Touting

[tommy]

Atila Reincarnate Wrote:

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> I'm surprised anyone can make a profit selling

> hamlet tickets.

especially as they finished mid table (after the 3 points deduction)

[????]

MM - "price of everything value of nothing" stuff there fella, you must have some soul surely?

Hypothetically - If i'd hire a kid entertainer for my little girl's birthday for ?200 and Dulwichmum offered me a ?1,000 to have them on the same day when it was her son's birthday, in a commodity based world I could accept this and even offer my litle girl 4 goes with the entertainer, but not on her birthday, and trouser ?200....am I gonna do that? Not in a million years

[Marmora Man]

???? - you're implying that you have no choice. Everyone is an individual - you can do what you want. My argument isn't that anyone must sell at a profit - only that there's nothing intrinsically wrong in doing so and that there are no "special cases" that preclude such an action.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Mark Wrote:

...there's only one person selling Hamlet tickets at a profit at the moment.

Surely anyone selling any tickets for Shakespearian Plays over the face value should be Bard?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I'm not keen on profiting from other people as a general rule. The reason why I think tickets for events like this are different from any other commodity are:

1) The price is no reflection of quality. Selling a ?30 ticket for ?50 is scalping and gives no extra benefit

2) Being of limited quantity and tied to a specific date makes it unique

3) The ticket price is democratic - it is what it is. Even someone on a lowly income can look forward to an event if they know the price and save for it - if people with more cash just keep inflating the price it excludes those on a lower income for no reason other than to line their own pockets - and to repeat a point - for no effort whatsoever

All the same names can be applied to gazumpers and gazunderers -

As for name calling losing an argument, or having an argument of poor quality I can only disagree strongly. I have a wealth of arguments against scumbags such as 16 year old drug dealers peddling to 12 year olds - but me calling him a scumbag weakens my argument not a jot

I am reminded of

The ruiner of all things good

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Spent a fascinating 15 minutes at the top of Brixton Tube Station recently watching the local touts attempting to do Business with the hordes emerging from the Underground to watch some Indie Group.

They have their pecking order, their lieutenants, their hangers-on, their "ruckers", their "look-outs".and The Police were at the bottom of the stairs while the Touts were at the top.

Most enlightening.

[Jeremy]

There are some things in life which should be treated as commodities, and others which perhaps shouldn't.

Who wants to live in a society where everything we hold dear to us becomes a tradeable commodity, available to the highest bidder? Not me!

[Marmora Man]

Sean, my response:

1) The price is no reflection of quality. Selling a ?30 ticket for ?50 is scalping and gives no extra benefit. It provides an extra value to the person prepared to pay for it. They don't have a ticket - they want one, they are prepared to pay a premium to get one. They are not buying something valued at ?30 - the ticket itself has no intrinsic value. They are paying for an access that otherwise they cannot have.

2) Being of limited quantity and tied to a specific date makes it unique. Uniqueness has always been a selling point - hence love of art and high prices paid for an Old Master etc

3) The ticket price is democratic - it is what it is. Even someone on a lowly income can look forward to an event if they know the price and save for it - if people with more cash just keep inflating the price it excludes those on a lower income for no reason other than to line their own pockets - and to repeat a point - for no effort whatsoever. But the "lowly paid" have an equal opportunity to buy the ticket in the first place. If they are such great fans they will queue for the ticket - it's not as if those selling tickets on at a premium "won" them in a lottery, they queued for them as everyone else did.

I still think your arguments are emotional not rational.

However, I would support a campaign to encourage all venues (of whatever ilk) to retain a certain % of tickets for sale on the day of the event only and available only at the venue. This works brilliantly at the National Theatre and I have used it often to get tickets (at face value!) for otherwise sold out productions. I suggested to the ECCB that all Test Matches should do the same and if the O2 was to follow suit it might satisfy your emotional position and my rationalist position. "True" fans can get face value tickets if they are prepared to get up early and queue - others can pay to avoid such a queue by paying a premium to a tout.

[Marmora Man]

Jeremy,

As I have said to ???? - everyone has a choice. I am not advocating that everyone must value and trade everything they hold dear. Merely that selling, anything, for a profit is not necessarily a "bad thing". There are many things I hold dear and would never sell at all, let alone for a profit - but to ascribe a similar uniqueness to a concert ticket is beyond my comprehension.

[SeanMacGabhann]

But this is where I intrinsically disagree with your whole premise. You somehow condemn the people who were unlucky in the lottery of ticket sales (eg 1 million + trying to get 150k tickets for Glastonbury in the peak years) as somehow lazier or less determined which is ridiculous. If you were lucky to get a ticket and can't make it doesn't it make the world a TINY bit better to pass on that ticket to someone who didn't, rather than tell them they should have risen earlier?

You won't have lost out, someone else gets something they thought they couldn't? Why make the world more expensive than it is?

It is entirely rational to want to help people out without taking a profit

[SeanMacGabhann]

oh and nor am I saying these values apply ONLY to a ticket - I also mention gazumping and gazundering as similarly poor form

[????]

One of the greatest touting sights I've seen was seeing some blokes you wouldn't argue with liberating some touts of tickets at the millenium and redistributing them - I also witnessed a couple of people selling Cup Final tickets to fellow fans at face value, economic rationale, no, decent heartwaming behaviour, yes

[Mark]

Whilst most middle men earn their money by bringing the product to market, touts go to the market buy up the product so that others cannot buy them, then resell them to those people who cannot buy them. The fact that the product is for entertainment makes it slightly more emotive.

Is going to the chemist, buying up all the Tamiflu (so others can't buy it) then reselling it for a profit a bad thing? One could argue it provides an extra value to the person prepared to pay for it, it's uniqueness is a selling point and everyone can queue for them no matter what they earn. Alternatively you could just let people buy it directly from the chemist and let the obstructional profiteering play no part and everyone's happier.

Yes I know health and entertainment differ but I don't agree that selling anything for a profit is not necessarily a "bad thing". It has a lot to do with the way it is done and people's perceptions of how it is done.

[Marmora Man]

It is entirely rational to want to help people out without taking a profit

Sure it is - it's called charity - but even that yields a profit. Your assumption is that all profit is monetary. Your satisfaction (smug self satisfaction?) in exercising your choice and not making a monetary profit is a benefit (profit) to you in that it makes you feel better.

You're trying to read between my lines. I was not condemning anyone - all I said was that when tickets go on sale everyone has an equal chance to queue and buy. If there's a massive oversubscription that's not discrimination against the lowly paid -it's discrimination against everyone who wants to attend.

People value things differently. I recently paid to watch an Arsenal match - in essence I paid a premium as the holder of the season tickets that I and my sons used could have let me have them for free - after all he couldn't use them as he was abroad. I paid, not to see the match but to see the pleasure on my sons faces at the treat of attending a premier league match of their favourite club. How do you value a great day out with family - to me the cash I parted with was worth it. In a different situation I might have decided not to spend that cash on that particular treat but paid off part of my mortgage, or bought a picture for the wall - my freedom of choice.

Looking around at the Emirates Stadium I could see many season ticket holders - they had paid upwards of a ?1,000 a year (I think) for their season ticket. I would never pay that as I don't value premier league football more than ?1,000. Others, maybe even lowly earners, do and willingly forego other pleasures to pay for their particular "thing". Every purchase you make is a decision - foregoing one thing in order to afford another.

I don't understand your attitude toward buying and selling - you seem to imply it is morally wrong. It is not, but everyone has freedom of choice - to buy, to not buy, to give something away for free or to sell on at a monetary profit. Charity is great - I support and applaud it, but the whole world cannot run solely on charitable giving from one to another

[SeanMacGabhann]

MM - you spent a couple of paragraphs talking about how people choose to spend their money - I have no problem with that whatsoever

But your first paragraph is well off the mark. Charity is giving something expecting nothing in return. When have I suggested that? My issue is someone who is lucky enough to get a ticket profiting from that luck at the expense of others

And I don't think I'm reading between any lines when you said

"But the "lowly paid" have an equal opportunity to buy the ticket in the first place. If they are such great fans they will queue for the ticket - it's not as if those selling tickets on at a premium "won" them in a lottery, they queued for them as everyone else did."

Winning them in a lottery is effectively what those lucky enough to get tickets have done. And no-one is discriminated against in the distribution of tickets... it's only the taking advantage of that that makes it discriminatory. If someone can juuust about afford the ticket, you get it instead (maybe your phone exchange is a mile closer?) and then you can't go it IS you who is discriminating by selling on the ticket at a higher price. I'm not asking you to just give the thing away...

[Huguenot]

Conceivably if people will pay 500 quid for a ticket, then the ticket is by definition worth 500 quid.

If the band are only getting 50, then it must mean the band are under-selling them? I'd sack the manager.

If the band are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, then why do they charge at all?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I had an idea you would be on MM's side on this

Touring is an expensive business no? It's about the only thing that generates money for an artist these days (see a joint hero of both MM & me, Laughing Len Cohen)

Why exclude vast swathes of your fanbas by charging the highest possible amount? Madonna got a LOT of stick for charging three figure somes for the shitest seats in teh shitest venue in London a year or so back - and rightly so

It's short termism

[Huguenot]

The band would be doing alright if there weren't all these people stealing their music and pretending they're doing it as some sort of social statement about freedom.

If free marketing of their music is a good idea then let them choose to do it, rather than be robbed.

I don't like touts either, but it's because I'm against monopolistic cartels, not against the price.

The problem with touts is that when they get it wrong, you get an empty venue and thousands of fans sat at home.

[Ted Max]

The Band are back? I'd pay good money to see that.

[SeanMacGabhann]

If bands want to charge the earth that's entirely up to them - I won't be going, others will and as MM says thats everyones choice

Tout touts are vermin

But what is really bothering me in all of this is one fan (and I use that word rather than consumer) willingness to take advantage of another

[Jeremy]

Not every artist is like Madonna and wants to charge as much as possible - some artists respect their fans. To take a well known example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugazi#Business_practice_and_ethics (sure, Fugazi aren't/weren't a stadium rock band, but still plenty big enough to interest the touts).

But in fairness to MM, he has already explicitly said that he doesn't agree with touts buying large numbers of tickets, so don't see why people are arguing with him on that point.

[DaveR]

It's also worth saying that there is a significant difference between gazumping (where an offer has been made and accepted, albeit falling short of a binding contract, and one party then resiles) and selling a ticket on at a profit.

I can't argue with MM's line at all - it is the only rational assessment of the situation. However, I am also a football fan, and if a fellow fan of my team with a spare ticket offered it to me for more than face value I would think they were a c%nt. I suppose the difference between that situation and a concert is that a far greater proportion of football fans have a real attachment to the club they follow and a reasonable expectation that others are the same, and that there is therefore a sense of common interest.

[Help-Ma-Boab]

I have a free pass for tonights Forum Drinks - Any takers.....