Posted on 10/23/2007 5:33:39 AM PDT by suspects
There are people paying $250 this week for Hannah Montana concert tickets with a face value of 25 bucks. For those of you not blessed with 13-year-old daughters who watch the Disney Channel, Hannah Montana is a fictional pop star played by the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus - also known as the Achy-Breaky Heart guy.
Anyone who’d pay 10 times face value for tickets to watch a cable TV actress sing bad pop music for pre-teens is a dope who shouldn’t have access to a checkbook without adult supervision.
On the other hand, there are people prepared to pay $500 to sit in the worst seats at Fenway Park [map] tomorrow night to watch a game they could see on HDTV for free. That person can be reached in care of this column. ASAP.
No questions asked.
How much is a ticket worth? Like everything else in life, it’s worth what a willing buyer will pay for it. Regardless of whether the state of Massachusetts likes it.
This is why so-called ticket scalping is illegal. The Legislature sees happy buyers doing business with contented sellers and concludes that something terrible must be happening:
“All these people, happily doing business and making money without government supervision? Where the hell do they think they are - New Hampshire?”
This is why the term “scalping” is so ludicrous. When I pay you $200 for Springsteen tickets, I’m getting something I want more than I want the 200 bucks. You’re getting something you want more than the tickets - my money. Who’s getting “scalped” here?
Scalping only makes sense if I’m being forced to pay for something I don’t want - say, like Deval Patrick’s drapes. But nobody’s putting the governor behind bars. Yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
“The undercover cop we approached let us go with a warning and followed us to the door.”
The problem was most likely you were trying to sell them for more than face value. I do not think it is a crime ANYWHERE to sell them at or less than face value.
Also, do not try to sell them right outside the events door. In some cities it is not a crime if you are a certain distance from the venue.
I was offered astronomical amounts for my tickets to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Hurricans vs. Oilers. No way was I parting with them.
Big whoop. My original point was and is, her songs are decent and not at all objectionable for her target audience. Why are you so upset about a Disney Channel kid?
That is only possible if the tickets are priced at far less than what the market will bear...
I wonder if auctioning them off on the net in small increments would help. I doubt you could ever eliminate bulk buying, but it might help.
It would probably help, but it doesn’t solve the problem created by the fact that promoters want to keep the ticket prices low.
So I was lying? As I said, we were selling for face value. We just wanted to get our money we paid for them. The cop said it was against a city ordinance for anyone but the Kings to sell tickets there.
Or the promoter has to share the money from the ticket sales with others, and pay taxes on that money. Funds which flow back from the scalpers doesn't have to be shared, and may not be declared on taxes.
Thus there could be a financial incentive for low initial ticket prices with the bulk of the tickets being funneled to the scalpers.
Bullcrap
I’m a fan of Michael Graham, but he’s off-base here.
The show Hannah Montana is a decent, clean family show that our three teen and pre-teen kids thoroughly enjoy, and that we’re happy to have them watch.
Miley Cyrus isn’t a bad singer to boot. She has a decent voice, her music is fun, and her clean image is far preferable to the trashy sluts plaguing pop music and culture today.
I do agree that there is a problem here with the big ticket brokers buying out all the tickets and jacking up the prices. It’s not a simple matter of happy seller / happy buyer. Now we have these parasitic, no-value-added middle men who have no interest in either the product nor the product’s end-users, just their own profit.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Might I suggest an economics course as your next step?
“Until you get organizations that buy up hundreds, or thousands, of tickets to an event with the sole intention of jacking up the prices far beyond their original sale price. Trust me, it happens - and it is the regular Joe who is left out in the cold.”
This is exactly what happened when I tried to get tickets to Van Halen. Then again, if they raise the prices too high, no one will go and they will be stuck with the tickets.
So I was lying?
So Sorry, I did not read you were intending to sell them for face value.
However, as I stated before there may be a law in Seattle about selling tickets within a certain distance of the venue.
Might I suggest that you figure out that scalping tickets to an event is against the law for a reason? If you don’t know, or can’t understand, what that reason is then you are hopeless.
One thing I wish these people who have no problem with scalping would understand is that it is not ‘their’ event. The performer, sports team owner, etc. has decided that they want to make tickets available at a certain price for whatever reason. They are selling their performance and have every right to say that they don’t want the arena to be filled only with those who can afford to pay $500 on a $50 face value ticket. If that happens it is a great way to lose the very audience they are trying to build.
My comment was meant more as sarcasm than as a dissertation in economics.
They can't jack up the sale price beyond what people are willing to pay.
If people buy the tickets at that high price, that is what the tickets were worth.
Yes that means that many things you would like to do will be priced beyond your reach, that is true for most everyone. Get used to it, that is how life works.
Government intervention doesn't change the fact that there is a greater demand for many things than there is a supply of them. All it does it artificially change who gets the items and who benefits, and leads to power brokering and corruption.
Keep the government out of it. At least when a "scalper" offers to sell you a ticket at what you believe to be an inflated price, they are being honest about what it will cost you. When the government intervenes you end up paying through fees and taxes to subsidize stadiums and events. You get to subsidize entertainment to keep it affordable for the people who's votes the politicians want to buy with your tax dollars.
I believe they're called Travel Agents, and they are very much in evidence in December and January every year.
Why? The acting is awful on that show.
I'm sorry. I guess I hit a nerve. Can I send you a Hannah Montana poster to make you feel better?
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