[pessimizer]

No, xenophanes is simply explaining how markets work. Markets are supposed to maximize utility, whether that be monies or laughter at a concert. If a price is too low for demand, any opening that allows middlemen to creep in, raise the price to demand levels, and take the difference, will be taken. If the resellers price too low, they'll just generate an opening for re-resellers.

The problem, for me, isn't with scalpers, it's with income and wealth distribution (which separates nominal demand from actual benefit to useful people), with over-regulation of commercial performance (limiting the number of venues through regulatory capture), and with the destruction of local community (since there are no local acts anymore, everyone chases the same small number of national and international ones.)

Of course Louie C.K. generates a massive demand - in a country of 300 million people, he's one of the 50 comedians that anybody has heard of because he makes it into the national media. When the average person can name a few comedians that live and work in their neighborhood, going to a Louie C.K. show will be considered a luxury good AND the price will go down.

[vacri]

Part of my response to xenophanes' comment is a visceral response to treating a 'robust market' as a target goal, rather than a journey to an outcome.

The cost of ticket 1001 to a 1000-ticket show is infinity, regardless of whether you have scalpers or not. Increasing the price of the last 100 tickets does not mean you have increased ticket supply, all it means is you have taken 100 tickets from earlier, creating an artificial scarcity, and sold them later. Those hundred buyers that 'don't lose' down the track do so at the expense of a hundred buyers that lost earlier.

xenophanes is making funny with numbers because he's comparing the price of ticket 1001 in the non-scalper system with the price of ticket 901 in the scalper system.

[pessimizer]

I don't think he/she is. There might be 20,000 people interested in tickets to the show at $55, but only 1000 will get one and 19,000 will be left out in the cold. If 100 of those tickets are purchased by scalpers, 19,000 will be left out in the cold. The difference in the two cases is that 100 of those tickets in the second case will go to the people willing to 'be the most useful' for them - and in an ideal society that seems to me like the fairest way of doing things.

The only problem I have with it is that due to general political market distortions, money is very cheap to a small number of people who do very little and have lots of leisure time, so the dollar commitment for a ticket price has little relation to either subjective or objective (ideal) utility.

As a performer, I'd have an interest in keeping the ticket prices low simply because I wouldn't want an audience filled with the kind of assholes who would pay $500 for a ticket to a two hour comedy show. If I really adored Louie C.K., was one of those assholes, and it took 11 minutes to get to the site to buy a ticket that sold out in 10, I'd hope that scalpers got a significant amount of those tickets.

Hell, even if I wasn't one of those assholes I'd hope for scalpers, because if they overestimated demand and priced too high, they might end up dumping tickets at the last minute and I might end up paying less than face value. Instead of not being able to get a ticket at any price, the tickets are handed out based on how much you're willing to commit to get them. If demand then raises the prices to $1000, I can still get a ticket if I love Louie C.K. more than I love keeping my apartment.

Because, really:

the number of people who lose = the number of people who would go to the show for free - 1000

Personally, I lose at face value, because the day I pay $50 for a concert is going to be the day a gallon of milk goes for $15. It doesn't mean that I don't like Louie C.K., it just means that I like 3 gallons of milk more. Everybody makes their own call, whether it's when the cost goes over $10, over $1000, or over $55 + F5ing a site for 6 hours.