doodledee

As an occasional concert goer, I took note of the recent news that Ticketmaster was going to start auctioning off tickets to concerts and events. Seeing as Ebay is already full of GREAT SEATS!!! being sold by ticket brokers - usually at huge markups - I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the geniuses at Ticketmaster decided they want a piece of the action, too. Higher prices == more profits and all that.

When I first heard the news, I thought it was great for a bunch of reasons. First and foremost, I also liked it because it's efficient. Tickets sell for what people think they're worth. Simple and beautiful. Like a swiss cake roll at dawn.

I also figured TM brand auction would probably eliminate a lot of the 'back doors' and stuff that help get the GREAT SEATS!!! into the hands of the brokers in the first place. Once TM has their own auctions, the brokering community loses most of its bribing buying power as, bizarrely, TM becomes their own middleman. And while sure, that sounds bad on paper, I assert that TM is at a minimum slightly more scrupulous - and certainly more accountable - than your average sleaze-ball ticket broker. So yep, it's a good thing.

Then I dug into the details.

It turns out that only the 'super deluxe choice' seats for events will be auctioned off, not the whole arena, so you can forget scoring last minute nosebleeds for $10 just because nobody else wanted them. Sure, it's a smart move on TM's part, risk mitigation, blah, blah, blah, but it sucks big time for the ticket buying public. It also completely violates any notion of efficient pricing. And it's total bullshit.

In conclusion, the auction idea is stupid.

If Ticketmaster keeps pulling stunts like this, they will be off my Christmas card list so fast...