You're right that people are willing to pay more than the current face value, but we shouldn't take the scalper prices as the fair market value either because the true demand is dramatically skewed by a group whose only goal is to raise the price to the highest number people will pay, and they do that by reducing the supply. They can buy hundreds of tickets and only list a few at a time.
I've paid $500/ticket before, so I'm part of the problem too... but sometimes we do unreasonable things when we're unreasonably big fans of a particular band, comedian, performer, etc. There's no easy solution, but it would be cool if there was a way to offer reasonably priced tickets to true fans.
>They can buy hundreds of tickets and only list a few at a time.
I don't think ticket brokers really ever do this... It wouldn't _always_ increase their profits, and would substantially increase their risk (of not selling all inventory). Not all events increase in secondary market price as the event date approaches, you just hear about when it happens for really popular events. The price is set by the demand of the fans, and with the supply of the number of shows the performer is willing to put on.
>reasonably priced tickets to true fans
Yeah, I mean, this kind of idea sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't really match up to the way capitalism works in the real world in this industry. Say you started with an environment where every event was priced "reasonably" and every seller/promoter used the same scale to evaluate "true fans" and decided equally who were "true fans". Any single company could increase their own profits over competitors by marginally reducing the acceptance bar of "true fans" they sell to, and then increasing the price point to match the increased demand they've just created (remember, supply is fixed unless the performer adds more shows). This is a unilateral action by that company, they don't need to gain the cooperation of any other entity in the marketplace, and it increases profits.
This means that the system is _not_ in a Nash equilibrium, and, without accounting for regulations or any other outside forces, the industry will naturally shift over time towards an equilibrium where no single company could financially benefit from reducing restrictions on buyers and increasing the price point. At this point they probably lose _more_ in the hit to their reputation than they _make up_ in the increased profits. So they shift towards "gouging fans" just enough to increase profits without being bad enough to reduce demand for their product and shift market price point below costs (unprofitable).
You're right that people are willing to pay more than the current face value, but we shouldn't take the scalper prices as the fair market value either because the true demand is dramatically skewed by a group whose only goal is to raise the price to the highest number people will pay, and they do that by reducing the supply. They can buy hundreds of tickets and only list a few at a time.
I've paid $500/ticket before, so I'm part of the problem too... but sometimes we do unreasonable things when we're unreasonably big fans of a particular band, comedian, performer, etc. There's no easy solution, but it would be cool if there was a way to offer reasonably priced tickets to true fans.