Ticket Insider

Ticket Resellers Strike Taylor Swift’s Tour

March 17th, 2009 Posted by: The Ticket Guy

Hello,

I just wanted to post my take on this article from TheHour.com:
http://www.thehour.com/printstory/466580/

There are a lot of great points brought up but in the end I still believe fare-market-value is the better route. Afterall i would love to own a Ferrari but can’t afford one, so does that mean that Ferrari and local laws have to make them affordable to me?

Let’s take it point by point on some of the more striking notes.

“I’ve never seen anything in my whole career like this,” Messina says. “There’s not a city that’s not selling out in minutes.” - That’s the way of it. Big tours sell out fast and unless you’re lucky enough to get through by phone or online you’re going to have to get your ticket on the secondary market. If artists would move to an auction format fewer people would turn around and sell these tickets to a broker for profit. Putting a Picaso out on the market for $20.00 is just asking for someone to sell it for more. Should we regulate the sale of materpieces as well?

“She wants it to be affordable to go to her show,” he says. “Really, if it was strictly up to her, all tickets would be $20. She does have expenses, so unfortunately $20 won’t get it.” - Again, hats-off to Taylor Swift for wanting all of her fans to be able to afford tickets but the fact of the matter is many of her fans can and are paying a lot more than $20.00 for these tickets. It’s simple supply and demand. It’s what our society is built on. I would love to buy a $20.00 ticket on this tour but I’m not going to cripple our economy when these ticket sales could be pumping a lot more money back into it.

“It’s ridiculous,” Messina says. “First of all, tickets are posted before they’ve even gone on sale. I’ve seen tickets at $1,100 each. It’s frustrating on our part because the whole intent was to make it affordable, but she’s in such demand that people are paying these prices.” - Have Swift move all ticket sales to an auction format. Give her, her $20.00 a ticket minus exspences and let her donate the rest of her earnings to Project Red or something that will make a noble and worthwile difference. I know I’d feel much better about paying $1,100 for my Taylor Swift ticket if I knew most of that was going to help children in Africa live long-healthy lives!

“Messina emphasizes that neither Swift nor TMG/AEG Live are receiving a cut of any secondary-market revenue. In fact, Messina says, Swift axed earlier plans for a limited auction of some tickets, a move that he estimates cost her about $500,000.” - Again, there is a lot of money here Swift could control if she worked directly with someone that could auction her tickets for her. I think the more noble cause is using this money make a change instead of insain profits. If we all could just move to a fare-market-value model, there will be plenty of young, up-and-comming counry artists for us to catch at $20.00 a show on their way up.

“The first three shows we put up we did ticket auctions and once I explained to her what ticket auctions were about, she made me cancel them immediately,” he says. “She says, ‘How can I do a ticket auction? That’s telling my fans I’m practicing the same thing [as resellers].’ ” - Again, Swift could have distributed the proceeds to local charities. I think if you asked her fans if they would rather help raise millions of dollars to cure cancer at auction prices or rather they get their $20.00 ticket, most of them would be in favor of sitting out the show in favor of a cure for cancer.

“How are resellers getting these tickets? “Even in the days when we were dealing with hard tickets . . . they had a connection with the box office, the promoter, the building,” Messina says of ticket scalpers. “I guarantee it’s much more sophisticated now.” - Just look at StubHub, thousands of people are listing these tickets in the hopes that they can make some money and you know what, I bet you at least one of them needs the money to put food on their table this week.

“Messina and Texas building managers lobbied for anti-scalping laws in Texas years ago and failed, but he says the problem has exploded in the Internet age.” - It seems like this is a lobby to keep large heaps of money out of our staggering economy at a time when we really need it.

“It is commonly known in the industry but little discussed that some artist camps have relationships with brokers and participate in the market in order to tap into some of that revenue. Asked his feelings on that practice, Messina says, “My comment on that is if we’re feeding the machine, eventually we’ll get burnt by the machine. It’s as simple as that.” - Anyone can buy a ticket for this show and sell it on eBay, StubHub or to a ticket reseller for profit and I bet if we really looked into it you would see the number of independent resellers on the rise thanks to such entities. One way or another fare-market-value is making its mark on the economy and I don’t think it’s a bad thing if a 3rd-grade teacher can sell a Swift ticket for $500 profit and spend that money on much-needed supplies and instruments for her students.

“Messina says he has pondered ways to stymie brokers but notes that most such efforts just inconvenience fans, particularly younger fans who may not have a credit card or proper identification.” - Look it’s not about stymieing brokers, it’s about getting this money out into the economy where it’s needed. Artists need to realise the potential they have to make a change with fair-market-value and begin partnering with the entities they need to in order to get their share of that ticket price. Fans will understand in the end, “hey, I can’t afford these tickets, maybe I’ll go see someone I can afford and support them.” Bingo, new market created; more Americans thriving; a healthier economy, etc.

“”I even thought of putting tickets on sale the day before the show,” he says. “In the case of Taylor, it would sell out and that way the brokers won’t have an opportunity to distribute tickets,” he says. “But that’s pretty risky.” - Whether it’s a broker or an elementary school teacher or Taylor Swift and StubHub selling these tickets at fare-market-value, you can’t argue that limiting ticket prices to face value is good for the economy, so you might want to think about convincing Taylor to try auctioning off some tickets and see if she can raise money for her favorite cause with the earnings.

This is a good thing. We just need to realise that some of us can’t afford some of the things we want. And each time you choose to go bowling instead of a Taylor Swift concert, you probably just did your part to help the owner of that bowling alley provide a better life for his/her family.

One Love,

Filed under: My Take