Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme

[Philly Q]

I'm in at least two minds over what's reported here. If people are prepared to pay somewhat more than face value for premium tickets or, in fact, any tickets, then that means the face value for these tickets is actually too low. Whether we like it or not :(

I'm not sure that's necessarily true - we all have our own ideas of what something's "worth".  Just because some people are prepared to pay over the odds for tickets, it doesn't mean the face value is too low for everyone.

Ticket prices have increased enormously in recent years.  It costs probably 4-5 times as much to see a band at a big venue than it did 20 years ago - whereas CDs cost less than they did then!

Who knows, if the ticket agencies get any more greedy they might just find the market starts collapsing on them.

I wonder which camp EVH falls into? :roll: I know which camp we all think he ought to :lol:

I don't know about which camp - I'd be happy to see him fall into a cauldron of boiling oil.

[AndyR]

I'm not sure ebaying tickets would increase the /average/ price. often i see normal people losing money selling tickets on ebay - its not much, maybe just a tenner on the original cost.

That's really good to hear as far as I'm concerned... anything that discourages people from buying tickets they're not going to use, just to sell at a profit... for some reason that really p1sses me off, especially the "oh, put in for 2, sell the spare one to pay for yours" brigade  :x

And it's interesting what you say Philly, about "some" doesn't equal "everyone"... it's true of course, but it doesn't change my mind for some reason... have to think about it some more :roll: :lol:

[dave_mc]

I'm not sure that's necessarily true - we all have our own ideas of what something's "worth".  Just because some people are prepared to pay over the odds for tickets, it doesn't mean the face value is too low for everyone.

agreed. they get the big prices because they hold back the very best seats, in limited supply. If they sold all the tickets in a similar system, they could actually end up making less.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Ticket prices have increased enormously in recent years.  It costs probably 4-5 times as much to see a band at a big venue than it did 20 years ago - whereas CDs cost less than they did then!

Who knows, if the ticket agencies get any more greedy they might just find the market starts collapsing on them.

Bands aren't making money on albums any more
Touring is whats paying the rent - hence so many bands back onthe road
but they are charging more to make the extra money they need
Trouble is - there are too many middlemen and the price gets racked up
But people are voting with their feet  and staying away
Ticketmaster are in huge debt as are Live Nation - not sure how then uniting will help matters as far as prices go.

I personally hate touts with a vengence - ever since being threatened with violence by them as a teenager for offering a spare ticket I had to another concertgoer - F**king scumbag C**ts

[AndyR]

Still thinking :D

But at the heart of my wondering is this:

"they get the big prices because they hold back the very best seats, in limited supply" and there are people prepared to pay for the privilege

If there weren't enough people prepared to pay, I'm assuming it wouldn't be worth anyone's while trying to get the big prices?

Also, Philly, one of the things driving my thoughts is that me dear old dad, or someone of that ilk, taught me that a thing (if you are the owner/seller) is only worth what you can get for it. It's not worth what people tell you it's worth, or it's book-value, or whatever. It's also not worth what other people will tell you it's worth because they think it should be cheaper so that everyone can afford one. It's worth what you can get for it from the person who buys it from you...

Eg, what were U2 tickets, face value? Me missus went with her friend, and they asked me. I wouldn't mind seeing them again, last time was the week that New Years Day went to No 1, but when they told me the price I went "you must be kidding me!! There isn't any band I'm prepared to spend that much on to see! Possibly Queen with Freddie in it, but that's it... And it would only be U2 nostalgia for me anyway, I'd rather see the 1983 version"

As a possible "buyer" those U2 tickets were not "worth" the asking price to me.

As "sellers" I assume the the tickets were "worth" the asking price to U2's promoters because I guess most of them sold (I expect some sold for a lot more as well :lol:).

So, as far as I'm concerned the U2 tickets were a fair price - that's what they can successfully charge - but I personally don't want their product enough to pay that much for it (so I watched England thrash the Aussies from seat A6 on the pavilion balcony at the Oval instead :lol:)

I bring the cricket bit in for a reason - I'm not that fussed about live music anymore, but I have got very wound up about the price of Test Match tickets over the last few years.

Go back three years or so, I went to all days of both tests at Lords, and all the one-day-internationals. They hiked the prices for the 2005 Aussies, quite a hike that time - fair(ish), they always do charge a premium for Australia, and incidentally I couldn't get the first three days in the ballot - but then they kept those prices the next year (previous time they went down again the next year), and then up again the next year, etc... I haven't been to Lords for a couple of years now - it's not worth it to me. If you do go, it's full of oiks going to get p1ssed and "have a day out" instead of watching the bloody cricket. Why pay £80 a day to get some w@nker treading on me every ten minutes and spilling his/her beer on me at the same time?

My home ground, the Oval, has been doing the same kind of thing price-wise. This year, as a member of the club (so subs paid already, at a premium rate, to guarantee I can get all my international tickets), each of the four days played cost me £52. In hindsight, it was kinda worth it :lol:, but it's getting a bit steep for me. The public seats were in the £60 - £80 (maybe even £90? can't remember) bracket - terrible!! (I understand it's a bit steeper for fans of football, but I wouldn't know :lol:)

BUT... the thing is... I know the Oval sold out back last November, and they could have sold it out, at those prices, 4 or 5 times!! What are you gonna do, as a business man? The market's there boys, let's put the prices up again...

I don't like it, but I have to admit that is what the seats are worth, even if they aren't "worth" it to me. It's my decision whether to pay or not.

But I have always felt quite strongly that the entertainers and the supporting structure should be getting the flippin money - not a bunch of chancers who are able to exploit the popularity of the "act".

It's not going to go away, and I'm guessing it's gonna get worse now we've all got the internet. I don't condone what EVH has apparently got caught doing, but I do sympathise. I applaud what nfe reported about Trent wotsit - but not everyone's like that, most people aren't.

All I can really do (sport and music, and houses, for that matter) is vote with my wallet - when it gets too rich for me, I refuse to buy it. If enough people feel like me at the same time, the prices will come down, if not, "that's alright I still got my guitar" (c) Hendrix :lol:

It's a really tricky subject, and I hope it hasn't sounded like I think I've got any answers - I haven't, and I don't think I'd ever come up with any either...

EDIT: Jonathan posted while I was writing, interesting that about Ticketmaster and Live Nation - perhaps there are more people like me than I realised!!

[Philly Q]

Another epic post Andy, but I think we're sort of agreeing with each other!

You've said yourself that you reach a price point where tickets, even for cricket ( :o !), aren't "worth it" to you.  Surely everybody has their own "cut-off point", even if it's much higher than yours or mine?  So they can't just keep increasing prices ad infinitum.... as you said, if enough people feel they won't pay that price, the prices will come down.  Or the market will crash.

It's almost like the property market - prices couldn't keep spiralling for ever because it reached the point where too many people simply couldn't afford to buy anything.  (I know there was a recession in there too to complicate things!)

[Will]

Whoa, that was a monster of an essay. Even for you :P

I think the another concern is that it was done on the quiet. Although I can't imagine the public would immediately like the change

[dave_mc]

"they get the big prices because they hold back the very best seats, in limited supply" and there are people prepared to pay for the privilege

If there weren't enough people prepared to pay, I'm assuming it wouldn't be worth anyone's while trying to get the big prices?

my point was that they were manipulating the market, to increase demand. they wouldn't have got those prices if they'd been dealing more fairly.

It's almost like the property market - prices couldn't keep spiralling for ever because it reached the point where too many people simply couldn't afford to buy anything.  (I know there was a recession in there too to complicate things!)

i thought the housing bubble and recession were two sides of the same coin? the fact that the banks effed up by lending way to much on over-valued houses meant that if the house prices didn't keep rising by a ridiculous amount, they were up the proverbial creek without a paddle. it's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist, i think.

[JDC]

house prices have started going back up at the rate they dropped, this could be a phase due to people putting off seeing prices come down, then we'll see slower growth, although given the lack of house building in this country and immigration adding to demand, I wouldn't be surprised if the housing market went back to how it was

good old demand and supply

getting slightly off topic but there was news last week about the planet's population going from 6 billion to 8 billion by 2030, some science bods worked out the worst case scenario of this will cause a 50% increase demand in energy, 30% in water and 50% in food

[AndyR]

:lol: yeah it was a bit of a biggie - more of a "thinking out loud brain-dump" than a reasoned essay though!

(and here's another! :roll:)

Yeah, I think I am agreeing with you Philly. What I didn't put in was - "I assume that most of the seats are selling?" if the seats are selling, and there's people, with money ready to spend, who can't get tickets, then the prices can go higher. If they push the prices too high, then they won't fill the seats.

On the cricket side, I was hoping that they'd pushed the prices too far and that things would drop off a bit. But I don't think that's going to happen. Having said that, I am almost decided to not renew my Surrey membership - so I'm one of the people leaving in the next 6 months... (it's not just price, I'm not actually using it enough for what I'm paying - I could buy at least one more guitar a year!!)

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this point though Dave: "my point was that they were manipulating the market, to increase demand. they wouldn't have got those prices if they'd been dealing more fairly."

One of the reasons ticket prices have gone up in this country for international cricket (there must be others) is what happened in 2005 over Ashes tickets - it went bonkers on ebay. The ECB didn't have enough public seats to sell and then watched as loads of extra money from punters was diverted off into pockets not related to the game.

There would have been three "reactions" to this:

"F@ck me, Joe Public is getting ripped off"
"F@ck me, we're getting ripped off"
"F@ck me, Joe Public is prepared to pay a fair bit more than we're charging"

The MCC at Lord's went a fair way towards addressing the first two - MCC members could buy something like 8 tickets a day, but they're all traceable. The MCC bought any they found on ebay, sacked the member, and sold the ticket again at face value on the gate on the day. They also warned that anyone arriving at the gate with an MCC bought ticket, and without a good story, would have the ticket confiscated (again, it was sold at face value and the member sacked) the "holder" of the ticket would not be reimbursed whatever they paid the MCC member to acquire the ticket.

The third point, I guess, has helped fuel the ticket price rise over the past few years, certainly in the capital.

Actually, thinking about it, like this EVH/ticketmaster thing, I wouldn't be at all surprised if test match tickets available through ticket agents (2-300% of the face value), instead of through the appropriate ground's ticket process, get to the agents with the ECB's blessing, and for a consideration. To be honest, although I don't like it (especially when I can't get a ticket through the "proper channels" for the "proper price"), I have no problem with it - the demand was already there, there are 26K seats and 100K people wanted them, sadly the tickets were actually worth far more than their face values...

Now I don't really know how popular EVH seats are nowadays - but I'm really not convinced that "manipulating the market" increases the demand in this case. There are a set number of seats in the place that they hope to sell. As far as I can tell, and I might way off line here, what manipulating the market actually does in this case is enable them to exploit the true demand for the best tickets (what's the best ticket for an EVH gig? :lol:) - other folk, not connected, were already exploiting this, so rather than trying to stop them (I'm not sure this is even worth attempting), they went for a slice of it.

Now, if they've been naughty and broken laws, then yeah, do them... but if no actual laws were broke (were they? I assume that's what they're accused of?), then so what? They're out there in the market like the rest of us, they need to get the best buck for their efforts.

The way I see it, this interweb thing is changing everything back to bartering and negotiation - but we've all been brought up on "what price does it say on the label?" (I have at least). Nowadays shops are faced with "but it's 30% cheaper on the web - match that...", and your mates continaully tell you "hey that's a nice piece, good score, you could sell that on the web and double what you paid..." etc, etc...

... oh well, back to sleep, sorry, WORK!! :lol:

[Sifu Ben]

house prices have started going back up at the rate they dropped, this could be a phase due to people putting off seeing prices come down, then we'll see slower growth, although given the lack of house building in this country and immigration adding to demand, I wouldn't be surprised if the housing market went back to how it was

good old demand and supply

getting slightly off topic but there was news last week about the planet's population going from 6 billion to 8 billion by 2030, some science bods worked out the worst case scenario of this will cause a 50% increase demand in energy, 30% in water and 50% in food

It's very hard to know what to believe with recession stories at the moment. What's the truth behind the statistic? Are prices up, but sales down? First time buyers are completely frozen out of the market now, so demand must have plummetted. Coupled with the sharp rise in unemployment I find it unlikely that the housing market is undergoing some miraculous recovery, especially as the recession in England hasn't eased yet. I think fewer, more expensive sales may be skewing the figures slightly. If the only people who can afford to move are middle class 3-4 bedroom homeowners with a fair wodge of equity, this will distort statistics.
 As for population modelling, far from an exact science, and only the dramatic stuff gets publicised. China's population will be in decline by 2030, and it's possible India's will have stabilised (most Indians working overseas certainly aren't marrying young and having hordes of children from an early age, so this may well effect a cultural change in India). In both these countries the rise of the middle classes will reduce fertility rates, and as they account for 35% of the world's population, things should stabilise. Europe and the US alone could actually produce enough food to feed most of the world, we just don't and waste vast amounts anyway.

[JDC]

certainly too easy to speculate and generalise even if you don't mean to, most of my "data" comes from the BBC news site, one would hope it's not too coloured since their business model is public funding, but as you say, we don't see the fine details, even economists with all the real data they have access to get it wrong

then you got psychology things like priming that can influence our decisions without us even knowing it!!!

[dave_mc]

house prices have started going back up at the rate they dropped, this could be a phase due to people putting off seeing prices come down, then we'll see slower growth, although given the lack of house building in this country and immigration adding to demand, I wouldn't be surprised if the housing market went back to how it was

good old demand and supply

getting slightly off topic but there was news last week about the planet's population going from 6 billion to 8 billion by 2030, some science bods worked out the worst case scenario of this will cause a 50% increase demand in energy, 30% in water and 50% in food

not sure, it could be a false dawn. as you say, a lot of people are seeing how much they've dropped and forget that they could drop much, much more (at least in relation to prices pre-boom, here in NI at least). Personally, i want it to go back to the way it was before the boom. i don't see why a house in NI should cost close to as much as a house in the south of england, i know where i'd rather live.

i'm not certain, but i imagine immigration is going down because of the recession.

you're right about much less supply, but there's a stash of unsold stock which hasn't sold, so there's still too much supply. Not to mention, the problem is that people can't afford the houses without 125% mortgages, and those (rightly) aren't available at the moment.

It's very hard to know what to believe with recession stories at the moment. What's the truth behind the statistic? Are prices up, but sales down? First time buyers are completely frozen out of the market now, so demand must have plummetted. Coupled with the sharp rise in unemployment I find it unlikely that the housing market is undergoing some miraculous recovery, especially as the recession in England hasn't eased yet. I think fewer, more expensive sales may be skewing the figures slightly. If the only people who can afford to move are middle class 3-4 bedroom homeowners with a fair wodge of equity, this will distort statistics.

agreed. plus most people telling what the statistics are have a vested interest.

i would add though that the only reason that first-time buyers weren't frozen out of the market during the boom was because ridiculous mortgages were allowed. That's hardly ideal, either.