I imagine the event wants to fill as many seats as they can. In addition to ticket prices, they also have food, drinks, merchandise, parking, etc. to sell.
If a scalper buys five face value tickets at $50, they would only need to sell two at $150 (3x prices are common) to profit. Even if they don't sell the other three, they've made money.
So the way I see it:
Venue: Loses food/merch sales for 3 people
Fans: 3 people weren't able to attend (tickets gone, can't/won't afford/buy inflated price)
Scalper: Made $50
Because in this scenario, a program has purchased all the tickets ahead of time, making it basically impossible for a real customer to buy the product for what the seller has determined is a fair price.
From the author's (OP) perspective, this is the exact opposite of what he wants to happen. A great fine dining experience is just that--all about the experience, and that's part of what the author is trying to improve. Creation of a secondary market degrades the experience for both seller (who wants to personalize and develop a relationship with a true customer), and the buyer (who now has to deal with a scalper, or worse, a scalper robot site).
>>The reason is that they want to unload the ticket quickly and with less hassle...
There's a real degree of integrity that the author focuses on, and that's part of this as well. That's why the author is against turning his product into an auction based system, which makes me want to eat at Alinea / Next more. It's not about hassle, it's about what the seller determines to be a fair and reasonable price for his service. Maybe I'm a minority thinking that adjusting that for a price due to a specific advantage (program that buys all the reservations) is wrong, but I certainly can't see how that's making anything better, or offering any 'value' that either buyer or seller (in this scenario) would want.
Oh I don't know, because they want ordinary people without huge fat wallets to get a chance to go along?
>> The reason is that they want to unload the ticket quickly and with less hassle, and finding that high-bidding buyer takes more time than finding the scalper.
Not really, you could very easily set up a website that would do this stuff for the whole industry and cut out the scalpers. The only reason I can think that this isn't common is because people find it distasteful.
>> Similarly, why doesn't the buyer seek out a seller himself?
He often does, just to find some arsehole has interposed himself and is holding a serious proportion of total tickets to ransom.
>> By interposing himself in the transaction, he makes the process easier and quicker for both buyer and seller, and that provided value.
Utter bullshit. Sorry, but it's just nonsense. He inconveniences ticket buyers by holding back tickets they would have bought until he gets paid off. There is no value in what he does.
It's unacceptable.
Oh please. I need to bail on some awesome event because my girlfriend broke up with me or work dropped some unmanageable project on my lap. I don't care who gets the ticket, I just want to get rid of it quickly.
> Not really, you could very easily set up a website that would do this stuff for the whole industry and cut out the scalpers.
It's called EBay, and they haven't replaced the scalpers. Its because scalpers take advantage of a temporal lag between supply and demand. The guy canceling wants his money now. The guy with deep pockets can't be bothered to go looking until the last minute.
> He often does, just to find some arsehole has interposed himself and is holding a serious proportion of total tickets to ransom.
Why did the scalper get there first? Because the seller wanted to unload quickly and the buyer didn't think about it until later. Again, if the buyers were there when the sellers were selling, nobody would sell to scalpers. But the buyers aren't there. Without scalpers, the sellers would have to hold on to the tickets longer.
This is not the same, you are now being disingenuous.
>> It's called EBay, and they haven't replaced the scalpers. Its because scalpers take advantage of a temporal lag between supply and demand. The guy canceling wants his money now. The guy with deep pockets can't be bothered to go looking until the last minute.
This is not about people cancelling, this is about exactly the behaviour described in the original post - buying up large chunks of the available tickets and profiteering off them.
>> Why did the scalper get there first? Because the seller wanted to unload quickly and the buyer didn't think about it until later. Again, if the buyers were there when the sellers were selling, nobody would sell to scalpers. But the buyers aren't there. Without scalpers, the sellers would have to hold on to the tickets longer.
This is not born out in reality. Observe the process of buying tickets to any marginally popular event that doesn't protect against this stuff and you'll find the buyers are there, in droves, but the scalpers still manage to get a lot of the tickets, which are up on ebay and reseller sites at multiple times the face value within seconds.
This is not a service, it is antisocial and it makes the world a worse place.
The fact you have to use contrived examples that bear no resemblance to the original statements tells me you realise this but are arguing for the sake of it. Bye now.
He's providing liquidity to the market for the tickets. Think about it: if he can come along and sell the tickets for a markup, why won't the sellers sell directly to the buyers and capture that whole amount for themselves? The reason is that they want to unload the ticket quickly and with less hassle, and finding that high-bidding buyer takes more time than finding the scalper. Similarly, why doesn't the buyer seek out a seller himself? Because it takes more time. Otherwise, both would be irrational to interact with him rather than directly. By interposing himself in the transaction, he makes the process easier and quicker for both buyer and seller, and that provided value.