But don’t artists get less because scalping happens? That is, if they priced tickets higher to start, there would be more revenue going to the artists and less going to middlemen.
The scalpers are often affiliated with the artists, directly or indirectly. Katy Perry's contract was leaked in 2011 and she had reserved the right to sell tickets through "Resellers" [0]. And as the grandparent notes, many of the scalpers sell their tickets on Ticketmaster, which in turn has a contract with the artists.
The artists would get more in the short term, but all this outrage that's currently directed at scalpers and Ticketmaster wouldn't just go away—a lot of it would still exist but be directed at the artists themselves.
That Katy Perry contract solves a large piece of this puzzle for me - if we are selling to scalpers direct then there has to be a deniable way for the scalers to have got the tickets another way - for example confusing ticket purchase processes
Raising the face value of the tickets would eliminate scalpers but at the expense of reputation. That's why Sony and Microsoft didn't just raise the cost of the PS5 and Xbox Series X during the 2 years or so when they were sold out everywhere and only available through scalpers or if you were lucky enough to buy one at face value.
People look at high prices as "the seller is just greedy" even if they're arguably justified by the demand. If you can just relist those Taylor Swift tickets you bought at face value on Ticketmaster, they are "sold" as far as Swift herself and her record label are concerned but Ticketmaster can make extra money and presumably pays a kickback to Swift and her label. If she ceases to be the "current thing" and demand massively drops for her concerts to the point that face value is overpriced, the scalpers are left with the losses.
Sometimes scalpers do lose money. Anybody who thought Playstation VR2 was going to be high demand like the PS5 lost a ton of money getting rid of that thing below face value. Likewise, if you try to scalp tickets to an Inter Miami game on the assumption that Messi is going to be playing and it comes out that he actually won't be because he got hurt playing the last place team on the Wednesday before a Sunday game[0], you're the one who ends up losing money from the unsold ticket not the soccer teams. Which is why nobody selling high demand goods or services really cares that much about stopping scalping.
> Raising the face value of the tickets would eliminate scalpers but at the expense of reputation.
They could rise the face value, but sell the first say 80% tickets at considerable discount (so that the price matches what the ticket costs today). Although perhaps this could also tarnish their relation with fans, who want to see their idols as "pure" and not commercial entities they are.
The artists would get more in the short term, but all this outrage that's currently directed at scalpers and Ticketmaster wouldn't just go away—a lot of it would still exist but be directed at the artists themselves.
[0] https://www.vulture.com/2011/05/katy_perry_reserves_the_righ...