[lupin_sansei]

There's no inherent value for tickets (or anything). Their value subjective - what people will pay for them. There's nothing more "right" about the price the ticketing office charges than the price the scalper charges.

It's not only a 10 minute difference, a scalper will allow you to buy a ticket 1 minute before the show starts - that's worth something.

[weel]

There is, indeed, no such thing as inherent value, but people nonetheless tend to think in terms of inherent value. This is important to realize when you decide on marketing and pricing schemes. For instance, restaurants are more likely to offer a discount on quiet days than charge a surcharge on busy days, and they make those sorts of decisions for a reason (restaurants can be a very competitive business, after all.)

David Friedman wrote a neat paper about the psychology of inherent prices and some related topics:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/econ_and_evol_psych/economics_and_evol_psych.html