| > Those $100 face-value tickets were selling for 10 to 50x their price on secondary markets. Either she truly believed her tickets were only worth $100 (unlikely), or she was deliberately underpricing to maintain her image as an artist who cares about fan access. No, those $100 tickets are mostly worth $100. There are a lot of reasons why someone will overpay to get a ticket; but don't delude yourself: If Taylor Swift decided to charge $1000 for each ticket, many less people would go. She might sell 1/10th of the tickets, and it would be a wash, she might sell 1/3rd of the tickets, and make more money, or she might sell 1/20th of the tickets, and make less money. What drives the price of the tickets up is scarcity: Once the venue is sold out (or close to sold out,) it's useful to only sell the tickets to people who really, really want to pay. Edit: I should add that, unless I really want to see an artist, I tend to buy my tickets shortly before the show, and only if they are a reasonable price. For example, last summer Green Day & Smashing Pumpkins was $200 / ticket. I kinda wanted to go, but I didn't want to pay that much. In contrast, Weezer was $70 a ticket and playing around the corner from my office. I went to Weezer. (And wished I bought a floor ticket sooner because the Flaming Lips were the opening band.) Had Weezer charged $200, I never would have gone. |
- artist might prefer the full-avenue energy
- it produces positive hype (it's often newsworthy when show is sold out)
- you can sometimes add new dates in the same avenue, maximising profits since lot of stage, travel, staff, marketing costs don't increase if you have another concert the next day.
- You grow fan base instead of shrinking it. It's better to have twice the number of satisfied fans when you revisited the city in few years. But it can also increase future album sales, streaming revenue, etc.