't even involved. They aren't touching tickets from small time, unknown artists even with a ten foot pole. In that case, sure, there is no positive value to you if you have no interest in seeing Taylor Swift in the first place, but in that case Taylor Swift herself doesn't provide positive value to you either, so who gives a shit?
> You can keep trying to persuade me
Of what benefit would there be in persuading you? You're not going to find any. This might be the most hilariously out of touch thing I've read on HN yet.
> The game of semantics isn't going to get you far. You could equally say that scalpers buy same wholesale tickets that you and I do. The words "retail" and "wholesale" are useful to illustrate the market dynamic, but they aren't rules.
So that distinction about Wal-Mart was just... resolutely bullshit. You're just here to waste time. Copy.
> The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a show that cost five million dollars, which is presumably the appeal. If the risk was all on her shoulders, why would she take the risk? There'd be no incentive to. That would be insane, frankly.
I do not give a fuck about what artists like Taylor Swift consider to be a risk.
> I mean, I'd personally much rather watch some unknown artist in a dingy bar that can't find a market that is willing to buy tickets, but if you're attending performances where these retailers are prevalent and tickets are worth thousands of dollars I expect you are going to be disappointed if it is no different than a dingy bar experience. The five million dollar spend is necessary to appeal to the audience. Ain't nobody dropping five million big ones for no reason...
Ah. So without scalpers, there would be no reason to perform.
This might be the most hilariously out of touch thing I've read on HN yet. (<-- I like this line. I shall use it here, myself. Thanks!)
So that distinction about Wal-Mart was just... resolutely bullshit. You're just here to waste time. Copy.
> The value to you is that artists like Taylor Swift can justify putting on a show that cost five million dollars, which is presumably the appeal. If the risk was all on her shoulders, why would she take the risk? There'd be no incentive to. That would be insane, frankly.
I do not give a fuck about what artists like Taylor Swift consider to be a risk.
> I mean, I'd personally much rather watch some unknown artist in a dingy bar that can't find a market that is willing to buy tickets, but if you're attending performances where these retailers are prevalent and tickets are worth thousands of dollars I expect you are going to be disappointed if it is no different than a dingy bar experience. The five million dollar spend is necessary to appeal to the audience. Ain't nobody dropping five million big ones for no reason...
Ah. So without scalpers, there would be no reason to perform.
This might be the most hilariously out of touch thing I've read on HN yet. (<-- I like this line. I shall use it here, myself. Thanks!)
> So that distinction about Wal-Mart was just... resolutely bullshit.
No. It's the same market dynamic. Artists with a large market sell their tickets below fair consumer market value for the same reason manufacturers with a large market do. There is tremendous value in letting a middleman buy your product in bulk. Hence why the producer is willing to see the point of value go for a reduced price.
> I do not give a fuck about what artists like Taylor Swift consider to be a risk.
Her fans do, though. It affects their experience engaging with her. If you aren't a fan then it doesn't really matter, does it?
> So without scalpers, there would be no reason to perform.
Not at all. Why respond before giving even a modicum of thought?
No. It's the same market dynamic. Artists with a large market sell their tickets below fair consumer market value for the same reason manufacturers with a large market do. There is tremendous value in letting a middleman buy your product in bulk. Hence why the producer is willing to see the point of value go for a reduced price.
> I do not give a fuck about what artists like Taylor Swift consider to be a risk.
Her fans do, though. It affects their experience engaging with her. If you aren't a fan then it doesn't really matter, does it?
> So without scalpers, there would be no reason to perform.
Not at all. Why respond before giving even a modicum of thought?
So long as something can be bought for x and sold for y (where y>x) there'll be an economic incentive to do so.
So instead of scalpers trying to simply get to the front of the queue, they'll be automating plays on spotify (hogging bandwidth, something spotify is already stingy with), and 'sharing' tracks with others, meaning it incentivises spam and fake activity.
Probably not a big issue to be fair, and if it only works legitimately 10% of the time it's still a win.
But if there's one company that can take a decent idea and execute poorly, it's Spotify.
So instead of scalpers trying to simply get to the front of the queue, they'll be automating plays on spotify (hogging bandwidth, something spotify is already stingy with), and 'sharing' tracks with others, meaning it incentivises spam and fake activity.
Probably not a big issue to be fair, and if it only works legitimately 10% of the time it's still a win.
But if there's one company that can take a decent idea and execute poorly, it's Spotify.
How many among us are superfans? I know of at least one artist that I am a superfan of, but these systems aren't built to detect us. The fandom's are filled with people who, in reality, hate the artist and just go to concerts for the clout. The type that are Reddit moderator's of artist's snark subreddit. Usually, they buy tickets with mommy and daddy's money.
Spotify is using this to encourage this type of person, a chronically online hater who has too much money and influence, to increase their usage on their app. How many people will this actually help?
I think the image people have in their minds of scalpers is flawed. It's often a coordinated and organized group of "fans" who buy these tickets for "themselves". They are the first one's to criticize scalpers and form the common idea of one (namely, not them, they are certainly not a scalper).
The solution is to stop expecting so much from an artist. These tours and concerts literally shorten their life spans. Live events have lost the plot (the irony of everyone recording a live event). I no longer care about seeing an artist in person. I'm not in the stratospheric class that can do it, nor will I ever be, nor do I want to be associated with the typical concert goer.
I think the better solution would be to create artist communities that are interested in their music. I would love to connect with people who do, but at the moment there are 0 practical options. I'm always stuck with snarky Redditor's who think it's weird that I actually like the music.
Spotify is using this to encourage this type of person, a chronically online hater who has too much money and influence, to increase their usage on their app. How many people will this actually help?
I think the image people have in their minds of scalpers is flawed. It's often a coordinated and organized group of "fans" who buy these tickets for "themselves". They are the first one's to criticize scalpers and form the common idea of one (namely, not them, they are certainly not a scalper).
The solution is to stop expecting so much from an artist. These tours and concerts literally shorten their life spans. Live events have lost the plot (the irony of everyone recording a live event). I no longer care about seeing an artist in person. I'm not in the stratospheric class that can do it, nor will I ever be, nor do I want to be associated with the typical concert goer.
I think the better solution would be to create artist communities that are interested in their music. I would love to connect with people who do, but at the moment there are 0 practical options. I'm always stuck with snarky Redditor's who think it's weird that I actually like the music.
This is a nice feature to have, it already tells you if an artist you like is coming to your city, and redirects to Ticketmaster for tickets, but it doesn't have the data to know if you already bought a ticket, so it keeps pestering you. Also, some competition against Ticketmaster is welcomed.
This is good to know. If they roll it out it like their other "features", it's going to reserve the tickets for you even if you don't want them.
Or they're going to put it as a drop down from the "Repeat" button, or something stupid like that, to cause people to click it by accident.
And when you disable it in the settings they'll stop, but only for 6 months when they cram it down your throat again in a new place in the UI.
I secretly wish Spotify would fire their entire product and dev teams, allow third party clients again, and just focus their energy on increasing their catalog and paying artists more.
I don't want to see lyrics, I don't want AI shuffling, I don't want videos, I don't want concert tickets.
Or they're going to put it as a drop down from the "Repeat" button, or something stupid like that, to cause people to click it by accident.
And when you disable it in the settings they'll stop, but only for 6 months when they cram it down your throat again in a new place in the UI.
I secretly wish Spotify would fire their entire product and dev teams, allow third party clients again, and just focus their energy on increasing their catalog and paying artists more.
I don't want to see lyrics, I don't want AI shuffling, I don't want videos, I don't want concert tickets.
Ok, random scalper prevention scheme:
What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust.
So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket.
If the transfer is between trustworthy people, then the final ticket holder will give the money back to the original person.
There is no incentive to transfer money to the scalper, however. (Especially if scalping is illegal).
This doesn't eliminate scalping, but it significantly reduces it.
Critique?
What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust.
So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket.
If the transfer is between trustworthy people, then the final ticket holder will give the money back to the original person.
There is no incentive to transfer money to the scalper, however. (Especially if scalping is illegal).
This doesn't eliminate scalping, but it significantly reduces it.
Critique?
The problem is that it requires not only that the ticketed people (scalpers, show-goers) do something new to prevent scalping, but also that the ticketing people (ticketmaster, etc.) do something new to prevent scalping.
We need a solution that demands only the former, not the latter, because the ticketing people have no incentive to eliminate scalping. It's good for them.
It gets a little confusing because situations like TFA make it seem like the ticketers want to help, and while they might be interested in the goodwill of ensuring that some of the tickets sold go to known actual fans first, they definitely aren't interested in losing the "collect a fee multiple times" aspect of maximizing resale which includes zero-trust transactions.
We need a solution that demands only the former, not the latter, because the ticketing people have no incentive to eliminate scalping. It's good for them.
It gets a little confusing because situations like TFA make it seem like the ticketers want to help, and while they might be interested in the goodwill of ensuring that some of the tickets sold go to known actual fans first, they definitely aren't interested in losing the "collect a fee multiple times" aspect of maximizing resale which includes zero-trust transactions.
Hmmm - I think the scalper just adds the escrow amount on to the cost as the purchaser will get it back at the end.
Scalpers will just add $1000 to the price of the ticket. And then you keep the $1000 that gets returned to you.
This is the problem with public listed companies that need to "maximize shareholder values" and look for infinite growth.
I just want Spotify for music (playlist, recommendation, lossless audio). I don't need their podcast, audiobook, ChatGPT, concert tickets etc. This just makes their app bloated for features I will never use.
I just want Spotify for music (playlist, recommendation, lossless audio). I don't need their podcast, audiobook, ChatGPT, concert tickets etc. This just makes their app bloated for features I will never use.
I disagree; Spotify is good at serving up sound, so it makes sense for them to also serve audiobooks and podcasts; just like it makes sense for video streaming services to have both movies and tv shows. Similarly for concerts; people who listen to a lot of music are probably interested in going to see their favorite band live.
Mind you, I definitely have complaints about the app (like notifications interrupting music, their abysmal lock screen widget, and their "randomization" that always ends up playing the same few songs from a list of thousands); but I also understand why they want to expand.
Mind you, I definitely have complaints about the app (like notifications interrupting music, their abysmal lock screen widget, and their "randomization" that always ends up playing the same few songs from a list of thousands); but I also understand why they want to expand.
> I also understand why they want to expand
I'd have fewer complaints if I could hide the sections I'm not interested in (new releases, audiobooks, podcasts, concerts, etc...).
I'd have fewer complaints if I could hide the sections I'm not interested in (new releases, audiobooks, podcasts, concerts, etc...).
it's in their interest for them to show you more things that they don't need to pay record labels royalties for.
I have definitely become informed of concerts I’ve then gone to by way of Spotify. They know everyone I listen to and are well suited to advertise the artists I’d actually like to see to me.
Unbelievable that spotify's shuffle is still broken a decade later. No chance the people working there dont know about this as everyone with large playlists runs into it, but for whatever reason they refuse to fix it.
Glad I made a true(r) random playlist before they shut their API, which I figure killed those tools
Expand to all Google Play Music features pls Spotify (play counts & the impossible upload-your-own-music to Spotify’s cloud)
Expand to all Google Play Music features pls Spotify (play counts & the impossible upload-your-own-music to Spotify’s cloud)
Another reason to use Bandcamp and just buy music. Of course then you've gotta setup a whole stack to store it, make it available to your devices, etc etc. I dunno, Spotify certainly isn't going to get better at this point. Best we can hope is that they die and something better takes their place.
> Of course then you've gotta setup a whole stack to store it, make it available to your devices, etc etc.
I have avoided building my own stack by uploading everything into Youtube Music (which used to be Google Music, which ... whatever.)
It gets a little worse every day, and one day it'll get bad enough where the pain of sysadmining something new will be preferable to them.
I have avoided building my own stack by uploading everything into Youtube Music (which used to be Google Music, which ... whatever.)
It gets a little worse every day, and one day it'll get bad enough where the pain of sysadmining something new will be preferable to them.
I haven't set up my own stack for music, so I'm just guessing tbh, but administering Jellyfin has been completely painless. Let Claude write a docker compose file, toss it on the server, haven't had to think about it again. I bet there's something equally good out there for music management.
navidrome is pretty good.
My impression from the selfhosted sub is that most people looking to replace spotify are not into albums, and want a lot of popular music not available on BC.
Cloud storage (I use Dropbox) and an app to sync it with my phone automatically. It doesn't take a long time to set up.
And if I want to listen to a random song I don't have while I'm outside... I just don't.
And if I want to listen to a random song I don't have while I'm outside... I just don't.
If you're on Apple devices it's $25 a year for iTunes Match. You can throw all your Bandcamp purchases into the Music app and they'll be available across your devices.
> Of course then you've gotta setup a whole stack to store it
No you do not. Just use an external drive and an MP3 player like some kind of caveman. There are plenty of high quality models out there. Additionally smart phones will let you store music on them to listen to using the player app of your choice (VLC or something).
No you do not. Just use an external drive and an MP3 player like some kind of caveman. There are plenty of high quality models out there. Additionally smart phones will let you store music on them to listen to using the player app of your choice (VLC or something).
For the last 20 years, my "stack" has been a NFS-mounted hard drive full of MP3s, and the occasional rsync mirror to a USB stick if I need to listen to something without a network connection.
Well to elaborate on what I meant - Spotify makes it extremely easy to have access to your music everywhere. Once you get into (or back into) storing MP3s you have to solve that for whatever level of convenience you want. I have Plexamp and things setup myself but it does require some work.
>Of course then you've gotta setup a whole stack to store it, make it available to your devices, etc etc.
Uhh, no you don't? Nearly all of my Bandcamp purchases, except the literal one or two physical-only purchases that didn't also come with a digital copy, are all available to stream to my heart's content via the Bandcamp app and their website.
I mean, I also download it all because I DJ, but yeah... having access to it whenever I want is entirely effortless and doesn't require anything beyond Bandcamp itself.
Uhh, no you don't? Nearly all of my Bandcamp purchases, except the literal one or two physical-only purchases that didn't also come with a digital copy, are all available to stream to my heart's content via the Bandcamp app and their website.
I mean, I also download it all because I DJ, but yeah... having access to it whenever I want is entirely effortless and doesn't require anything beyond Bandcamp itself.
I understand not wanting them to expand into playlists and audiobooks.
But concert tickets, notifications, etc., seems like a no-brainer. That is firmly within the category of music.
But concert tickets, notifications, etc., seems like a no-brainer. That is firmly within the category of music.
It also likely makes it harder for people ho are not users of Spotify to get tickets - which is almost certainly the goal.
Less than 10 years ago I could stroll into a local record store in my city and buy paper tickets to concerts directly from them, zero markup, zero "processing fees". And the ticket itself would be a souvenir because it often had a unique design or typeface. Now it's just a hideous barcode.
It's the newest version of Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment:
> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
You may need to move on to other services like Apple Music
Apple’s prioritization of Apple Music on their HomePod turns me off it a bit. Could help guide users more to alternatives but would reduce services sales.
Meh, I’m being kinda unfair b/c the experience is gonna be better. Shame Spotify forces streaming from phone (YouTube Music can run on HomePod itself like Apple Music). YouTube Music via HomePod might play the audio from a music video instead of playing the real song, so does make sense to shuttle normies to the Apple service, but guess I don’t find the situation perfect.
Meh, I’m being kinda unfair b/c the experience is gonna be better. Shame Spotify forces streaming from phone (YouTube Music can run on HomePod itself like Apple Music). YouTube Music via HomePod might play the audio from a music video instead of playing the real song, so does make sense to shuttle normies to the Apple service, but guess I don’t find the situation perfect.
At least concert tickets are somewhat aligned with listening to music, unlike autoplaying video podcasts on the homepage rather than showing my playlists.
So just use it for music. Who cares if the app bundle is bloated? If that's really your main criteria, just use the web player
music listening has been falling for a while now. no company public or not will choose to commit suicide out of purity principle
Spotify is welcome to go into all those other businesses, but why do they have to destroy their one valuable resource in an attempt to leverage it for all this other garbage? Doing one thing really good - so good that people will pay you for it - is not a "purity principle". It used to be the fundamental reason for existence for many companies.
its not garbage. podcasts is now major chunk of listening. so why not give ppl what they want. "one thing" is not just music. My own listening habits have shifted from music into podcasts.
I'm sorry what? Artists do not make money on streaming, they make it in touring. Spotify integrating concerts into the same product surface is the MOST logical thing they could do.
Touring costs a fortune for bands. They don't even keep most of the money, the record label takes a big cut and there's Ticketmaster after that, and now Spotify I guess. Selling paper-thin T-shirts, vinyl and lapel pins for absurd markups at the merch booth is how they make money.
i get a lot of value from these other features (podcast, audiobook, concert suggestions) and would appreciate some livenation disruption
Hmm, see I don’t agree. I use Spotify extensively for music, but also for podcasts and audiobooks. Great for a long car journey, or background listening whilst doing DIY.
I have plenty of frustrations with the app, but not with the core offer as a delivery mechanism for various types of audio entertainment and information.
I have plenty of frustrations with the app, but not with the core offer as a delivery mechanism for various types of audio entertainment and information.
I’ve almost entirely given up on managing music. Just done with it.
I listen to soma.fm and radioparadise.com .. I read one music magazine and listen to some of the music recommendations from there, but following any of it, over time, is a lost cause for me.
I was just remarking to someone how music apps are the least interesting, personal, and innovative of all the things I live with.
Examples: we still can’t manage playlists of albums, or down signal genres of music or even artists, or separate “calm” music for sleep from all the other generative playlist rankings they use.
Apple Music is entirely useless to me since the only “for me” stuff they’ll generate is music for sleeping. As if I don’t do other things.
I listen to soma.fm and radioparadise.com .. I read one music magazine and listen to some of the music recommendations from there, but following any of it, over time, is a lost cause for me.
I was just remarking to someone how music apps are the least interesting, personal, and innovative of all the things I live with.
Examples: we still can’t manage playlists of albums, or down signal genres of music or even artists, or separate “calm” music for sleep from all the other generative playlist rankings they use.
Apple Music is entirely useless to me since the only “for me” stuff they’ll generate is music for sleeping. As if I don’t do other things.
How would you like to manage those things? I listen to a lot of music and I'm pretty happy with Spotify. When I want to discover new music, I pick an artist I like and start the artist radio. I always get good new recommendations
I gave up on Spotify after 3 months. I did not like how it just kept repeating the same songs. With a catalog as large as they supposedly have, it was not entertaining me hearing the same things so frequently.
Way back when, I had a very impressive iTunes catalog of actual media files that I had locally. I spent hours curating my CD rips and even the recordings from vinyl. I added id3 tags and artwork. It was glorious and was larger than my 80GB iPod could handle, so my iPod had curation as well.
Then iTunes went all streaming and wiped out my local library, not the media files, just the library. Gone. Poof. And just like that, I was done. I recently dug out the hdd with the media, and using iTunes now to find local stuff loaded onto my device is a constant fight with trying to avoid its clearly preferred Music+ nonsense.
I'm close to getting back to looking for a better music app to source my large local library. Just haven't quite gotten there yet.
Way back when, I had a very impressive iTunes catalog of actual media files that I had locally. I spent hours curating my CD rips and even the recordings from vinyl. I added id3 tags and artwork. It was glorious and was larger than my 80GB iPod could handle, so my iPod had curation as well.
Then iTunes went all streaming and wiped out my local library, not the media files, just the library. Gone. Poof. And just like that, I was done. I recently dug out the hdd with the media, and using iTunes now to find local stuff loaded onto my device is a constant fight with trying to avoid its clearly preferred Music+ nonsense.
I'm close to getting back to looking for a better music app to source my large local library. Just haven't quite gotten there yet.
"I'm close to getting back to looking for a better music app to source my large local library."
Well, I am close to finally build that better music app for my large local libary of music.
(I actually do already use my own written player since 15 years, but it was always just a quick hack and never the thing)
I also do use spotify for finding artists, but have the same complaints that they are just repeating. (Also I hate the spotify app)
Well, I am close to finally build that better music app for my large local libary of music.
(I actually do already use my own written player since 15 years, but it was always just a quick hack and never the thing)
I also do use spotify for finding artists, but have the same complaints that they are just repeating. (Also I hate the spotify app)
Pandora is still around, but their library is a lot smaller
Artist radios almost inevitably become a mix of songs I’ve listened to the most that have even the faintest crossover with the artist genre. It’s very, very frustrating and my biggest peeve about Spotify. I now ask an LLM for an artist radio playlist and copy it over to spotify, which is kind of a pain.
That's really weird. I have heard of people having the same experience as you though. I'm not sure why my radio plays songs that I have never listened to
I’ve never really had good luck with the artist radio, but I’ve found a lot of music I like by starting at a band I like and going through the Related Artists. It’s a little strange because I’m sure the artist radio includes a lot of songs from the Related Artists. It’s probably a psychological thing, wanting to feel like I’m in control instead of the app choosing for me.
I just never stopped downloading music. We have modern download stores selling CD-quality music completely DRM free. I like knowing that no matter what happens short of an actual apocalypse, I will never lose access to any of my music.
I recently learned that two tracks on one of my favorite recent albums are straight up missing on streaming services. This only strengthened my resolve to stay the hell away from them.
I recently learned that two tracks on one of my favorite recent albums are straight up missing on streaming services. This only strengthened my resolve to stay the hell away from them.
Same here, music is too important for me to give up this kind of control. I probably miss out on the discovery system of streaming services, but there are enough other sources (e.g. radio paradise).
Hop on plex amp. Take control of your music.
I realize that sounds like an Ad but I’ve been using it for a few months and I feel like I’ve rediscovered my joy for music again.
I realize that sounds like an Ad but I’ve been using it for a few months and I feel like I’ve rediscovered my joy for music again.
Given that Plex just bumped their lifetime subscription price to $750, I can no longer recommend them. They are clearly more interested in becoming another streaming service, and are I think trying to push out their core users who probably make them very little money.
Interesting, their price bump announcement actually just went and made me upgrade to lifetime (at $250 while I could) instead of write them off completely.
Netflix will never allow you to pay a one time fee for life, neither will any other streaming service on the planet.
Meanwhile, plex is a company that has employees. If I like plex, use it heavily, and want to support them I can do so with money. There are alternatives that are completely free, but I don’t like them as much and the minimal cost for plex is totally worth the value for me.
To each their own!
Netflix will never allow you to pay a one time fee for life, neither will any other streaming service on the planet.
Meanwhile, plex is a company that has employees. If I like plex, use it heavily, and want to support them I can do so with money. There are alternatives that are completely free, but I don’t like them as much and the minimal cost for plex is totally worth the value for me.
To each their own!
Their site says $250? https://www.plex.tv/plans/
Your very same link also has a huge yellow banner at the top of the page stating: "The price of a Lifetime Plex Pass is increasing on July 1, 2026."
Goes to show how inoculated I am against banner ads I suppose.
Either way part of me feels like it’s for the best. One off payment for lifetime membership of an app that has continual development isn’t a great business model.
Either way part of me feels like it’s for the best. One off payment for lifetime membership of an app that has continual development isn’t a great business model.
It’s worth 750, which is about ten years worth of yearly subscriptions.
Plex is 16 years old and the Lindy effect applies.
Plex is 16 years old and the Lindy effect applies.
There is so much good free software out there for playing music that I have a hard time believing PlexAmp is worth $750.
They know it's not worth it either, they just want to push more users to the monthly subscription for that sweet ARR.
They know it's not worth it either, they just want to push more users to the monthly subscription for that sweet ARR.
As a long time Plex member, on Lifetime (originally purchased for <$100), PlexAmp is great although not worth anywhere close to $750.
If you're paying $750 you might as well use Roon like the rest of the audiophile freaks.
Jellyfin has a Music Server although a bit limited compared to Plexamp.
Navidrome is a Music Server with similar functionalities.
Symfonium is a Music Player which can connect to various Music Servers like Navidrome, Plexamp, or just files on the network.
If you're paying $750 you might as well use Roon like the rest of the audiophile freaks.
Jellyfin has a Music Server although a bit limited compared to Plexamp.
Navidrome is a Music Server with similar functionalities.
Symfonium is a Music Player which can connect to various Music Servers like Navidrome, Plexamp, or just files on the network.
Gonna echo this sentiment, its buy for life and a good license
is it?
vs a bit of ai slop to make my own music player?
the only things i care about is some essy enough to use upload process, basic serving, then that theres some smart enough local caching on whatever device im using
vs a bit of ai slop to make my own music player?
the only things i care about is some essy enough to use upload process, basic serving, then that theres some smart enough local caching on whatever device im using
OrJellyfin or Navidrome if you want to use free open source that does a decent enough job.
It's good, but you still have to pay monthly for it. Feels like it kind of defeats the point of having a local collection.
I have a collection of flacs which contains the albums that matters deeply to me. I don’t mind not having access to unlimited music (I do have a spotify account but I rarely use it). I much prefer to do mindful listening, spending an hour or two, playing a full album at a time, or quickly composing a mood queue. I don’t even shuffle.
iTunes Match. It's entirely your own stuff. You pay for it, or upload your own stuff you have from elsewhere. You own it. You stream it wherever.
Pandora still exists and is quite good.
I came back to Pandora recently and I think it has the best discovery out of any music platform. I don't pay extra to play what I want, I curate radio stations and it's been great. The only catch is you have to be diligent with your curation, because it starts to reach and while you may love song X from genre Y, the station is genre Z. If you're not careful every station will become a mix of everything.
Former Pandora employee. The music recommendation team was amazing when I worked there, and the use of global song frequency capping across seeds helps prevent too much repetition at a user level but I agree on the genre bleed. They may have changed it but the music recommender was an ensemble model that polled 30 or so distinct models that would provide their own next song recommendation. One of the last resort recommenders used only the music genome data for the song (no collaborative filtering).
My trick is to be liberal with downvotes and excruciatingly sparing with any thumbs up.
Youtube Music is quite good for what you're describing.
> Examples: we still can’t manage playlists of albums, or down signal genres of music or even artists, or separate “calm” music for sleep from all the other generative playlist rankings they use.
Youtube music thinks "videogame music" is a genre and lumps them all together, if you make the mistake of including even one song from a game OST any recommendations go out the window.
For example, a "chill" mix with videogame music in it will happily start including Doom Eternal tracks because "they're the same thing, right?"
Youtube music thinks "videogame music" is a genre and lumps them all together, if you make the mistake of including even one song from a game OST any recommendations go out the window.
For example, a "chill" mix with videogame music in it will happily start including Doom Eternal tracks because "they're the same thing, right?"
It feels like the quality of the Youtube Music app took a dive when they fired the whole team and outsourced development around a year or so ago.
This happens with Spotify too TBF. Listen to one single genre, suddenly the only thing you hear is from that genre.
Whenever Spotify removed human curation from their recommendations to rely on more ML-algorithms was when it stopped being useful to me.
Went back to trackers myself, only place where musical discissions/recommendations are actually useful and wanted.
Whenever Spotify removed human curation from their recommendations to rely on more ML-algorithms was when it stopped being useful to me.
Went back to trackers myself, only place where musical discissions/recommendations are actually useful and wanted.
It does, but hey the post above was complaining about recommendation apps in general so, yeah.
YouTube music’s recommendations suck hard compared to Spotify and all the people I know who use it (a dozen) say the same thing. The only reason any of us use it seems to be because we only want to pay for one music service and we all use YouTube premium anyways. It’s amazing how big a hole that is in the service, that everyone I know agrees with the same thing.
I gave up on recommendations and I just playlist my own music preferences over time. Like in the days of old.
I gave up on recommendations and I just playlist my own music preferences over time. Like in the days of old.
So scalpers will use bots to generate listens and shares, boosting listens for Spotify, in order to gain access to premium tickets. They are just adding a “barrier” that only inflates their listen counts while probably making it worse on actual valid ticket purchasers.
I don’t see how this works out as planned
Spotify is actively incentivized to mitigate that, because they're forced to pay royalties on every stream. This is, at least, a better situation than with Ticketmaster, who is actively incentivized to get scalpers as many tickets as they can.
[deleted]
They'll trade off the inflated numbers for the royalties.
They'd probably make this a feature for paying customers. I don't think the economics of scalping this at scale would make sense you're spending money for months and risk Spotify banning you if you get caught.
I don't use Spotify. Will people that do and are fans of the same bands have priority over me?
The music industry works the way it does because a large amount of people involved are effectively working for free. Promoters, photographers, DJs, interns, writers, assistants, even some artists early on accept low or unpaid work because the industry offers networking, access, drugs, etc
The music industry got rid of all that years ago when the big labels swallowed the small indies and imposed their corporate culture everywhere. There are no A&R men skulking through dive bars using drugs and girls to sign bands. The bands are now supposed to approach the labels with their Spotify listen counts and social media follower numbers ready.
Rick Beato has a good video on why so many new generation superstars like Gracie Abrams are nepo babies who all the time and money in the world to chase music as a career.
Rick Beato has a good video on why so many new generation superstars like Gracie Abrams are nepo babies who all the time and money in the world to chase music as a career.
I imagine the best distribution model like this. We split all tickets in 2 buckets 50/50:
1/ Sorted. Some buyers have priority. They can be sorted by price paid, by amount of minutes listened, depends on the sale.
2/ Random with KYC. Everyone has the same chance to purchase.
1/ Sorted. Some buyers have priority. They can be sorted by price paid, by amount of minutes listened, depends on the sale.
2/ Random with KYC. Everyone has the same chance to purchase.
What a braindead move. If you see people post their "wrapped" you notice quite a lot of people basically streaming a single artist 24 hours a day. So now you're encouraging people to become streaming bots. And you're taking tickets from fans who don't happen to use Spotify. Fuck Spotify.
Apple needs to get into this space QUICK. They just added concert dates in Apple Music. Let me buy tickets with Apple Pay from the app and it's over.
but of course! why wouldn't you encourage bot accounts listening every kind of artist to scalp tickets?
look at the monthly active users chart after this deal! promoted.
look at the monthly active users chart after this deal! promoted.
I was thinking the same thing. If there are very many seats available, it will probably be gamed by scalpers. If they are doing this, they should really do the math to try to make the expected ROI of an additional bot account doing 24/7 streaming, slightly below the cheapest Spotify subscription price.
The music industry concentration had rarely benefit to more then a fist of artists and a bunch of shareholders
This is my shocked face when Ticketmaster aka LiveNation aka StubHub aka Spotify’s ticket reserve system is again a monopoly.
._.
._.
So scalpers will just spin up bots to "listen" to and share links from popular artists?
Does this mean the non-reserved tickets will get scarcer and command a higher price?
That’s a very good idea! Spotify is moving in the right direction I think
Great, ticketmaster antitrust lawsuit round two.
[deleted]
So now we need to run farms of spotify accounts playing songs to get our concert tickets?
I only listen to Global Electronic Music. All underground stuff, so im safe from the capitalists.
https://www.bassdrive.com/pop-up/
https://www.bassdrive.com/pop-up/
I listen to all of my music via Navidrome. It sits in an S3 bucket that I rclone new albums to.
For concerts, I built a PWA that pulls my Navidrome artists and queries the Ticketmaster API for shows that match within a 75 mile radius once a day. It displays them in a list with their name, the venue/location and a link to buy tickets.
For concerts, I built a PWA that pulls my Navidrome artists and queries the Ticketmaster API for shows that match within a 75 mile radius once a day. It displays them in a list with their name, the venue/location and a link to buy tickets.
[deleted]
It feels like we're replacing one opaque system with another slightly more personalized opaque system
Just another form of platform lock in.
So all that needs to happen now is that The Doors will do another tour and I am in!
Why is scalping a problem?
Fewer people go to concerts, fans can’t afford the tickets, less connection with the artists, less interest in music overall.
Artists lose, even if they get paid and all the tickets technically are sold out. Fans lose. The only people who win are scalpers who just abuse the system.
Artists lose, even if they get paid and all the tickets technically are sold out. Fans lose. The only people who win are scalpers who just abuse the system.
Sounds more like problems with an industry built on a million awful business decisions. Scalping is only profitable because they haven't priced the tickets to match the demand. Scalpers aren't buying beer in the venue and re-selling it outside. They've also decided they should get to choose exactly who buys what they're selling, which is obviously dumb.
> Fewer people go to concerts
Scalpers don't buy tickets and not sell them. The most scalped concerts are obviously the most attended
> fans can’t afford the tickets
See above. I assume what you are upset about is that rich fans are the ones going.
> less connection with the artists, less interest in music overall
I think you need to explain your logic here.
Scalpers don't buy tickets and not sell them. The most scalped concerts are obviously the most attended
> fans can’t afford the tickets
See above. I assume what you are upset about is that rich fans are the ones going.
> less connection with the artists, less interest in music overall
I think you need to explain your logic here.
If I bought 100 tickets, sold 20 of them at 10x the value I paid for them, and then ate the rest as a loss, I'm still making a tidy profit, and the artist/venue/etc. still make the same amount of money as if 100 individuals bought them and attended, but there are now 80 fewer people in the audience (edited to add: and potentially 80 people who could have afforded the original price but not the absurd upsell).
I don't have the data to say whether this happens or not (edited to add: and the numbers are obviously made up), but the logic is perfectly sound; nothing would stop it from happening today.
I don't have the data to say whether this happens or not (edited to add: and the numbers are obviously made up), but the logic is perfectly sound; nothing would stop it from happening today.
> the artist/venue/etc. still make the same amount of money as if 100 individuals bought them and attended, but there are now 80 fewer people
No they won't. The venue now has 1/5th the people buying booze. They're gonna HATE that night.
No they won't. The venue now has 1/5th the people buying booze. They're gonna HATE that night.
Fair enough. Unfortunately, as the trials in the recent lawsuits against Live Nation has shown, the venues are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they risk losing the ability to book some of the top artists if they try to switch to a different ticketing platform. At least the way it works right now, the ones who are being partnered with in this promotion that's supposedly helpful in preventing scalping are the ones who are both least affected by scalping and in the best position to force everyone else involved to have to put up with the negatives.
> See above. I assume what you are upset about is that rich fans are the ones going.
I'm upset that artists make the tickets affordable for different groups, and their fans want to see the concert. You have 2 sides that are in agreement. Then there's a 3rd, independent side that decides to abuse the system to make profit, hurting 2 other sides.
Imagine that you pay road tax and the government builds highway. Everyone's happy. Now there's a militia that sets up checkpoints and takes a toll for driving on the highway. Unrelated 3rd party tries to benefit by abusing the system.
> Scalpers don't buy tickets and not sell them. The most scalped concerts are obviously the most attended
If you buy 100 tickets for $100 and sell them for $300 you need to sell only 34 tickets to break even. The concert hall could be sold out and half empty at the same time. Of course there are concerts where scalpers will sell 100% of what they got, but they don't need to.
I'm upset that artists make the tickets affordable for different groups, and their fans want to see the concert. You have 2 sides that are in agreement. Then there's a 3rd, independent side that decides to abuse the system to make profit, hurting 2 other sides.
Imagine that you pay road tax and the government builds highway. Everyone's happy. Now there's a militia that sets up checkpoints and takes a toll for driving on the highway. Unrelated 3rd party tries to benefit by abusing the system.
> Scalpers don't buy tickets and not sell them. The most scalped concerts are obviously the most attended
If you buy 100 tickets for $100 and sell them for $300 you need to sell only 34 tickets to break even. The concert hall could be sold out and half empty at the same time. Of course there are concerts where scalpers will sell 100% of what they got, but they don't need to.
Not OP but - I think one could make the case that if tickets were sold via a lottery and non-transferable, the average lottery participant would be a bigger fan of $ARTIST than the average person who can afford the scalped price for a ticket today.
Arguably if rich people are just buying the $1000 concert tickets just to flex and take pictures for IG, that's a seat that could be going to a 17-year-old who loves the band's music but can't afford more than $100. The 17-year-old meanwhile may never get to go to a show of any of their favorite bands due to this situation, meaning they miss out on this meaningful chance to connect with the music in a personal, in-person way.
Basically the case hinges on the assertion that the richest fans are not the same as the most serious fans.
Arguably if rich people are just buying the $1000 concert tickets just to flex and take pictures for IG, that's a seat that could be going to a 17-year-old who loves the band's music but can't afford more than $100. The 17-year-old meanwhile may never get to go to a show of any of their favorite bands due to this situation, meaning they miss out on this meaningful chance to connect with the music in a personal, in-person way.
Basically the case hinges on the assertion that the richest fans are not the same as the most serious fans.
> The 17-year-old meanwhile may never get to go to a show of any of their favorite bands
Back in my day 17-year-olds, especially those who would want to attend concerts, were interested in discovering music. Some of those discoveries would absolutely be artists selling out stadiums where tickets can sell for 10x face value, sure. But some of those discoveries were artists relegated to playing in dingy bars where a cover charge would be unthinkable. One might not have been able to see all of their favorite bands (i.e. the most famous among them), but seeing some of those artists would be quite realistic.
Does what you are saying imply that music fans today have converged on listening only to a small group of superstars despite music discoverability never being easier?
Back in my day 17-year-olds, especially those who would want to attend concerts, were interested in discovering music. Some of those discoveries would absolutely be artists selling out stadiums where tickets can sell for 10x face value, sure. But some of those discoveries were artists relegated to playing in dingy bars where a cover charge would be unthinkable. One might not have been able to see all of their favorite bands (i.e. the most famous among them), but seeing some of those artists would be quite realistic.
Does what you are saying imply that music fans today have converged on listening only to a small group of superstars despite music discoverability never being easier?
I think that's a great question! I however don't know any youths so I have no idea how what we called "The Scene" operates today -- other than it has to have changed a lot, since we had to discover bands by word of mouth or by noticing the bands who opened for the more popular bands. Sure, we had Napster and KaZaA, but we needed to first know what to search for.
Maybe teens today discover bands from the 20% of the time that the "music" credit on TikTok isn't incorrectly "<account_name> original audio" or from Shazaming what they hear on TikTok. But I agree with you actually that whatever happens with the arena superstars it's a good thing if young fans discover and connect with the smaller acts touring in small venues.
Maybe teens today discover bands from the 20% of the time that the "music" credit on TikTok isn't incorrectly "<account_name> original audio" or from Shazaming what they hear on TikTok. But I agree with you actually that whatever happens with the arena superstars it's a good thing if young fans discover and connect with the smaller acts touring in small venues.
When artists become popular, they often complain that the people they are making their music for, their biggest fans, tend to be the people least able to afford the concert tickets.
The artists are often totally willing to set aside a chunk of tickets at a much cheaper price, but they need to be able to guarantee that these tickets aren't just purchased by scalpers and resold at the market price.
So if you can actually tie ticket availability to genuine listening patterns of this artist over time, in a way that is very difficult to game, then this could be huge.
Obviously you can worry about scalpers that will now try to open 1000 different Spotify accounts so that they can buy up 1000 tickets. But it should be pretty easy for Spotify to look for signals that indicate real human listeners, I would think.