Radiohead is famous for doing price experiments with fans. At the height of illegal downloads, the b

If you don t know what I m talking about, Radiohead is a very, very popular UK rock band. Tickets for the band s two New York shows, its first U.S. performance in 3 years, went on sale this morning on Ticketmaster and sold out in a couple quality westminster hotel london minutes.
Radiohead is famous for doing price experiments quality westminster hotel london with fans. At the height of illegal downloads, the band asked fans to pay-what-you-want for their album . They picked a small venue in New York the Roseland Ballroom which accommodates 3,000 instead of Madison Square Garden which seats about 20,000 and limited ticket sales to 2 per customer. But can limiting supply quality westminster hotel london like this really stop a black market quality westminster hotel london from emerging?
The answer is no. I checked Craigslist and there were already tons of ads. Economics tells us that limiting supply will only make price go up. I m seeing average scalping prices right now from $400 to $1000 for an $80 face value ticket. But what s more interesting to me are the desperate buyers, not the sellers. Sellers just list the price they d like for their goods, but buyers many of whom don t have that kind of cash will start to barter in hopes that a seller is crazy enough not to take cash. This kind of thing is always fun for an informal study on people s utility curve. The Gothamist has a good roundup of weird things people are offering/asking for (a soul, a date, or priceless heirlooms or foreign treasures. )
My criteria for the ticket was, first and foremost, love for the band. Though ultimately the key factor is someone that will help me have a better time at the show. Oh yeah, and definitely bragging rights has something to do with it, but not sure how it has to do with my friend selection. The bragging rights come simply with being able to go to the show, not who I go with.
Well, I will say that when you sent me that Craigslist link , I was like, DUDE, I knew I could ve gotten a lot of money for it, but not that much!! But I didn t actually think about doing so. Now, if you were to suddenly bail on me, I would consider selling the ticket, but I d almost rather NOT make the money and have someone to enjoy it with me. But I guess once you put it that way, then you re saying that I d be willing to pay $900 to have a friend with me, that sounds a bit absurd. I guess if we were standing outside the venue, and some desperate fan who didn t get a ticket offered me $2000, I d probably sell mine right there and then. But I wouldn quality westminster hotel london t throw you under the proverbial bus (ie. sell your ticket), since that d be really terrible of me. And since at this point, I consider the ticket morally yours, even if it s still legally mine.
So there you have it folks: friendship is $900. Radiohead ticket = $2000. What a great friend! I m going to keep his last name to myself in case a reader out there does want to blow $2000, then Jon would be put in a hard spot and I might have to go to the concert with you instead of him.
In Finland, the scalping is prevented by making the tickets non-transferable (= your name is printed on the ticket) and making the event arrangers quality westminster hotel london having to have a certain quota of tickets at box office. UK is even more strict in this issue: the event arrangers are required quality westminster hotel london to check the name and photo ID on each ticket at the gate.
I would advise quality westminster hotel london you to get a new friend. Anyone who s utility curve is that messed up simply cannot be counted on to make proper life decisions. Do you really want to be sheltering this guy after he buys at the peak of the next housing bubble and ends up foreclosed because of it?
This got me thinking about a (kinda) similar situation in the gaming world ; selling virtual quality westminster hotel london goods for real-life cash (IE in Blizzard s immensely popular World of Warcraft, one would buy/sell gold for real US$). This kind of thing is illegal in most games, and all the surplus value went to big resellers (companies quality westminster hotel london who buy a ton of gold and resell it for a profit).
However, in their upcoming hugely popular title, Diablo 3, Blizzard not only sanctions real-world $ trading, it embraces it in the game itself! In the actual game, you will have the option to put your items up for auction in either in-game gold or real-life $. Not only will this make transactions immensely more secure (guarenteed by Blizzard itself), but all the surplus value goes straight into the developer s pockets since they take a cut of each sale.
I think this is a great way to control a market in which there is obviously a huge supply/demand. It also gives Blizzard incentive to keep a balanced and fun game that will create a healthy market, and on top of that they get money from it, cash which it can reinvest in the game to create a circle of cash- development- more cash cycle.
Now, can the music industry find a similar system? As Joshua pointed, if that kind of technology was created, it would be a great way to get all that surplus value in the band s pockets, again giving them more of an incentive to create quality content. Obviously there s no perfect solution, but at least attempting something in that direction could be a good start.
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