[benji-york]

I think I am in total agreement with your comment and I have another angle to add for your consideration:

Assume someone wanted to sell highly sought-after tickets for less than the market clearing (profit maximizing) price—as you suggest. Lowering the price will increase demand (because more people can afford them). We now have more demand for the tickets; how will that demand be expressed?

Will some people stand in line for days to get the tickets? Is that a form of payment that some people can "pay" more easily that others because they are "richer" in disposable time?

Will some people write software to shave milliseconds off of their ticket-buying reaction time? Is that a form of payment that some people can "pay" more easily than others because they have the requisite skills?

Will some people pay others to do the above (or something similar)?

It seems to me that these are all forms of payment and that the total payment (in currency or otherwise) will approximate the market-clearing price in pure currency from the other scenario.

What do you think?

[eropple]

I think the obvious answer is a fair lottery for reasonably-priced, non-transferable tickets.