[autoexec]

Why not just ban the transfer of tickets and allow refunds? You buy a ticket, you show your ID at the door. Early refunded tickets get resold online and late refunds are sold at the venue. All seats, including the best seats, go to actual fans instead of scalpers just hoping to make a profit while providing zero value. First choice in seats goes to the most passionate and attentive fans.

[hgoel]

Alternatively only allow transfers within a very short period of the event. Anyone with a legitimate reason (giving to a friend etc) can work it out even on the day of the event. But scalpers have to take on a big risk buying up the good seats early, because they have a short window of time within which to secure a sale (buyers won't risk pre-paying, sellers can't risk prospective buyers backing out at the last minute).

Another tactic I've seen when there isn't assigned seating - just different tiers of seating - is to hold back some small portion of tickets to release shortly before the event, devaluing the scalpers' listings.

Online streaming tickets can also help, especially if the fans have enough of an anti-scalper stance. They'd choose one of the endless live streaming tickets over buying from scalpers just to go in-person.

I can only assume that the people flippantly proposing that the solution should be to restrict consumer freedoms don't attend these types of events themselves. Why should we immediately jump to limiting freedoms when we can increase the risk of scalping enough to be beyond the tolerance of most scalpers.

[chadash]

What stops a scalper from buying early and then guaranteeing someone they will transfer the ticket on the day of the event?

[hgoel]

How is a buyer supposed to trust that the scalper won't just run away with the money? And conversely, how is the scalper supposed to trust that buyers aren't just feigning interest and will back out at the last minute?

Even escrow systems don't necessarily bypass this because ultimately the buyer is likely spending on more than just the concert ticket. They're probably taking time off work, maybe traveling in from another city or country. So even if they might get their ticket money back if the seller backs out, by the time that happens, it's too late to get refunds on everything else.

And combined with the possibility of getting lower prices closer to the event (extra drops from the event, honest resellers who just can't make it, scalpers trying to cut their losses), even buyers wouldn't commit early to scalper prices.

[bombcar]

We'll start a HN online marketplace, called "Dive Station" that will guarantee everything and offer insurance and double-your-money back guarantees.

We'll get bought out by TicketMaster within 5 years.

[saaaaaam]

5 years? 18 months max!

[butlike]

Live Elation

[BugsJustFindMe]

> How is a buyer supposed to trust that the scalper won't just run away with the money?

Contract law like anything else?

[paulryanrogers]

Maybe limit total number of transfers among all tickets. Because it should be a small minority of legit transfers.

Scalpers should be less likely to take a chance their transfer will be denied, whereas to a legit customer and friend ticket is otherwise worthless and just a best effort anyway.

Or beyond the first X% of transfers you do more rigorous validation. Like asking for the original buyer to call in to confirm in realtime. Something not easily automated.

[mschuster91]

> Anyone with a legitimate reason (giving to a friend etc) can work it out even on the day of the event.

I've seen it happen multiple times people couldn't find someone to take the ticket off of them, even for free.

Sure, for an ultra mainstream act the likes of Rammstein? A FC Bayern soccer game? You'll always find some people outside the venue willing to pay in cash for tickets.

But anything with a small fanbase? Whoops.

[hgoel]

If you were honestly just looking to sell your ticket at a price that recovers your costs, I think you'd have an easier time pre-planning a trade.

But there's definitely a balance to be found between the popularity of an event and how soon you allow trades.

[zeroonetwothree]

It’s kind of annoying in practice. For example you buy four tickets to go with your friends. But you get sick so you offer your ticket to a different friend instead. Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go? Or you buy tickets as a gift for someone.

There’s a lot of legit reasons to want transfers, outside of scalping.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

I can't do this with airline tickets, hotel bookings, train tickets, dinner reservations, or any other kind of receipt that allows me to put my butt in a seat at a specified time.

Why are concert tickets special?

[Kirby64]

Airline tickets and train tickets are because they want to identify the person, for tracking/supposed national security purposes. Also, you typically can transfer train tickets. Depends on the country.

Dinner reservations: I’ve literally never had an issue “transferring” a reservation. There’s no verification, often, and the reservation tools typically let you change contact details. If I present myself as John Smith, I’ve never once had anyone question that.

Concert tickets are almost certainly in the 'dinner reservation' category. They have no need to identify me for national security reasons, so transferring them should not be a problem.

[dghlsakjg]

Airline tickets are done for identity at some level (although even that is dubious since until recently you could fly without any id at all), but at another level they charge exorbitant fees to change the name on the ticket or even to just cancel the itinerary.

[mr_toad]

Seems to be partly price discrimination, I guess that people willing to pay more will fork out for flexible tickets. Same goes for seat allocation.

[bdangubic]

there are 300 people on the plane (big one) and 80k people watching taylor swift. national security is funny way to put this…

[kube-system]

To be fair, we didn't start having the government screen people on planes when hijackers were merely endangering one plane worth of people. About 3,000 people died and likely tens of thousands of people were injured before we started doing that.

[bdangubic]

Because 3,000 people died I am unable to just transfer my upcoming flight to someone else? Even if this crazy sentence rang through in any way, just this year I had to fly twice "the next day" so-to-speak and basically bought tickets and then flew the next day. 9/11 is as far from a reason why airline tickets are non-transferable as it gets.

[coderjames]

> Concert tickets are almost certainly in the 'dinner reservation' category. They have no need to identify me for national security reasons

Admittedly I haven't been to many concerts, but 'national security reasons' seems like a reasonable rationale to me because a packed concert sounds like a great place to set off a suicide bomb vest for maximum impact. Have a cut-out who doesn't raise any red flags buy the ticket and hand it off to the person wearing the vest. No ID check? Mass panic ensues when the vest goes off, and people are hurt in the stampede for the exits even if the blast radius of the vest itself isn't all that large.

[mixmastamyk]

Lots of big venues have metal detectors or wands, which targets the right thing, instead of privacy.

[IAmBroom]

By your argument, you should have to produce ID before going into any crowded public space.

Pure security theater, and your argument is further invalidated by the fact that it's a made-up reason. No one has claimed this is mandated by TSA or other security authorities.

[alistairSH]

Metal detectors or whatever other measures are a more direct solution

[saaaaaam]

You can change a name on a flight. There’s a fee perhaps. I don’t know where you are but in most European countries train tickets are valid to the bearer. Dinner reservations, I’ve never once been asked for ID. And indeed I’ve often had reservations made by others for me, or arranged reservations for friends and colleagues from out of town - “I know a great restaurant you’ll like, I’ll reserve a table, just give them my name”.

Hotel bookings - again, the number of times I’ve booked a bunch of rooms for work under my name and then we just assign them at check-in, and the number of times I’ve travelled for work where the hotel room is reserved in someone else’s name.

So yeah, pretty sure this is commonplace that the person who shows up with the chit and can verify certain info gets the access.

And of course, there nothing at all to stop concert tickets being sold to verified buyers and then transferred to other verified buyers.

But during this court hearing it transpired - from emails sent by Michael Rapino - that Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s “Verified Fan” scheme is just a scam to make artist feel like ticketing isn’t the murky Wild West that Ticketmaster knows it is. “Verified Fan” meant almost nothing.

[guiambros]

I like the combined suggestions of three other commenters:

1) Allow transfers during a very short window (e.g. 24h before the event)

2) Allow full refunds up to x days before the event

3) Release a small batch of tickets 24h before the event, as a way of reducing the chance for scalpers to make money, and giving real fans a last chance without paying exorbitant prices

All three together offer a reasonable tradeoff. The tickets will go (mostly) to real fans, yet still giving you flexibility in case your plans change (work, sick, etc). And if you know well in advance, you can get a full refund, without having to worry with reselling, paying commission, etc.

Also prohibit secondary markets entirely. Similar to airlines, there's no reselling of tickets.

Of course, this is just wishful thinking. Too many intermediaries benefit from screwing showgoers, so this will never be implemented.

[kube-system]

For most popular events there are enough people who want or need to make plans more than 24h in advance that scalping would still be profitable.

[rplnt]

Dinner reservations is a weird one. I have never heard of this concept where they would id you while you are being seated. Maybe there are super exclusive restaurants I'm oblivious to? But even so, roughly 100% of dinner reservations can be implicitly transferred.

[tshaddox]

Pretty sure with air travel it's just a security issue, and all the other ones you can totally do.

[ChildOfChaos]

You can do this with train tickets, dinner reservations and hotel bookings though? Only thing you can’t do that with is for flights and that’s due to security checks/passport etc

Most concert tickets are not standing and you used to get paper tickets you could just hand to someone else, why should you not be allowed to do this just because it moved to digital?

[traderj0e]

I think they do kinda work that way. When you buy an airline ticket through some third-party website, the price is lower than the main site, yet they're making a profit. They must be hoarding then reselling tickets with the airline's permission, right? Same with cruises.

The thing is, you as an individual can't transfer tickets because of what the other person said.

[jorvi]

Airline tickets used to be transferable. Hell, you used to be able to fly on someone else's name.

9/11 changed a lot. Just like how before World War I, passports and border controls weren't really a thing.

[butlike]

Cause you can't traffic someone at a concert. Doesn't make sense if I can buy a plane ticket then transfer the ticket to the girl I'm trafficking.

[paganel]

Because they're not airline tickets nor hotel bookings. Crazy though that nowadays train tickets have started implementing this ID thing (I'll take your word for it, last time I purchased a train ticket, as a tourist, I had to input no name on it, it was either in Italy or Switzerland, I forgot), the same goes for dinner reservations. Enshittification is indeed accelerating.

[autoexec]

> For example you buy four tickets to go with your friends. But you get sick so you offer your ticket to a different friend instead. Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go?

Or you give your friend's names when buying their tickets so they can go even when you can't or you have them buy their own tickets, or you're sick so you get a refund for your four tickets and your friends each buy their own afterwards.

[rurcliped]

For many events, the demographics lean toward age groups where people have jobs with work schedules that aren't known more than a few weeks in advance. The initially planned friend group (e.g., four people) can have little overlap with who is actually free on the event date and actually attends. Also, if the event has assigned seating, people buying their own tickets typically has the adverse outcome that you can't sit together.

[dghlsakjg]

The rebuttal is: works fine on airplanes (minus abusive change fees for economy seats)

[hgoel]

Most flights are available at high frequencies (on the order of days, weeks) compared to concerts (once a year or so). You also don't care as much about sitting together on a plane.

[ipaddr]

You care just as much on a plane. Sitting beside wife/friend => stranger

[bdangubic]

> It’s kind of annoying in practice. For example you buy four tickets to go with your friends. But you get sick so you offer your ticket to a different friend instead. Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go?

Get a refund if you can't go

> Or you buy tickets as a gift for someone.

This is easy part.

> There’s a lot of legit reasons to want transfers, outside of scalping

There of course are but they pale in comparison to what is currently happening with scalping. And as many have pointed out, there are a lot of other "tickets" we buy that are 100% non-transferable, these are because wrong people are making too much money

[alistairSH]

We don’t have to use one broken market (airline seats) as a model for another broken market (concerts).

Anyway back to the top post - a Dutch auction foods almost all these issues without weird rules.

[ipaddr]

A Dutch auction kills first day sales and would affect those who need to plan ahead. It will create less ticket sales for medium tiered acts.

[alistairSH]

Do we (the consumers) care about first day sales?

And maybe we only do dutch auctions for the big acts that have the worst issues with scalping and whatnot.

[carlosjobim]

> Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go?

You sell your own ticket back to the event. Your three friends of course have their names on their tickets, so they can go if they want to.

> Or you buy tickets as a gift for someone.

Do you buy gifts to people whose name you don't even know?

[cococohen1122]

I tend to buy 2-4 tickets for a show way in advance of me knowing which of my friends would go with me

[carlosjobim]

Sure, that won't be possible with name-tied tickets. On the other hand, you can wait on buying those tickets until you know.

[switz]

Though this would be mildly annoying for the earnest case (selling a ticket to a friend), it would be the actual solve to the problem.

The parent's suggestion still creates artificial scarcity, which is the real issue: people buying tickets they have no intention of using.

The problem is that the artists, venues, and ticketing companies benefit from this artificial scarcity. So we'll never see it change.

[redwall_hp]

That's fairly common in Japan: you can't transfer tickets, as they get a name attached at purchase, and many concerts use a lottery system. You register interest in tickets, and if you're selected, you get a window to buy them. No camping out the minute presales open, and the price is the price instead of rent-extracting dynamic bullshit.

Square Enix did that for the Final Fantasy conventions in the US as well (where details of the next FFXIV expansion will be announced later this month), but they added an additional requirement. You have to have an active subscription to the game to even have a chance.

[Loughla]

The Savannah bananas do that for their tickets. You enter a free lottery to buy tickets then pay the same price regardless of when you buy them in that window if you're chosen. I don't think there's much scalping that happens with their tickets, so it must work.

[mardef]

I went through the multi-step process for the bananas last year. It failed to validate me during the purchase window. Their support never responded to me (it's been 9 months now).

It was a stupid flow that sent me from email to computer to phone and had one-time links that didn't transfer between devices.

I have no interest in going through this much effort to go to an event.

[121789]

doesn't work. the venue/artist/original seller would have a huge liability for refunded value that they don't want to hold

"all seats, including the best seats go to actual fans" is not something solved by your solution

[miki123211]

Scalping only exists because there's a difference between what the tickets cost and what the fans value them at.

For popular shows, there are more people who want to see the show than there are tickets available, so you need to pick a strategy for deciding who's going to go.. Ticket sellers have to balance lost profits from lower prices, prices being too high and the show not selling out, and fans being furious at the artist for making the tickets unaffordable for most of the true fanbase.

Dynamic pricing (airline style) and auction-based systems basically ensure that only the rich can attend. Scalping is a way to do price discrimination / progressive pricing. If you're a true fan, you know when the ticket sale will happen ahead of time, and you snatch the tickets quickly. If you're not, but are rich enough not to care, you have to buy from a scalper. Like all discounting and price discrimination strategies, it sometimes backfires; if you're a true fan attending your mother's funeral when the sale opens, you'll have to pay the rich person's price.

You can also see scalpers as being awarded by capitalism for taking risks. They make sure the show sells out and the artist is happy, even if fan interest is lower than expected. In such a case, they take on the losses, if all goes well, they take some of the profits from the sales.

[IAmBroom]

The unpleasant truth.

[sporkland]

We can agree scalpers are net negative.

And I like your ideas but I don't see why the venues and artists don't want to capture more of what people are willing to pay enabled by what the parent comment suggested.

I wonder if in your system it actually attracts fans or just people that have the time to wait for tickets.

[Nursie]

> I don't see why the venues and artists don't want to capture more of what people are willing to pay

Because artists don't always want to extract the maximum money possible from their fanbase?

Artists are not always rapacious capitalists. Sure, they want to make money from the show, but a lot of them also genuinely want to reach people who may not be able to drop hundreds of bucks on a ticket. Always selling to the highest bidder is a recipe for larger acts to only be accessible to the wealthy. And as surprising as it may seem, some of them have views on that sort of thing.

[cbsmith]

> Because artists don't always want to extract the maximum money possible from their fanbase?

I think that's both true and not. The larger truth is that trying to maximize the extraction during a single ticket sale is incredibly short-sighted of an artist. Having fans attend shows is a very effective way to grow your fan base and your brand, and that brings so much more lifetime value for an artist than you'd ever get from a single ticket sale (except for maybe on your retirement tour --and even then).

[Nursie]

On the one hand, I want to say that’s cynical.

On the other, well, I just bought tickets to Iron Maiden’s “all the best bits” tour (who have to be getting close to retiring, one member already has) supported by Megadeth who are explicitly on their retirement tour.

And those were not cheap. No sir or ma’am.

There are also artists like the Cure though, and Robert Smith seems to have a genuine interest in keeping prices accessible.

[butlike]

I think there's levels to it. I've seen what I would consider a big artist at a small venue for $20 plus tax, no fees. You could tell that show was a labor of love for the artist. But, I would never expect to pay that price going to a festival like Coachella, or even a local stadium show.

Actually, writing this comment got me thinking that maybe the larger the venue, the more expensive the ticket needs to be out of necessity. More hands in the cookie jar, and all that.

[butlike]

I think it's because touring as an artist isn't free, so they need some guarantee of income to make the journey to the venue. If there's a risk the concert goers will refund the tickets, then the artist is the one left holding the proverbial bag.

[freejazz]

The tickets are all electronic now and they can already do it. Most artists don't want them to.

[echelon]

> Why not just ban the transfer of tickets and allow refunds? You buy a ticket, you show your ID at the door.

Because everyone on the seller side - including artists - make money on this.

If parties other than fans / buyers cared, it would be a solved problem.

[ceejayoz]

I've seen quite a few artists opposed to it.

Quick example: https://www.instagram.com/p/DWWlQS-Dhj7/

[lmm]

Artists will claim to be opposed because fans like it when they do so.

[ceejayoz]

Artists have canceled swathes of tickets for this reason.

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/chappell-roan-cancels-sc...

I've seen quite a few cases of this. Not everyone's money-only.

[freejazz]

And they are free to make the tickets non-transferrable. The Cure did that. Last Phish MSG run the tickets were non-transferrable and I had to use CashorTrade to trade my tickets.

[traderj0e]

The venue would make less money this way, and preferential seats would be given to whoever managed to get a request in first.

[autoexec]

That's the entire point

[nradov]

Another option is to just go see live shows at local independent venues instead of letting Live Nation jerk you around.

[QuantumFunnel]

None of the big artists people want to see ever play at those venues

[nradov]

That's exactly my point: boycott the artists who contract with Live Nation. Your life won't be any less rich if you go see a local band instead of Taylor Swift. People have so many options now and yet they're afflicted with this weird FOMO.

[butlike]

That's not fair. Taylor Swift is so big because so many people resonate with her. They want to go see an artist they connect with. I get it, going to see the up-and-coming garage band with the DIY attitude at CBGBs has a comfy I'm-there-in-a-you-had-to-be-there-time, but not everyone finds that superior. Some just want to see the artist they like. And that's ok too.

[nradov]

Nope, I'm being completely fair. If you want to see Taylor Swift then expect to pay a lot for the privilege. Playing games with various ticket sales schemes isn't going to magically make a scarce luxury good affordable. I just get annoyed by entitled fans who think they have a moral right to cheap concert tickets due to loyalty or emotional connection or whatever.

And I have nothing against Taylor Swift. I actually like some of her music and I'm sure she puts on great live shows.

[felbane]

I think you either missed the point or are intentionally sidestepping the point. If I have a favorite band and they're reasonably large and I want to go see them live, it'd be a bonafide miracle if their show wasn't at a LiveNation venue. The local spots are simply too small to be a reasonable stop on tour for any moderately popular artist.

I agree that you should definitely go see local artists at local venues, but you can do that and still really want to take your dad to see Steve Hackett play a live show. It's not up to you to decide what enriches my life.

[troupo]

This essentially boycotts 99% of artists who are big enough to book a venue with more than 500-1000 people

[DANmode]

It does, and I think they’re aware:

> Your life won't be any less rich if you go see a local band instead of Taylor Swift.

Do you disagree? If so, why?

[troupo]

Ah yes, the bands that can gather more than 1000 fans at a concert are all Taylor Swifts.

One of my favorite bands I've listened to since their first album is First Aid Kit. On their 10th anniversary they had several sold-out concerts at Globen [1] in Stockholm. Should've I just stopped immediately once they crossed the threshold of 100 fans worldwide? But they are a local band, they are Swedish.

In August I'm going to a concert of a Finnish band called Steve'n'Seagulls. They will play in Karlstad, a small Swedish town. They sell their tickets through Ticketmaster. Boycott I say! They are on the same level as Taylor Swift! (137k monthly listeners on Spotify, compared to Swift's 102 million).

Okay. What about bands that have been around since before Live Nation? Should I skip Radiohead, Guns'n'Roses and Sting because there's literally no way for them to tour except to book LiveNation-affiliated venues?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicii_Arena

[dfxm12]

These are getting harder to find, but it's worth it. When I was in high school/college, I didn't need a YouTube algorithm to bring hip music to my attention. I just needed the flyer with upcoming shows at the church basement.

[cbsmith]

> Why not just ban the transfer of tickets and allow refunds?

There are laws against transfer bans. Also, people don't like being required to provide identity information just to buy a ticket to a live event, and venues HATE enforcing identity checks.

...and you'd be surprised how often you can get a refund on tickets just by asking your venue for a refund.

> First choice in seats goes to the most passionate and attentive fans.

Now you've opened the debate about how to determine which fans are the most passionate and attentive... ;-) Ticketmaster has a service for this that attempts to address this called Verified Fan.

[benoau]

That's too consumer friendly.

[nektro]

this is the way