Williams ticket scalpers put on notice
'Crowds at this week's Robbie Williams concerts will be closely watched by police armed with new laws targeting scalpers and dishonest fans, authorities warn.'
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posted by Alexandra @ 20:39
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4 Comments:
There is a problem in this world when a section of the community, in this case, concert promoters, attempt to deprive other people from going about 'lawful business'. May I remind people it is NOT illegal to sell tickets or any other legal product in the 'free world' for that matter, and long may this be the case. Nobody forces anyone to buy a ticket and nobody can force someone to sell a ticket. Furthermore for a percentage of people it's goddam handy because promoters, who sell their tickets, up to, a year in advance of a gig or we are unable to purchase them because of high sales demand we have another avenue should we choose to purchase from a ticket reseller.
Why do promoters gripe about scalpers, they can only sell their tickets once ! LONG LIVE SUPPLY & DEMAND - It is what made our country FREE
Any action of forbidding scalpers, ticket touts, resellers etc. from selling tickets at “above the market value” is both immoral & not legitimate business practise. Once scalpers, or anyone else, buys a ticket they have all rights to do with it as they wish because "legal title of the property has been transferred".
Legally, an event organiser has the right not to accept that ticket, or any other ticket, with reasonable grounds, but they leave themselves open to liutigation in the civil court. They certainly do not have the right to tell scalpers what they may and may not do with their tickets or how much they 'think' the ticket 'should' be sol for.
Once the ticket has been legitimately purchased they have all property rights in relation to them. This means the scalper and only the scalper has the right to decide what may or may not be done with it, not the event organiser and not the government.
Now onto the issue of “market value”. Do governments actually know what market value is ? Well, no, as this reaction to scalpers proves, they don't. Market value is whatever price the seller and buyer voluntarily agree to, no matter how high or low the price is. In other words, the government wants to ban a form of voluntary trade. However, we have the right to participate in any voluntary trade that involves legitimately obtained goods and money.
I nearly always buy my tickets off scalpers for the convenience factor. I really can't understand this stupid idea of banning scalping - it will hurt promoters of events and consumers - no one will benefit at all.
Also worth noting is that scalpers don't always profit from the tickets. For instance if a scalper makes a bad decision and buys some tickets for an unpopular event - they might have to sell them for less than face value.
What scalpers do is assume some of the risk from the event promoter, as they ensure a minimum amount of tickets are pre-sold (at anything up to a year in advance). If anything promoters must be happy that there are scalpers out there willing to take a punt on an event - so what if they don't get to make all the money, the risk is significantly lowered and hey if they don't want scalpers to make the money then they always have the opportunity to raise the price to what they think is the market rate - of course they could be wrong and lose sales.
I think the "promoters" that spout against scalpers are just paying lip service to digruntled fans - blame the small guy.
The last couple of times I bought tickets off people, just before the event, - I got them at a discount (about half of the cost on the ticket). As I said .. great for the consumer.
Can't ever see Box Offices lowering their prices, they would rather keep them.
I think you will be hard pressed to find an event promoter who is actually against ticket scalping - it makes them more money and lowers risk.
Mises.org has a good article on it from the economists themselves as does the Cato Institute. My guess is that most people who are anti scalping have no appreciation of basic economics - and would prefer Stalinesque rationing to people who value the tickets the most having the ability to purchase them.
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