Great video! I am all for scalper and for their role in establishing market equilibrium. My only complaint is that professional scalpers and secondary market ticket agents, such as Stub Hub seem to have unfair access to tickets when they first go on sale. As a,result, they are actually complicit in creating a shortage of supply, thus raising the real market price of the tickets, which they then sell at a higher price.
Tom Chapman blames scalpers for being "complicit in creating a shortage of supply".
Please consider the "official" ticket sellers. They refuse to raise their prices (on principle!) to the market level. The long lines and the sclapers are symptoms of low prices; low prices create excess demand; excess demand IS a shortage. Put the blame where it belongs.
It does seem as if I was blaming the scalpers without properly recognizing their role in selling tickets at true market prices. The existence of scalpels demonstrates that tickets are often sold at a price that is too low and doesn't reflect the true value. My point was to pose the question that if more tickets were made available to the public, would that diminish the need for a scalper. In other words, if tickets were still available from the box office for $50 and from scalpers at $100 (assuming equal quality seating), of course people would likely go to the box office. Scalpers generally only benefit when there are no other purchase options. If they themselves helped create the limitation of options, is that really the proper role? In other words, are these corporate scalpers interfering with equal access which could keep tickets lower longer for more people. All of this with the acknowledgement that tickets to some events will always be more valuable than the ticket price, which does indeed support the assertion that they are priced too low.
3 comments:
Great video! I am all for scalper and for their role in establishing market equilibrium. My only complaint is that professional scalpers and secondary market ticket agents, such as Stub Hub seem to have unfair access to tickets when they first go on sale. As a,result, they are actually complicit in creating a shortage of supply, thus raising the real market price of the tickets, which they then sell at a higher price.
Tom Chapman blames scalpers for being "complicit in creating a shortage of supply".
Please consider the "official" ticket sellers. They refuse to raise their prices (on principle!) to the market level. The long lines and the sclapers are symptoms of low prices; low prices create excess demand; excess demand IS a shortage. Put the blame where it belongs.
It does seem as if I was blaming the scalpers without properly recognizing their role in selling tickets at true market prices. The existence of scalpels demonstrates that tickets are often sold at a price that is too low and doesn't reflect the true value. My point was to pose the question that if more tickets were made available to the public, would that diminish the need for a scalper. In other words, if tickets were still available from the box office for $50 and from scalpers at $100 (assuming equal quality seating), of course people would likely go to the box office. Scalpers generally only benefit when there are no other purchase options. If they themselves helped create the limitation of options, is that really the proper role? In other words, are these corporate scalpers interfering with equal access which could keep tickets lower longer for more people. All of this with the acknowledgement that tickets to some events will always be more valuable than the ticket price, which does indeed support the assertion that they are priced too low.
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