[laumars]

But the result of more people going is a side effect of raising prices; it shouldn't be the main reason. In fact if anything, prices are usually raised to decrease the number of people who pay out for it (ie exclusivity).

The issue here is bots, so the solution should be to make such reservation / booking sites unfriendly to bots. Then the event organisers / restaurants can choose to adjust their prices based on the actual demand and their long term vision instead of trying to play some silly price war with ticket touts.

[PeterisP]

The issue here isn't bots, the issue is that there are a lot of people who want to go, and they can't decide which ones will stay home (as there isn't enough space for all of them). You need to decide on some kind of system to decide who will get to come.

You can draw randomly, you can determine who you want to come and invite them, or you can determine who want it the most by asking them to pony up a lot of resources - money or waitingtime (live queues) or effort. It's your choice, unless you refuse to decide, and let scalpers/botwriters decide for you and take everyones money for that.

[laumars]

The issue here is exactly bots. The problem is people who have bots are gaining an unfair advantage over those who do not have bots. But raising prices, all you're doing is shifting that unfair advantage from people with IT skills to people with a higher disposable income. Thus you're not solving anything.