by kbenson | 2025-05-26 22:58:02+00:00
> The assumption that it's $100 now vs. $100 later just seems unfounded. What if it's $100 now vs. $110 later?

The actual situation is that it's $100 now or maybe $110 later or even $90 later, because you don't know what the market is going to do. That is the risk the resellers are taking on. The demand for the product is not static. At the time of sale, a lot of effort goes into making the artist appealing and interesting to audiences so they are more interested in buying a ticket.

> The payer is can factor in the time value of money, inflation, etc. just like you do; why would they completely ignore that and blindly pay the same amount they would at two different points in time?

Of course customers would prefer to pay at the last possible moment. With a static inventory that's released all at once (which isn't really how it's done most times now) they don't really have that luxury for popular events, resellers or not.

My point is that there's no guarantee the value of tickets. Depending on the event, they often reduce in cost. Selling a large amount early reduces risk exposure. These days there's a bit of everything going on, and usually there are certain amounts of inventory released initially, and more come in clumps over time, possibly at different prices depending on demand and what the secondary market looks like, as well as there being a subset of inventory from the very beginning that has dynamic pricing to respond quickly to market conditions and serve some of the need of the secondary market. As Ticketmaster started tun run their own secondary market they quickly utilized the data that gave them to change how they functioned on the primary market.

> We're not talking about free money, we're talking about payment in exchange for work. You're taking out a loan that comes with obligations. ... And I don't know about you, but I sure as heck don't enjoy being perpetually in debt to someone. I'm not saying it's bad if you're fine with it, I'm saying it doesn't seem remotely true that everyone is fine with it.

Importantly, there are many links in this chain, and people taking their cut along the way (although less than there used to be since Live Nation /Ticketmaster has serves the role of multiple parties in many cases). This is how the industry works at the large tour level. You contract for a lot of work over a long period, sometimes more than a year, and then proceed to execute on that plan. As someone that gets a normal paycheck, I admit it's not that appealing to me either, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's strange. All sorts of small businesses work on this idea, and when you're doing fixed cost work, you would rather have the money up front, as it allows for more options. Any tradesperson that does large projects has to deal with this to a lesser degree. General contractors, electricians, etc. It's a normal part of contract based work. Most people are forced into what the industry has settled on as acceptable practices and can't dictate difference, so for the vast majority "if you're fine with it" is a foregone conclusion because if you're not you've probably found some other way to make a living.