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Pros and Cons for Miley Cyrus Paperless Tickets

June 18th, 2009 Posted by: The Ticket Guy

So there’s a lot of news out there regarding Miley Cyrus’ move to paperless ticketing for her first non-Hannah Montana tour.

In summary, Cyrus is the first artist to try paperless tickets for an entire tour (every seat at every venue) and paperless tickets means that people will need to bring the credit card they purchased Cyrus tickets with them to the venue otherwise they will not be admitted.

Pro, having to have the credit card used at purchase to enter the event will make scalpers think twice before purchasing a Cyrus ticket with the pure intention of turning it around at a profit on the secondary market.

Con, how on Earth is she going to fill every seat in every venue with someone that owns a Visa card, especially in this credit crunch.

Pro, fewer scalpers flipping tickets on the secondary market means more fans paying less for tickets to attend a Miley Cyrus concert.

Con, more fans paying less for tickets to the show means less money pumping into the economy when we need it most. I hear Miley’s next single is titled, How I De-capitalized America.

A true fan is a true fan regardless of the amount of money they pay for a Miley Cyrus ticket, but fans that will pay what the market demands for a Miley Cyrus ticket also happen to be the people that are helping to keep America afloat right now.

Naturally attendance will be down across the board on this tour. If I’m sick and can’t sell my Cyrus ticket on eBay, that’s one more empty seat at the venue. What are the odds that not one in 32,000 fans will miss the show due to illness or scheduling conflicts?

Apparently Miley has decided to say, “Too bad sukka” in this case forcing many to eat the cost of their tickets if they cannot attend.

As with any of my pro-fair-market-value-for-tickets posts I have to throw a what-if? into the mix. What if my best friend’s brother passed away unexpectedly and his family didn’t have enough money to cover expenses. Maybe there were some layoffs and bad loans keeping money tight at this particular household and one more expense was not in the cards.

What if I told my best friend I had four Miley Cyrus concert tickets I could sell-off on StubHub that could probably help out? What if? What if Miley, anti-capitalist, Cyrus told me, “tough-luck, you can’t even get rid of your tickets at face value because I said so.”?

What if I told my best friend, “Jeez Bernard I would love to help you by selling-off the $2,000 worth of Miley Cyrus tickets I have here on my credit card, but I can’t.”?

You see when people say, “Miley Cyrus tickets should be affordable to everyone.” what they are really saying is “Damn it I love the girl but I’m just not willing to pay as much as the next guy to go see her.”

And when Miley Cyrus or government tries to step-in to regulate the price of a ticket on behalf of people that maybe don’t really want to go out and pay what the next person is willing to pay, that’s just putting a giant plug in a revenue stream that enables thousands of Americans to go out and help out their friends with things like funeral expenses, healthcare and a hot meal in times of distress.

That’s My Take,

Filed under: Concert Tour Announcements, My Take, In The News, Ask A Broker