Ticket Resale Research Articles

Rock Concert Pricing and Anti-Scalping Laws: Selling to an Input

This paper develops a model that jointly explains excess demand for performance events and the presence of anti-scalping laws. The explanation is based on the fact that the buyers of tickets are also an important input into the performance experience. The use of line-ups as a screening mechanism (leading to apparent under-pricing of tickets) can be profit maximizing if the input quality of a given buyer and her willingness to pay for tickets are not sufficiently positively correlated. Such a mechanism is not possible, however, if the resale of tickets above the posted price is permitted. Since resale amounts to input substitution, banning such resale is therefore efficiency enhancing.

Do Anti-Ticket Scalping Laws Make a Difference Online? Evidence from Internet Sales of Nfl Tickets

This paper investigates the relationship between state level anti-ticket scalping laws and online ticket scalping by examining transactions for National Football League tickets completed on eBay between 2002 and 2005. Despite limited enforcement of regulations in online marketplaces, the evidence suggests that ticket resale regulations do affect the structure of trade online. Stricter regulations were associated with fewer online transactions, a greater frequency of transactions that crossed state borders, as well as higher prices and markups in the secondary market. The evidence suggests that regulations may create significant opportunities for ticket scalpers to capture rents, and these opportunities seemed to be greatest in states that require resellers to be licensed. Over the time period studied, prices and quantities observed in states strictly prohibiting resale above face value became more similar to those observed in unregulated states. These observations are consistent with the idea that market participants updated their beliefs over time about the probability that scalping laws would be enforced online.

Some Economics of Ticket Resale

A large number of brokers and scalpers resell a significant fraction of event tickets at substantial markups and they manage to do so despite the fact that promoters and ticketing agencies do not support resell for profits and often attempt to block secondary market. Why can't promoters capture the profits from secondary markets or at least deter brokers from doing so? I present a simple explanation that borrows from the literature on airline ticket pricing and draw parallels with that literature. I review some evidence consistent with this explanation.

Do anti‐ticket scalping laws make a difference?

AbstractTicket scalping is the practice of buying tickets at one price and reselling them at a higher one. The practice is controversial and currently almost half the states regulate the resale of tickets to one degree or another. As with other laws that regulate economic activity, the question immediately arises: ‘Who benefits from the law?’ Economists typically view transactions between willing buyers and willing sellers, such as ticket scalping, as welfare improving. They also view any interference with free market transactions as suspect and as possible evidence of rent harvesting. In an attempt to quantify the economic impact of anti‐ticket scalping laws this paper presents a regression model of ticket price determination for National Football League teams and uses it to test the proposition ‘Do anti‐ticket scalping laws make a difference?’

To err is rational: A theory of excess demand for tickets

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between chronic excess demand for sporting events, a robust ticket resale market and the market for seasons tickets. The main argument focuses on property rights associated with the purchase of season tickets. Given the impossibility of pricing games individually, season‐ticket holders act as brokers. The ‘broker's fees’ are paid in the form of priorities for playoff tickets and premium seats in future years. Since a pure monopoly price would render season‐ticket property rights worthless, a profit‐maximizing strategy requires apparent underpricing.

Theatres. Injunction to Prohibit Resale of Tickets by Unauthorized Broker

Theatres. Injunction to Prohibit Resale of Tickets by Unauthorized Broker

Constitutional Law: Regulation of Resale of Tickets of Admission to Places of Entertainment

Constitutional Law: Regulation of Resale of Tickets of Admission to Places of Entertainment