International Journal of Music Business Research

An analysis of ticket pricing 39

An analysis of ticket pricing in the primary and

secondary concert marketplace

Terrance Tompkins

Abstract

This paper examines the various factors and trends impacting ticket pricing in the

concert industry through a survey of literature published on the primary and sec-

ondary markets. It explores the primary market's motivation to price concert tickets

below the profit maximizing level and the role of the secondary ticket market in

capitalizing on excess demand by establishing a new price point for tickets in the

market. The paper researches recent tools developed by the primary and secondary

market stakeholders including the Ticketmaster Verified Fan Program and

SeatGeek's "Deal Ranking" algorithm. Legislation associated with scalping in the

secondary ticket market in the United States is reviewed. Finally, solutions are pro-

posed for the primary ticket market to marginalize the impact of the secondary

ticket market.

Keywords: Concert promotion, concert ticket pricing, dynamic pricing, touring,

secondary tickets, scalping

1 Introduction

A New York Post headline read "Shameless Sandy Outrage" with the

article arguing that scalpers should be ashamed for cashing in on a Hur-

ricane Sandy benefit concert, taking place at Madison Square Garden.

This concert featured performances by Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling

Stones, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi, Eddie Vedder, The Who and

the star-studded line-up sold out within minutes of going on sale. The

tickets instantly appeared on secondary ticket sites like StubHub, selling

at a minimum 273% mark-up on the face value of the ticket, charging

Terrance Tompkins is Program Director and Assistant Professor Music Industry at Hofstra Universi-

ty in Long Island, NY. Tompkins held positions as Senior Director of Artist Relations at PledgeMusic,

and Program Director/Instructor of Music Business at Bowling Green State University. Tompkins

spent seven years at Columbia Records working in A&R where he discovered the Grammy Award

winning multi-platinum recording artist John Legend. His experience in the touring industry includes

talent buying for a prestigious rock club as well as a Showcase Director for the Philadelphia Music

Conference, one of the largest music conferences in the United States at the time

(terran[email protected]du).

40 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

$560 per person for seats in the nose bleed section at Madison Square

Garden. The most expensive ticket sold for $3,700 and over 900 tickets

were available on reseller sites causing the promoter of the benefit

show to call out StubHub for their unfair practices (MacLeod 2012).

Ticket scalping has been part of the U.S. culture for the past century, but

technology has changed the nature of such ticket sales evolving from

scalpers hawking tickets outside an arena to sophisticated computer

programs snatching premium seats on the Internet. Economists suggest

that, despite the rising cost of concert tickets in the primary market-

place, they are priced below profit maximizing price levels, thus opening

the door for the secondary ticket market by establishing new price

points.

2 Primary revenue streams in the music industry

Concert revenue is one of the three primary revenue streams in the

North American live music industry. In 2017, the three primary revenue

streams in the music industry accounted for over $20 billion in North

America:

North American Music Publishing Revenues: $4.3 billion (2017)

North American Recorded Music Revenues: $8.7 billion (2017)

North American Live Music/Concert Revenues: $8.0 billion (2017)

In North America between 2000-2016, concert tickets sales in-

creased by 330%, growing the touring industry from $1.7 to $7.3 billion,

reaching an all-time high of $8.0 billion in 2017. During that time, con-

cert ticket prices increased from an average of $40.74 to $78.93 per

ticket.

http://www.crossroadstoday.com/story/38138746/music-publishing-market-2018-global-trends-

market-share-industry-size-growth-opportunities-and-forecast-to-2023

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/RIAA-Year-End-2017-News-and-Notes.pdf

https://www.pollstar.com/Chart/2018/01/2017YearEndBusinessAnalysis_634.pdf

An analysis of ticket pricing 41

Figure 1: Concert ticket sales North America, 1990-2017 (Pollstar 2018).

Figure 2: Average concert ticket price North America, 1996-2017 (Pollstar 2018).

42 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

3 The rising cost of concert tickets

In a September 23, 2005 lecture, "Rockonomics: Economics and Public

Policy in the Rock and Roll Industry," economist Alan Krueger described

his study of the economic causes and effects of the rising cost of concert

tickets. Using box office information maintained by Pollstar, Krueger

determined that concert ticket prices were growing significantly higher

than the Consumer Price Index (CPI). For example, in 2005, concert tick-

et prices rose 45% faster than the CPI. Krueger found that between

1975 and 1995, concert ticket pricing increased 2% over the rate of infla-

tion, and between 1996 and 2005 concert tickets doubled. Between

2005-2017, the average price of concert tickets increased 88%, from

$42.00 to $78.93, a record high.

4 The price of concert tickets in the primary ticket

marketplace

Despite the rising cost of concert tickets in the United States, tickets are

considered under-priced in the primary marketplace by not achieving

their profit maximizing potential. There are three primary considera-

tions for under-pricing tickets in the primary market:

 Ticket prices are set to accommodate the sale of comple-

mentary goods (parking fees, concessions and merchan-

dise).

 Ticket prices are set to maintain the popularity of the artist

and thus not negatively affect an artists' future income.

 Demand is uncertain and ticket prices vary based on the

date of the event, the type of venue and seat availability.

https://www.pollstar.com/Chart/2018/01/2017YearEndBusinessAnalysis_634.pdf

An analysis of ticket pricing 43

4.1 Ticket prices and complementary goods

The promoter generally pays a 'guarantee' to the artist in advance and

pays the rest of the net revenue from the show according to a 'split rate'

after the show. The split rate for artists is usually 85-90 % of the net

profits of the concert (Passman 2015). According to Live Nation's Vice

President of Marketing Jim Steen, "85 to 90 percent of the ticket price

goes towards artist fees."

Fans buy T-shirts, posters or other products

as souvenirs at a concert venue and the promoter will commission mer-

chandising profit as well as ticket sales profit. On average an artist on a

major tour receives most of a ticket's face value, while promoters earn

most of their profits from ticket surcharges, parking fees, merchandise

and concessions. Michael Rapino, CEO Live Nation states, "Live Nation

earns about $4 out of every $100 ticket on the ticket price and I lose $80

million at the door every year. … Every time a consumer walks in the

door I earn $12-$14 on the ancillary business" (ancillary includes parking,

merch, concessions).

Sellers within the secondary ticket market gain no benefit on com-

plementary sales. Happel & Jennings (1995) claim the possible existence

of other sources of revenue such as complementary concessions sales

demonstrates one reason why concert ticket sales are priced below their

market price. Total profits are maximized when tickets are priced in the

inelastic section of the demand curve. The average ticket consumer buys

more complementary goods than the marginal ticket buyer (the one

who gets no surplus by attending the performance). Thus, promoters

increase the price of complementary goods above the marginal cost and

reduce the cost of tickets. By doing so, the promoter improves sales of

complementary goods but attracts marginal ticket buyers (Rosen &

Rosenfield 1995).

Conversely, the secondary ticket market sets prices according to

whatever secures the highest financial return because that market does

not have access to complementary profits. Economist James Swofford

compares the promoter's profit maximization problem with that of the

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/062811tickets

https://revenueanalytics.com/news/ticketonomics

44 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

reseller, suggesting that underpricing tickets in the primary market may

exist due to the promoter facing uncertainty over sales and being more

risk averse, whereas the scalper has a lower cost function. It could also

be a result of the promoter having a long-term revenue function in

mind, in contrast to the reseller maximising a one-time revenue function

(Swofford 1999).

Happel & Jennings (1995) suggest that promoters have a degree of

"monopoly power" for a live event due to its uniqueness. To maximize

profits a promoter wants a sell-out as this maximizes complementary

revenues and introduce the "crowd effect", meaning that consumers

who believe a concert will be a sell-out are more attracted to the event

and demand for tickets will intensify. According to Krueger, tickets are

set below the market clearing level to attract a larger crowd and create a

"buzz" that increases demand (Krueger 2009). This crowd effect increas-

es the sales of front row seats and private boxes. Setting the price of

certain seats low can help also to encourage demand and create a "tick-

et line". The creation of a "ticket line" when a concert is in high-demand,

with limited capacity events are part of the economic model that com-

pels ticket sales (Happel & Jennings 1995). Fans can quickly lose interest

in an artist whose performances do not meet expectations or are sus-

pected of price gouging.

4.2 Artists future income

If an artist believes the price of their ticket affects their popularity, thus

impacting future income, they will use that belief to set the price of tick-

ets. Therefore, an artist may price tickets below the market price to

maximize future profits (Byun 2008). Diamond (1982) and Swofford

(1999) argue that when artists and promoters consider their future re-

cording, tour or merchandising profits as well as their current ticket

profits, they may charge lower prices. According to Krueger, to build

loyalty from a large fan base (who will attend concerts in the future and

buy recorded music), the artist wishes to avoid being viewed as "gouging

fans" and will thus set prices below the profit maximizing level (Krueger

2005). To build long-rung popularity, the artist intends to provide fans

An analysis of ticket pricing 45

with a larger share of consumer surplus than would be the case if the

artist were simply maximizing short-run profit. With scalping, the new

middleman acts as an intermediary between the promoter and the fan,

capturing the surplus meant for the fan. Billy Joel explains it this way:

"The brokers [secondary market ticket brokers] that drive the prices

up are ripping me off because I'm not getting the money ... and they're

ripping off the customer because the customer wants the ticket and they

know that the market will bear a certain price."

If Billy Joel knows that "the market will bear a certain price," why

would he still underprice his tickets? The answer is that he wants to

maintain an image of being fair to his fans to prevent them from being

"ripped off" (Krueger 2009). On his 2017 tour, Garth Brooks set an 8-

ticket purchasing limit for the $60 ticket, which was set well below mar-

ket value. Every seat was listed at the same price, therefore the person

sitting in the front row paid the same as the person in the nose-bleed

section. Brooks performed several shows in each city to satisfy the de-

mand of fans interested to attend the tour. For example, Brooks per-

formed seven shows in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena, five shows in

Indianapolis at Bankers Life Fieldhouse and seven shows in Kansas City

at the Sprint Center. Subsequently, he needed to perform 73 shows on

the 2017 tour to gross $101 million in box office receipts.

According to Fort (2003) and Krautmann & Berri (2006), concert

ticket prices do not capture the full cost of attending a concert. Artists

who set ticket prices higher would suffer revenue losses from merchan-

dise sales. Ahn & Lee (2003) suggest that if attendance is habit-forming

and fans substitution is small, artists are correct in considering non-

ticket (but attendance-dependent) revenue in setting their price while

also factoring in the effects of ticket price on future attendance. If a

lower price decreases current revenue, the act can make up for the loss

with future revenues.

http://www.kdlt.com/2017/07/18/garth-brooks-puts-fans-first-unique-ticket-sales-approach

46 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

4.3 Demand uncertainty

Concert ticket demand is uncertain as ticket prices vary according to the

date of the event, type of venue and seat availability. Demand may vary

in other unpredictable ways such as at outdoor sports events and con-

certs that are typically weather-dependant. The stochastic peak-load

pricing model deals with situations of aggregate demand uncertainty

(Crew, Frenando & Kleindorfer 1995). Aggregate demand uncertainty

occurs when demand depends on the weather whereas individual de-

mand uncertainty occurs because many consumers are not able to plan

ahead of time. Some consumers only buy their tickets at the last minute

when they are sure that they will be able to attend. Demand uncertain-

ty alone does not distinguish ticket markets from markets for other

goods and services. What makes this feature crucial is that tickets are

perishable goods and lose all value after the performance starts. In the-

ory, promoters could satisfy periods of high demand by holding large

inventories of seats as is typically done in many other industries. Be-

cause tickets are highly perishable goods, however, the costs of holding

large inventories can be quite high. Producers respond to these con-

straints by choosing venue capacities that may turn out to be too small

in some markets. Consequently, capacity constraints may bind, which is

illustrated by some performances selling out in minutes.

Supply for concert tickets is limited due to the fixed number of tick-

ets available. The size of venue chosen to host the performance: club,

theatre, large theatre, arena, amphitheatre and stadium are all determi-

nant factors of supply by the promoter and artist. Some artists select a

venue to deliver intimacy to the ticket holder while a smaller show will

create excess demand and a market shortage. For example, in 2000, Paul

Simon toured the US playing in theatres (capacity 1,000) as promotion

for a new album release, "You're the One". Simon could have performed

at 2,500 to 5,000 capacity venues on this US tour. This is considered an

"underplay" in the concert industry as Simon underestimated the venue

capacity to create intimacy at the performance thereby creating a short-

age of supply in the marketplace.

An analysis of ticket pricing 47

Not all tickets are sold to the public, some tickets are held back from

sale to the public by the primary market. These tickets, referred to as

"holds" may go to news media, artist, managers, agents, the record

company, the fan club, the promoter and the tour sponsor. A few years

ago, an investigative team in Nashville unearthed the "holds" list for a

Taylor Swift show at the Bridgestone Arena, a venue with a capacity of

13,330 seats. After Swift's fan club, management, agents, record label

and opening acts' ticket allocation; after a radio-sponsored presale; and

after American Express card members had access to a presale, only

1,591 tickets were made available to the public.

Figure 3: Taylor Swift ticket allocation (NPR, June 2012).

The practice of "holds" is common at popular arena gigs and takes

place on a smaller scale at theatres and clubs. Seating location or type of

section (front row vs. nose bleeds) and how many days a ticket is pur-

chased before the date of the show are also important determinants of

demand and profit margin for promoters. Industry professionals refer to

"scaling the house" as the process of pricing the front rows (referred to

as the 'golden circle') at high prices and reducing prices all the way to

the nosebleed section. The practice of scaling the house varies from

performance to performance. Scaled seating arrangements were com-

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/06/04/154299904/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-sold-out-

concert-even-for-justin-bieber

48 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

monly employed at reserved seat rock shows during the sixties, but dis-

appeared for the more youthful pop scene, when promoters introduced

general admission tickets in the mid-seventies. Since the late eighties,

however, house-scaled seating arrangements were the blue print for

pop concerts (Giblin & Chadwell 1994). Artist fees can be covered with

highest price premium seats allowing for the rest of the house to be

more reasonably priced. For the Rolling Stones Bigger Bang Tour in 1996

top tiered seats went for $250-$500 per ticket. However, 50% of first 15

rows sold in secondary market. Ticket brokers rescale the house "15-

20% of best seats are empirically worth more than face value" (Waddell

2007). Jeff Fluhr, Co-CEO of StubHub says "[there are] over 1,000 ticket

brokers in the country, taking inventory off the hands of promoters."

Since the pricing model of promoters and artists is not to optimise

profits through ticket sales alone, Connolly & Krueger (2006: 676) state

that "this pricing results in excess demand for many concert performanc-

es, which leads to scalping". Live music is one of the few businesses in

which second-hand goods often sell for more than first hand goods. "As

soon as a show sells out, front-row seats appear on the web for more

than face value," says Rob Hallett of AEG Live (The Economist 2005).

Popular music concert tickets ordinarily resell at prices well above their

face values. For example, $39.50 tickets for Nickelback, a popular rock

band, concerts were traded at around $120 in the resale ticket market

(Byun 2008).

Primary ticket market outlets like Ticketmaster have tried to seize

some of the sales revenue of the secondary market by creating their

own ticket exchanges (Tickets Now), but this often confuses consumers

and creates buyer mistrust. It is not easy for a seller to take advantage

of both the primary and the secondary market. According to former

Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard:

"The resale market exists because ticket pricing is not perfectly effi-

cient; supply and demand change over time and some fans wait until the

last minute to make the decision as to if they can go to an event. The

local ticket brokerage model has been built on this, providing services for

An analysis of ticket pricing 49

niche groups of customers who seek unique experiences at various price

points that the market will bear at any given time."

5 The secondary ticket marketplace

In the past, many concert enthusiasts had to wait in line at a box office

for hours prior to tickets going on sale to ensure they could secure a

concert ticket. In 2009, StubHub revolutionized the way consumers pur-

chased tickets in the secondary market and its platform StubHub.com

was the first major online secondary ticket agent selling tickets exclu-

sively on-line as a ticket reseller. Since StubHub entered the secondary

ticket marketplace, secondary ticketing has grown into a multi-billion-

dollar industry that allows consumers to access ticket discounts or sold

out concerts (Harrington 2012). One-third of all popular concert tickets

are purchased in the secondary ticket market (Krueger 2008) and the

secondary ticket market has grown to a $15 billion-dollar industry with

thousands of ticket resellers on-line. The key sellers for this market are

StubHub.com and TicketsNow.com (Harrington 2012).

5.1 Secondary ticket market technology - "BOTS"

Some of these ticket resellers purchase tickets from the primary market

using technology to acquire large quantities of the best seats within sec-

onds of the tickets going on sale on the primary market. These "BOTS"

are computer programs that can acquire large amounts of tickets auto-

matically without human intervention (Harrington 2012). This process

bypasses the human consumer who selects a seat and then enters in

payment information through the traditional method within the primary

market. The "BOTS" in the secondary ticket market essentially remove

the supply of tickets from the typical fan or consumer resulting in a sell-

out of tickets. An example of this process was the Justin Bieber North

American tour which sold out in less than one hour at rate of more than

1,000 tickets per second (Ganz 2012).

Ticketmaster.com blog, 2011.

50 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

5.2 Secondary ticket market pros and cons

Advantages of the secondary ticket market includes the consumer's abil-

ity to obtain access to sold out concerts and the market becomes a one

stop shop for all sport games, concert and other events (Burgess 2012).

Brokers may be good also for social surplus because they add liquidity to

the market (Leslie & Sorenson 2007). However, the secondary ticket

market has downsides in that brokers extract surplus for themselves,

reducing surplus available to the consumers and subsequently consum-

ers are worse off (ibid.). Ticket prices on the secondary market are sub-

ject to change as ticket prices can escalate and a discount may not be

obtainable (Burgess 2012). Websites in the secondary market also do

not provide any insight to the consumer on future price movements

(ibid.). In other words, the consumer is subject to the laws of supply and

demand in the secondary market. According to Leslie & Sorenson (2007),

seat quality is the key determinant of prices in both the primary and

secondary markets as resale prices vary significantly according to seat

quality. This is especially true for about twenty percent of the highest

quality seats, where resale prices are a particular determinant of seat

quality. However, consumers cannot evaluate the quality of the ticket

prior to purchase nor judge for themselves if the ticket is a fair price for

the seat location. Leslie & Sorenson (2007) cite numerous instances of

low-quality seats resold at a higher price than a higher quality seat (for a

given event) in their research on the secondary market. This is basic

evidence of inefficiencies in the resale market, where on the one hand,

the resale market allows price to be a more flexible function of seat

quality but on the other hand, some friction in the resale market causes

significant variance in price, conditional on seat quality. SeatGeek.com

is a website that offers the consumer the ability to compare multiple

secondary ticket market websites (Burgess 2012) to determine the best

ticket deal based on seat location and price.

5.3 Ticket prices in the secondary market

The primary ticket marketplace drives most of its revenue from compli-

mentary goods and therefore has created a market for alternatives that

An analysis of ticket pricing 51

maximize profit on ticket sales (Krueger 2008). As a result, consumers

are unable to purchase tickets at face value on the primary market, so

for consumers to purchase concert tickets, they must utilise the second-

ary ticket market and pay the true market value price of the ticket.

There are three major reasons that may determine the new market val-

ue price of a ticket on the secondary market. Firstly, consumers are

willing to purchase higher price tickets from reliable websites such as

StubHub or TicketsNow but are less likely to purchase tickets from

Craigslist or a street scalper because they are considered higher risk and

often do not run official businesses (Chan, Mathew & Ruggie 2009).

Secondly, consumers are afraid tickets will not be available in the

future, so they buy tickets early when prices are high (Chan 2009).

Thirdly, the supply of the tickets has been dramatically reduced to

only a few tickets per concert. This will drive up the price since they are

capturing the limited number of people willing to pay a price higher than

face value. The secondary market premium is higher for superstar per-

formers who charge the highest prices and tend to sell out in the prima-

ry market (Krueger 2009).

5.4 Superstar concerts survey

A survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Center on two

superstar concerts. The first event was a Bruce Springsteen and the E

Street Band "The Rising" tour date at the First Union Center (now Wells

Fargo Center) in Philadelphia on October 6, 2002 and the second was a

U2 "Vertigo" show at the Madison Square Garden in New York City on

November 22, 2005 (Krueger 2008). A total of 858 fans were inter-

viewed for the survey, which revealed that thirty percent (30%) of the

tickets were sold on the secondary market. The average face value price

of the ticket was $94 while the average ticket purchase price for the

secondary market was $245 (ibid.)

52 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

Figure 4: Primary vs. secondary market ticket price survey (Krueger 2008).

The mark up for the secondary market was 240% above face value

from the primary market. The Princeton Survey Research Center also

conducted a natural survey with a total of 300,000 consumers at 1,068

concerts interviewed for the poll. It was determined that 10% of the

tickets were obtained on the secondary market (Krueger 2008). The

average face value ticket was $81 and the average mark-up 36%, while

the average ticket purchase price for the secondary market was $122

(ibid.). Popular artists can demand higher prices on the secondary mar-

ket.

5.5 Secondary ticket market – consumer uncertainty

In a survey by Sorenson & Leslie (2007), the average mark-up in the sec-

ondary ticket marketplace was 40% over face value and 25% of resold

tickets obtained mark-ups above 66%. The downside for resellers

showed that 28% of tickets were sold below face value and 50% of re-

sale transactions occurred within 24 days of the event in the secondary

market. The consumer was not only uncertain about prices in the resale

An analysis of ticket pricing 53

market, they were also uncertain about which ticket (if any) they would

be able to buy in the resale market.

5.6 Timing of ticket sales

The price of secondary market tickets falls as the concert date ap-

proaches, because the tickets are a perishable good (Chan, Mathew &

Ruggie 2009). As time passes, the challenge of finding a buyer to pur-

chase a ticket well above face value increases, therefore sellers have to

drop their prices to find a buyer, otherwise, the ticket is worth nothing

(ibid.). The strategy for the secondary ticket market seller is to start with

a high price, peak about nine to ten days prior to the concert and drop

the price below face value, which increases the number of willing buyers

(ibid.). Some of the lowest price tickets can be found within one hour of

the concert because the reseller needs to unload the ticket (ibid.).

5.7 SeatGeek and the secondary ticket market

The website SeatGeek.com provides consumers with comparison infor-

mation to determine if a ticket on the secondary market is a good value

(Harrington 2012). This website, like Kayak within the airline industry,

gathers ticket prices and seat location on many secondary ticket market

websites; it has developed an algorithm to predict the price of the ticket

based on three variables: the quantity of supplied tickets on the second

ticket market, the location of the seat and the popularity of the concert.

SeatGeek compares the asking price of each of ticket to the predicted

price and assigns a "deal ranking".

54 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

Figure 5: SeatGeek Deal Score (Harrington 2012).

SeatGeek sorts the tickets by their "deal" score which reflects the

gap between the asking price and the predicted market price (Harring-

ton 2012). If there are only one or two seats for sale on the secondary

ticket market, the predicted price will be higher than if fifty or sixty are

for sale for the same show. SeatGeek allows consumers to purchase

concert tickets without assuming a high-priced ticket is the only availa-

ble option. SeatGeek also makes the demand for listing (resell) tickets

more elastic (Harrington 2012). Although many consumers purchase

tickets exclusively at StubHub which dominates the secondary ticket

market with a 25% share, SeatGeek allows smaller secondary ticket mar-

ket sellers with less popularity than StubHub to gain visibility to con-

sumers, which forces StubHub to keep their prices and fees aligned with

the price of the ticket market (ibid.).

An analysis of ticket pricing 55

6 Proposed solutions for the primary ticket market to

compete with the secondary market

Secondary ticket legislation has been prominent for the past hundred

years. In 1927, the United States Supreme court upheld a law forbidding

the resale of tickets at more than fifty cents in excess of the face price of

a ticket (W.F.D, 1927, The Yale Law Journal Review). Despite this

judgement, the presiding Supreme Court Justice Sutherland stated that

"ticket scalpers may not be controlled." Ticket scalping has evolved over

the course of the past century; from individual sellers outside of arenas

and stadiums to on-line resellers. The secondary ticket has grown to a

multi-billion-dollar industry and has been met with opposition from var-

ious organizations including the government and primary ticket market-

place sellers.

The current laws around scalping are inconsistent and cannot

achieve industry compliance. Anti-scalping laws vary from state to state

given there is no federal law that prohibits the resale of concert tickets.

Gaining access to tickets, the cost of distribution and fraud are the key

challenges that preoccupy regulators (Vascellaro 2005). Massachusetts'

ticket resale law allows a maximum ticket mark-up of only two dollars

(ibid.), while Pennsylvania allows brokers to resell tickets with a maxi-

mum mark-up price of twenty-five percent. New York, Connecticut and

Minnesota require a resale license, a fee that is paid to the state. Over

time, state laws have recognised the benefits of ticket resales and

amended ticket legislation to improve the economic wealth of the state.

The barriers to entry in the secondary ticket market have evolved

beyond state legislation. In 2007, Ticketmaster filed a lawsuit against

eBay and named StubHub the subsidiary of eBay as a co-defendant. The

suit primarily focused on the profit of sales that StubHub gained for a

Lynyrd Skynyrd/Hank Williams Jr. "Rowdy Frynds" tour. A Wall Street

Journal article explains that StubHub violated Ticketmaster's exclusive

right to sell tickets to events at the venues on the tour, including the

Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis and the Palace of Auburn Hills, Mich-

igan.

56 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

6.1 Paperless ticketing

Primary ticker sellers have attempted to circumvent the secondary mar-

ket through paperless ticketing technology, which acts as a tool to en-

sure that the individual attending the event is the same person who

purchased the ticket from the primary market. The ticket purchaser is

required to show identification at the ticket window of the event, mean-

ing the secondary ticket reseller cannot re-sell tickets from the primary

ticket marketplace. In 2009, Miley Cyrus offered a paperless ticket as the

only option for her tour (eliminating the ability of the secondary market

to gain access to resell tickets for the tour) and Don Vaccaro, CEO of

StubHub, claimed that paperless ticketing violated antitrust laws.

The Live Nation/Ticketmaster platform Verified Fan is an attempt to

circumvent secondary ticket sales. Vulture.com states:

"In March 2017, Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced their Veri-

fied Fan presale technology where fans can register ahead of sale dates

by providing personal information that's vetted by the companies. Fans

receive a code that allows them to purchase tickets and beat the scalpers

at their own game. To date, more than one million users have registered

for Verified Fan services. … In addition to partnering with acts like the

1975 and Ed Sheeran, Live Nation/Ticketmaster most recently promoted

shows with Twenty One Pilots for five homecoming dates in Columbus,

Ohio, taking place at venues of varying sizes between June 20 and 25,

2017, all of them sold out. The spill over to the secondary market was

almost non-existent by industry standards, as there were no tickets

available for the first three shows on StubHub, and, according to Live

Nation/Ticketmaster, the subsequent pair of shows had resales on the

secondary market of just 4.1 percent and 3.7 percent. As at the date of

the article, available options hovered around 350 tickets per show at

arenas that seated up to 18,500 patrons. By using the Verified Fan pro-

gram, the company had reduced scalping on the secondary market by 90

percent."

http://www.vulture.com/2017/05/everyone-wants-concert-tickets-but-no-one-is-getting-

them.html

An analysis of ticket pricing 57

According to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino: "Music has account-

ed for about 80% of Ticketmaster's growth in recent years, making it

imperative for us to extend our focus from venues to those artists who

are filling the venues." He estimates that 80 artists utilized Ticketmas-

ter's Verified Fan platform, selling 3 million tickets.

The verified fan platform has not been without issues. Digital Music

News wrote in January 2018 about "a serious misfire on Swift's 'Verified

Fan' program." That program gave priority access to certain Taylor Swift

fans. Fans were required to build up points — oftentimes by purchasing

Taylor Swift products including purchases of Swift's latest album, a snake

bracelet and more which theoretically gave fans priority access. Once

tickets went on sale, however, that prioritization seemed spotty. Some

"prioritized" fans got lucky, but many others were left waiting. Most

were given 'special access' to high-priced tickets, while others were

forced into the general sales bucket a few days later. Of course, none of

that went over well with fans — or their parents. As a result, Digital Mu-

sic News headlined: "Taylor Swift's 'Reputation' Tour is a Flop: Half-Filled

Stadiums, Thousands of Unsold Seats, 0 Sellouts."

6.2 Dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing, also known as time-based pricing, is one method of

price discrimination and is the practice of charging different prices to

different consumers for similar goods thus dividing customers into two

or more groups with separate demand curves and different prices

charged to each group. When successful price discrimination can in-

crease the firm's profits by enabling it to capture consumer surplus. This

is part of the seller's aim to capture what economists label "consumer

surplus" – the difference between what a consumer is willing to pay for

a good and the amount they must pay. The price that a consumer is will-

ing to pay is the "reservation price". The secondary ticket marketplace

has thrived on the concept of dynamic pricing.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8221386/live-nation-104-billion-record-revenue-

2017-q4-earnings-drop-report

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/01/02/taylor-swift-reputation-tour-flop

58 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

Today, internet-based companies can gather large amounts of con-

sumer information through click loggers, ad sites, and search engines

operating in many common web functions. Now primary market ticket

sellers can compete with the secondary market and utilize dynamic pric-

ing whereas in the past it was more difficult for primary markets ticket

sellers to judge individual consumers' reservation prices. Price discrimi-

nation is more about separating consumers into groups than aiming at

individual consumers. Essentially the process of dynamic pricing is one

of "price discovery" where the buyer and seller actively engage in activi-

ties that identify the exact highest amount that the consumer would pay

for the good before walking away, therefore capturing the entire con-

sumer surplus.

Zach Cross, VP Revenue Analytics states "Understanding customer

buying patterns allows companies to develop price points that meet the

needs of price-sensitive customers, the key is making sure you do not

displace the high paying demand". It is possible for 75% of revenue to be

derived from 25% of seats, sourcing VIP packages + Premium Seats.

The key is demand forecasting by sourcing variables such as genre, ven-

ue, event, section, row and customer segment as well as making optimal

inventory allocation decisions. Bill Zysblat of RZO Productions says, "The

idea is to have exactly one person wanting a ticket at every sold-out

show". Dynamic Pricing can significantly improve ticket sale volume for

events where interest is low and reduce the number of tickets resold on

the secondary market. According to Billboard

"the sales for JAY-Z's 4:44 Tour represents a paradigm shift in con-

cert tickets, by aggressively pricing front row seats, VIP experiences and

platinum tickets, concert promoters are getting increasingly more skilled

at commanding high prices and record grosses from their best seating

inventory. … That's bad news for ticket resellers — by pricing tickets clos-

https://revenueanalytics.com/news/ticketonomics

An analysis of ticket pricing 59

er to actual market value, JAY-Z and Live Nation are capturing more rev-

enue and creating little room for brokers to mark up the best seats."

Ticketmaster has recently rolled out dynamic ticket pricing to adjust

prices of available tickets based on sales and other metrics pertaining to

demand such as StubHub prices, artist popularity and days until the

event. They have established that dynamic pricing is a group pricing ac-

tivity.

In order to understand the effects dynamic pricing has on price,

Kauffman & Wang (2001) stated: "Even though different functional

forms have been proposed for the demand-price relationship, there is a

consensus that at the aggregate level demand for a product decreases as

the price increases under both monopoly and competitive settings." As a

result, we expect that there will be a high demand when the price drops

in the group-buying context. The former is a movement along a single

demand curve. The latter emphasizes the role of expectations in deci-

sion-making and exists by the construction of the group-buying market

microstructure. Demand externalities are realised through the upward

shift of the demand curve due to potential adopters' high willingness-to-

pay. As a result, in the context of group-buying, a price effect is reflect-

ed in an increase in orders due to a price drop, while demand externali-

ties are associated with the current group size. Thus, when the current

group size increases, demand externalities capture the fact that poten-

tial buyers are more likely to place an order due to the expected larger

final group size, even though the current price remains the same. With

this behaviour in mind they anticipate that when a buyer develops an

expectation that the price will drop in the near future, they expect that

the likelihood of purchasing the product will increase in a group buying

setting.

In the short run, because the price will only drop to the next lower

price-tier, a consumer will only be motivated to make a purchase when

the reservation price is less than the current price but greater than or

equal to the next lower one. In this case, when the price drops to the

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8023168/jay-z-444-tour-highest-grossing-tickets-

stubhub

60 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

next level, which is no greater than the reservation price, the consumer

will get a non-negative surplus from this purchase. In the group-buying

setting, when an individual perceives that the price is likely to drop to

the reservation price or lower – and the purchase action can facilitate

this process – the consumer is more likely to place the order if the con-

sumer is risk-seeking. By contrast, a risk-averse person may wait until

the price changes to make the purchase, even if the consumer expected

that the price would change. As a result, they expect more orders to be

placed right before and right after the price drop point.

Artists are also offering dynamic ticket pricing for concerts through

to the primary ticket marketplace. Wilco partnered with concert pro-

moter Higher Ground to offer tickets for a concert sold through a unique

combination of "name your own price" auction and lottery. The first 500

tickets were sold to bidders who make the highest offers. Those cus-

tomers whose bid did not score one of the first 500 tickets were part of

an exclusive random lottery. Bidders drawn from a hat were offered the

opportunity to purchase a pair of tickets at whatever price they named

on their original bid. "It's an experiment, which we hope proves to be

more civilized, fair, and more fun than the standard mode of ticket

sales," said director Joseph Thompson.

A case study by McAfee & Vera te Velde (2007) of the California In-

stitute of Technology researched dynamic pricing in the airline industry.

They classified dynamic pricing as a revenue yield/revenue management

tool, a set of pricing strategies aimed at increasing profits. Most yield

management research deals with how to maximize revenue. One ap-

proach is to assume that customers arrive to request a flight, state the

price they will pay, and then the firm decides if to serve them. As you

see the interaction between seller and buyer in the airline industry uti-

lizes a system of "Price Discovery". Although this is the broad theory the

pricing tools are adjusted to ensure maximum profitability. According to

McAfee & Vera te Velde (2007: 4), one variance is that "within the airline

industry rather than dynamically changing prices to maximize revenue,

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/04/jeff-tweedy-wilco-experiment-with-dynamic-

concert-ticket-prices.html

An analysis of ticket pricing 61

some authors ration capacity with price classes to ensure that high-

paying customers are served, effectively implementing a mark-up policy

based on remaining capacity and if seat allocation between classes is

dynamically controlled, remaining time." This can be accomplished by

classifying the high-paying customers as a separate group hence ac-

counting for their needs and utilizing price discover tools on this group

separately. The same rule follows through for the economy class travel-

lers this method enables the industry to capture the entire consumer

surplus. Thus, the conclusion from the research stating; "dynamic price

discrimination is primarily driven by customer dynamics rather than price

discrimination over an existing set of customers" (ibid.: 33). Dynamic

pricing of concert ticket pricing is receiving increasing attention in the

industry today because it holds the potential to significantly improve the

ticket sale volume for events where interest is low. Secondly, the im-

plantation of dynamic pricing will reduce the number of tickets resold on

the secondary market. As adjustments are made on the primary market

utilizing consumer information and behaviour to adjust the price on the

primary market more efficiently the secondary market may be rendered

obsolete. Randy Phillips, CEO of AEG Live states it best, "dynamic pricing

puts the fan on an even playing field with the broker, in terms of access

to the best seats in the house, where the market more than greed de-

termines the price of a ticket. It's the ultimate example of laissez-faire

economics at work" (Waddell 2007).

7 Conclusion

Despite the rising costs of concert tickets in the US over the past fifteen

years, concert tickets prices in the primary ticket marketplace are not

optimized for profit maximization. The three main reasons for not meet-

ing the profit maximizing price point are the benefit of sales from com-

plimentary goods, the artist not gouging the fan to enhance future con-

cert ticket sales and demand uncertainty. Under-priced concert tickets

create opportunities for the secondary market to re-establish the mar-

ket price. Tickets sold on the secondary market are impacted by several

62 International Journal of Music Business Research, April 2019, vol. 8 no. 1

factors: access to best seats, the popularity of the artist and the timing

and date of the event. Solutions to battle scalping include legislation,

technological advances and dynamic ticket pricing. Dynamic pricing

assists the primary market in establishing a profit maximizing ticket

price, providing an opportunity to sell tickets at variable prices based on

the aggregate demand and lessens the impact of tickets sold in the sec-

ondary marketplace.

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