August 2008
Why good tickets are scarce
For annual spectacles such as the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby, demand for tickets will always exceed supply. But even
everyday shows and concerts can sell out quickly. Hundreds of millions of ticket transactions occur online, where hundreds
of thousands of fans can shop. Ticketmaster, the nation's primary ticket distributor for many entertainment and sporting events
(see Master of the ticket universe), can move more than 14,000 tickets a minute online during peak periods, and lots of venues have fewer than 10,000 seats.
Moreover, the best seats in the house often go to producers, performers, and others with connections.
A decade ago, the New York State Attorney General's office investigated the darker side to why consumers found it hard to land tickets: broker payoffs to insiders, "diggers" who lined up at the physical box office, and high-speed dialing equipment that made it easier to get through by phone. None of the sites we mention were implicated.
Proponents of reselling see an upside to moving the practice out of the shadows. "Anti-scalping laws didn't work," says Marianne M. Jennings, professor of legal and ethical studies the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Regulated brokers, she adds, are safer, more reliable, and offer greater consumer protections, while creating a fair, open market for tickets that, she says, can actually drive prices down.
Critics counter that resellers put even more events out of the reach of Joe Fan. "Deregulation means that only the wealthiest can afford to buy tickets to marquee events," says Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group. Many stadiums and arenas are financed with public money, Haven points out, and Broadway theaters receive tax breaks. "They're all getting subsidized by taxpayers, yet the taxpayer is getting shut out."
A decade ago, the New York State Attorney General's office investigated the darker side to why consumers found it hard to land tickets: broker payoffs to insiders, "diggers" who lined up at the physical box office, and high-speed dialing equipment that made it easier to get through by phone. None of the sites we mention were implicated.
Proponents of reselling see an upside to moving the practice out of the shadows. "Anti-scalping laws didn't work," says Marianne M. Jennings, professor of legal and ethical studies the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Regulated brokers, she adds, are safer, more reliable, and offer greater consumer protections, while creating a fair, open market for tickets that, she says, can actually drive prices down.
Critics counter that resellers put even more events out of the reach of Joe Fan. "Deregulation means that only the wealthiest can afford to buy tickets to marquee events," says Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group. Many stadiums and arenas are financed with public money, Haven points out, and Broadway theaters receive tax breaks. "They're all getting subsidized by taxpayers, yet the taxpayer is getting shut out."
