www.ticketnews.com: One of the keys to the Live Nation/Ticketmaster model is the vertical integration of the company. From the parent company comes exclusivity ties to a huge percentage of the venues in the country. Ticketing flows through them for a huge number of acts. Then, when tickets are gone, they can simply filter people looking for them through to their secondary marketplace holdings.
8 comments:
This was a very interesting article because I am not really a person that buys tickets at the moment they are sold, so in this case, that would have benefitted me. I did, however, have knowledge that companies like to buy tickets and upmark them, so as to make more money, but if I were this customer, I also would have written a letter in complaint. That being said, ticketing companies should not be able to do that. They are running scams and are often very sketchy and are also really annoying for valued HUMAN customers. But to charge some people a lot of money and then give out free tickets to anyone walking by, is just rude and the company should have taken the initiative to refund their tickets or make a point of apologizing sincerely before hand.
This article is interesting, because it shows how technology can affect the way that people are able to purchase things. These patrons were quite frankly conned, because they paid face value for these tickets only to find that later when they went to the show, people who had better seats than them had paid less than them and in some cases, they had even paid nothing. In this era of commercial theatre and live performance, it is understandable that performance venues are attempting to maximize profit with this form of online tiered ticketing, but at the same time, when it gets to this extreme level where people feel like they are constantly being cheated out of their money, everyday people are less apt to go to a live performance if they feel like they are being cheated out of their money. Another interesting point that the article brings up is the vertical integration of the company, and how that allows Ticketmaster to have a direct secondary marketplace for resale tickets.
The topic of ticket sales is always interesting. It always seems to be the impossible game of when to buy and when to fold. I wouldn’t consider myself to be an avid concert goer but I have spent a fair amount of my time on taskmaster’s website. No one ever logs on at the right time and you always end up paying more than you wanted. There is mention of a robot in this article and I think it is fitting because it insinuates that people are just trying to beat the computer. At the end of the day I can see where the frustration is coming from but if I am being completely honest you just have to learn to play the game. Let’s be real the computer isn’t that smart so if you find yourself looking for tickets I would either say buy in the beginning or wait until the last minute. If you buy anytime in-between, you can almost guarantee that you are going to pay more for your seat whether it the most popular show of the year or just your average weekend concert.
I wonder if the solution to this is to somehow illegalize scalping. Ticketmaster seems to be using the same model as Amtrak: the more tickets have sold, the more expensive the remaining are. Are there scalpers of Amtrak tickets? They can get completely unreasonably expensive especially between major cities like New York and Boston. Or could there be a cap on a specific ticket price? Then, if you saw it for more, you could report it to some authority? If there really is vertical integration as this article suggests- that Ticketmaster also owns the scalping sites, especially with bots, that should definitely be illegal. Technology is advancing and bots do exist. You can even hire your own bots to help win ebay sales, but I think that as a society, we should decide how we want to regulate the modern way of the buying and selling of goods. We have plenty of economic laws to protect consumers from Big Business. It is time to create some new laws to protect consumers from Big Programing.
I feel like there is still a ton of room to improve on modern ticketing sales. Ticketmaster and other related sites can often be confusing and difficult to navigate, particularly if you do not have a link directing you to a page for a specific event. Not to mention the fact that, for most customers, there is a lot of grey area in terms of how exactly the tickets are being priced, how many tickets are still available at a venue, why prices are changing, etc. This articles presents a perfect instance of that. It seems that Ticketmaster was using traditional algorithms that would usually use for selling tickets to a massive pop star stadium tour on an event that would probably need a different algorithm to more realistically match the needs of the patrons that would be attending. I think there is a major opportunity within the next few years for a new business or startup company to revolutionize the way that tickets are sold.
Ticketbots are a huge issue with online ticket buying and new technology in computer systems. I have not heard about tickets being handed out for free after people struggled to get them at face value. I would be very frustrated if I spent a lot of money on tickets and they were not all together and exactly where I wanted them and then people were able to get better seats for very cheap or even for free. It is interesting that no one noticed that the tickets said they were sold out when there were actually a lot of them available. Even though everything is automated now there should still be people checking the system to make sure that things like this do not happen to loyal customers. The worst thing a company can do is to screw over their loyal customers because then they will not use their service anymore.
Buying tickets to almost any event that draws thousands is like going to a casino. Sometimes you win, most of the time you don’t. Ticketmaster is by far the largest ticketing company out there. They control the market. On the flip side are the ticket bots, whose software goes live moments before ticket sales begin and then starts snatching up seats only to sell them later at a hight premium. After all, it’s a business and they need to make money right? Ticket bots don’t care if you are a student trying to see shows or a grandparent taking the kids on a trip of a lifetime. They only care about the bottom line. Where this article fails is that Ticketmaster can also be the culprit. Take a touring show. Travels around the country going from venue to venue. Each venue (who uses Ticketmaster by the way), set’s the price of the ticket based on industry standards and the cost of bringing that show into its theatre. Sure, a venue could bring in Les Miserables, pay the show its fees and then give away all the tickets, but then they have no money for new shows. The problem lies in getting tickets at these places. Promoters like to hold back premium seats from season subscribers to sell down the road to those just coming to see that show. They also hold back prime seats for a later sale date as it becomes more popular. All in an effort to make as much money from the patron as possible. Want to sit down front? Good luck trying to get the exact day to purchase.
I think everyone would share the frustration of this customer complaint if you see people piling in free of charge to better seats than yours when you have gone through all the refreshing and repeating hardship booking tickets online. Like the article said, situation like this hurt badly the actually ideal patrons of online ticketing system – they do as the instructions say.
I don’t know if this is a real system/algorithm fail or technology struggle or it is intentional like when airway companies oversell their seats and force passengers to change to another flight due to overcapacity. However, situations like this has been lasting long enough that online ticketing system would start to lose loyal patrons – if I know I’d get free ticket later for better seats, why would I pay more for a less ideal seat early online? Like the letter said, “it was a mess and it was true rip-off of customers”. A full-scale reflection and renovation is in need.
Post a Comment