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StubHub Says Ticket Resales Are Booming, Thanks To Lower Prices
from the hot-tickets dept
Online ticket reseller StubHub says that sales revenues and volume were up significantly in the first quarter, as secondary ticket prices fell and lured in more buyers. The head of the company says he wishes he could have some control over the prices and keep them down so the volume (which drives StubHub's revenues) stays high, but the company really has no way to control that, since each individual seller that uses its platform will try to push the price as high as they can. In any case, Stubhub's booming business helps explain why Ticketmaster is trying to grow its own resale business, grabbing a cut from the original sale, and then the resale too. On a related note, the StubHub CEO says he's not concerned about Ticketmaster's increasing use of paperless tickets as a means to thwart scalpers: "There are ways that brokers can provide these tickets. They're not elegant. They don't provide a great experience to the fan... Where there's a will there’s a way, and there are both interested sellers and interested buyers." Inevitably, resellers will find a way around the system -- but somehow, as long as Ticketmaster finds a new revenue stream coming from it, it's hard to imagine the company will mind too much.
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Reader Comments
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paperless tickets
Ticketmaster charges extra for the paperless tickets. Doesn't that show that they don't think that paperless tickets prevent resale?
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Re: paperless tickets
No, it shows that there are some higher administrative costs in getting paperless tickets to work (particularly at the shows themselves). I would expect to see Ticketmaster reverse this position over time, making paper tickets more expensive (or possibly not available at all).
Stubhub talks a brave game, but when it gets too difficult to actually get the tickets, I think you will see that stubhubs business will drop.
I think you will see more and more sports teams move towards smart cards to replace tickets, where the card is identified to a user who is the only one that can use the account. Using that smart card to hold tickets and allow access to the facilities might be a workable solution.
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Re: Re: paperless tickets
bullshit.
It all about money.
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Re: Re: paperless tickets
I think you will see more and more sports teams move towards smart cards to replace tickets, where the card is identified to a user who is the only one that can use the account. Using that smart card to hold tickets and allow access to the facilities might be a workable solution.
Yeah right, I am going to go through all that trouble so that I can overpay for the tickets, then have to pay the "smartcard" fee, the "convenience" fee, the "facility", the "service" fee, the "will call" fee, the "paperless ticket" fee. FUCK ticketmaster, they are and illegal monopoly and add up to 50% to the price of a ticket. FUCK ticketmaster...
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Re: paperless tickets
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Forget TM
Or... people could just stop using Ticketmaster all together and just start using local brokers.
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Higher costs for paperless?
Maybe I haven't seen these "paperless" tickets, but it's absurd that they charge a premium for "print at home" tickets, when it saves them the printing time, handling, and postage. As for admin costs at the venue, even with "hard" tickets, they are all barcoded now to control fraud, and ever ticket gets scanned at the entry point.
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Re: Higher costs for paperless?
I agree. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts has the same higher-price-for-"paperless" crap (although it's not exactly "paperless" if you have to print something out on paper), which is why we most recently bought tickets and had them delivered by mail.
Which was fortunate, because when it turned out we couldn't go, we could re-sell the paper tickets on Craigslist at cost. (Bummer, I really wanted to see Spamalot, too...)
It's just like the push to go digital with videogames, trying to destroy the resale market and saddle it with as much DRM as possible. But, like with videogames, as the last statement in this article suggests, no matter how they try to prevent it, people will find a way around it.
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RE: Higher costs for paperless?
What if a counterfeit ticket gets used/scanned before you get to the venue and you are the SOL? Has happened before.
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What a surprise!! :)
I've had to tell my daughter 'no' to three concerts because of the cost.
And not to worry RIAA - she, like me; prefers the original CD. But $75.00+ for a concert ticket?
naaaaa
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Re:
The $75 for the ticket is to make up for all the money lost to the artist and record labels as a result of rampant piracy and those who subscribe to the "masnick way". Your concert ticket would have been $30, but hey, someone has to pay for all those free downloads / pirates / infringers.
Welcome to web 2.9! Hopefully we will flip over to 3 soon as this horrible situation will get resolved.
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