Wii Shortage and Lead Zep Tickets

[TheAnimus]

We've seen a lot of geek media coverage about the shortage of Wiis, with people often moaning about how retailers are forcing bundels on people to make more money.

I can't help but think this is a bit of a bad situation that could be better.

Lead Zepplins tickets where hot stuff, apparently 1m (1 in 60 people in the UK) tried to get one of the 7,000 pairs of tickets going on sale, so they did a lottery. You had a 1 in 143 chance of getting a ticket, regardless of how badly you wanted one, you might have all the albums, able to play all the songs, acoustically on giater hero. But you're plucking for that 1 in 143.

Un suprisingly a Secondary Market has emerged for these. Apparently Lead Zepplin are saying their touted tickets are useless, yet people are still buying them for 10,000£ a pair!

The purpose of this post is this, what is the fairest way of dishing out these precious commodities, and why are Lead Zepplin (like most music concerts) so opposed to the 'secondary market'. If you bought as much google as you could, during IPO you could of had them for something like $40 a share. Think of this as been up at 2am on ticketweb. Now in the secondary market (the ticket touts) you would be lucky to get one for $715 a share, but these people aren't touts, there are what drives are modern economy.

Why don't bands use a pricing model like airlines, increase the price, as the seats start to run out. That way people who really like the group will know the tickets are going on sale, and wait for them, where as those who don't have the opertunity to pay more and as such demonstrait its worth more to them than the next person, an auction if you like.

With the Wii, why don't retailers simply jack up the base price. Odds are if in novemeber the Wii had been priced to just plucking this number out of the air £222, the shortage wouldn't be so bad. A Wii costs nothing like £180 to build anyway, why not screw that extra little.

The obvious problem is with the economic method, we don't all earn the same money, but its still fairer than anything else?

[Whiternoise]

Led Zep tickets, well it's only to be expected that some people will be stupid amounts of money for tickets. Personally i think the way they did the tickets was pretty good. It's about the fairest way they could possibly do it, certainly better than either giving tickets first come first served or to "VIP" subscribers on ticketmaster. HOWEVER, they should have done the lottery much closer to the gig date to prevent some of the touting. Either that or eBay should crack down on ticket sales, it baffles me that they restrict console sales, but tickets for gigs that tend to inflate by a much larger amount go unchecked - a new seller can put any ticket they like on the bay without a second glance.

But retailers have been jacking up the base price.. CEX in Swindon sell preowned Wii's for over 200 without Wii Sports, even our trusty friends Scan are selling Wii's at what could be argued as an inflated price. And more recently, notably pointed out in the Illegal Wii thread, some stores have opted to force bundles upon consumers. Nintendo are sending out Deluxe Wii bundles which are overpriced and are crafted such that the games cannot be returned for a full refund, they must be traded in.

Quite simply, in these sorts of markets where there is a limited number of a popular item, people aren't going to get what they want and there is almost never a fair way of doling out items. The only realistic way to get round it is to pre empt, which is tricky, but say buying your Wii in August ready for Christmas or going to see a band before they get stupidly popular (again, very tricky, but then that's what festivals are for!).

[TheAnimus]

are you saying the secondary market is a bad thing?

Whats actually wrong with people selling on their tickets for Lead Zep, no one is forcing them to part with them, and no one is forcing someone to pay £10k for a ticket.

As long as the tickets don't go un-used.

[Whiternoise]

I'm saying that people should know better, and i'm fairly sure the people parting with them don't have the recipients' well-being as a primary motivation for selling. The secondary market is good for some things, but i don't really see how ticket touting can ever be a good thing. If what Led Zep are saying is true, that touted tickets are invalid, then some smug git has made him/herself 10k pure profit and the poor sod who wasted their money on it has well, wasted their money on it.

There is nothing wrong with selling tickets as a secondary market, but what people do with gig tickets, sporting event tickets, etc. is nothing more than robbery, extortion and greed. Take Wii's as an example again, the reason we don't allow customers to buy more than one Wii is because we know full well that it will probably be going straight onto eBay. I have no quarm with people buying things from licensed dealers, but i have a major problem with people who force others to pay more than they should so that they can make a profit.

Shares are a different kettle of fish. In my mind, they're more like an investment, people don't "lose out" nearly as much if you sell your shares after they boom and by investing in the first place there is a certain amount of satisfaction knowing that it was your investment that helped the company along.

The problem with an auction based economy is that the rich will always win. If the tickets sell out and it goes down to an auction, then the person who's willing to pay the most will get the tickets, how is that fair? What if you were unable to order a ticket as soon as they went on sale due to a family grievance, you could argue that you have just as much right to a ticket as the guy paying 10k, but as you can't afford it then does that mean you don't appreciate the band as much?

[usxhe190]

TheAnimus, because there are "authorised" people who paid a premium to Lead Zepplin to create a restricted secondary market (i.e. be a ticket reseller) and these people are pissed off that there are "non authorised" people who didn't pay a premium and doing the same thing without any restrictions

it all comes back to money

[Lucio]

If you stop and think about it, a lot of things we buy are from the "secondary market". After all, when do you get an oppertunity to purchase directly from a manufacturer these days? Often it'll have come down through, two, three or maybe even 4 resellers before it finally ends up in your pocket.

All that we're really seeing is typical of the UK economy because quite frankly that's how a lot of people make their money these days, find a "trade" seller, buy up a load of stuff and sell it back on with "customer support" tacked on.

[TheAnimus]

TheAnimus, because there are "authorised" people who paid a premium to Lead Zepplin to create a restricted secondary market (i.e. be a ticket reseller) and these people are pissed off that there are "non authorised" people who didn't pay a premium and doing the same thing without any restrictions

it all comes back to money

You see this is what i normally suspect, call me a synic eh? if Lead Zeppelin cared one ioata about their fans, why charge £125, that is out of the reach of many many people, even more so at this time of year.

If you stop and think about it, a lot of things we buy are from the "secondary market". After all, when do you get an oppertunity to purchase directly from a manufacturer these days? Often it'll have come down through, two, three or maybe even 4 resellers before it finally ends up in your pocket.

All that we're really seeing is typical of the UK economy because quite frankly that's how a lot of people make their money these days, find a "trade" seller, buy up a load of stuff and sell it back on with "customer support" tacked on.

I mean Secondary Market in trading sense, ie, if your not buying it from the IPO (Inital Public Offering), most resellers are not public offerings, as such argos is still a 'primary'.

Whiternoise, can you think of something fairer than money for deciding it? The fairest one i've thought of so far would be to use the airline model. Start of with tickets at £25 till 33% full, then £60 till 80% full then £200 till 100% full.

But also whats wrong with touting? I've often been the poor sod who has to get the tickets, as thanks to working summers in uni, banks liked me and let me buy a few hundread pounds of tickets on credit. Enivitably people drop out/fall out. And i'm landed with two spare. Last time this happened i gave one away at cost (notice the phrase gave), because well she was really rather loverly. The other i sold for double face value. I see that quite fair as one was a charity case, the other was paying for my RISK in buying the tickets on credit that i couldn't really easily afford. I was in no way forcing the person to buy the ticket for this DnB night, i'm sure he could of queued up for 2 hours and got in for half the price. It was entirely his choice. If i'd got further to the front of the queue, i'd of been more desperate to sell, and my price would of been less. But as it stood there where plenty of people who all claimed to want it badly. I personally think its more rephresenable i gave one to someone i really wanted too, well you know.

[Nick]

You're ignoring one thing... the perceived value of a product.

To me, I couldn't give a stuff about Led Zeppelin, so if I had two tickets I would've flogged them. I wouldn't have had two tickets in the first place as I'm not interested in them but suppose I'd stumbled across the lottery, entered on spec and then won... would I have then flogged the tickets? Yep.

Why? Cos someone out there would be willing to pay way over the odds and I can make some money.

BUT...

Would I go out of my way to buy/win something I know is going to be in high demand and fetch a premium price, making me a profit?

Nope.

The way I look at it is if an opportunity falls in my lap to make a bit of extra cash, I'll take it, but I won't go searching them out... I won't go and buy world cup tickets, a Wii or Led Zep seats just to flog them for a profit. That's just deliberately profiteering off others needs... but if I have something that's in high demand that I'm not going to use, then why not make some cash?

[Whiternoise]

I'm not saying i have a better/fairer way to decide who gets what, but i don't think that jacking up the price is the right thing to do.

If you want them (some generic wanted item) that badly, then i don't see why you can't just wait until the opportunity arises again?

The situation you describe TheAnimus isn't really what i'm bothered about, i don't have a problem if someone offers you a ticket and they're willing to pay for it. And giving a ticket to someone as a present (even if you intend to get lucky by it) is fine as well. That's a completely different situation to putting a ticket on eBay with the express wish of making a profit. As Nick rightly says, it's deliberately profiteering off others needs and it's unnecessary.

[trusz]

I was lucky enough picked in the ballot. It was a little bit good

There was some idiot yanky there with £4k looking to buy a ticket after just jumping on a plane over here in desperation. There were also touts trying to sell "tickets" outside the venue on the night. Saw one guy get arrested for it. Good enough for him.

Did Led Zeppelin set the ticket price? I wouldn't have thought so. Much of it goes to use in to the Ahmet Ertegun music scholarship fund, although an extra £25 of charges on two tickets at £125 face value is pretty cheeky. As if £125 wasn't enough.

[toolsong]

I was lucky enough picked in the ballot. It was a little bit good

It was freakin amazing!

[Dareos]

i dont have an opinion one way or another really, except to say

ITS FREAKING LED, NOT LEAD

ahem

[666moe666]

And to think they called it 'led', instead of 'lead', to make the Americans pronounce it properly.

[usxhe190]

Dareos, don't get too angry my friend. You are right, guess it is a typo by me and others... BUT it was supposed to be called lead not led. look back at their history...

[subucni]

they called it 'led', instead of 'lead', to make the Americans pronounce it properly.

Is spot on correct.


As it happens i too was there,
going OT, it was bloody fantastic, it certainly had been a long time since we rock 'n' rolled and given that i wasn't even born the last time they played properly i would easily have paid more for a ticket providing i could afford it.
I think it should also be explained how the ticket process worked on the day,

After buying your ticket/s they didnt get mailed out to anyone,
you had to turn up on sunday or monday between 10am and 6pm with the person you were bringing to collect your wristbands and tickets,
you had to provide the card you bought the tickets with, and photo ID to prove you were that person,
once you had proved you were the person that bought the tickets they would put your wristbands on you and give you your tickets,
then once the doors had opened after 6pm, you had to arrive and show both ticket and wristband, and also have your photo ID with you as they would spot check IDs.

So the system was very effective at stopping tickets being touted, and was actually extremely efficient in my point of view, we turned up for our tickets at 12noon on the monday, and only had 6 people queuing in front of us.

The way they could have improved it was to make you name the person you were taking with you when you bought the tickets and make that person show ID too when picking them up, as this is the way people were getting around the touting, people who were going on there own, ended up buying 2 tickets anyway, arranging a sale with people and then meeting up with them on the day when they collected their tickets, and obviously making you name the person going with you would have made that a lot harder to do.


Anyway, getting back on topic, i'm personally glade they took good measures to cut down on the touting, the ballot system is much better in my opinion, it treats everyone equally and gives them all the same chance to get 1or2 of the 18000 tickets, taking away the situation of people who can't afford to pay the high premium for touted tickets missing out all the time. An auction doesn't show that you want to see the band anymore than the next person, just that you can afford to fork out more for it. What makes it fair that people with a higher wage packet should get all the breaks in life?

I understand the whole supply and demand aspect of the arguement of course but the fact remains that it was a charity event, the A.E.E.F had decided how much money they wanted to make from the event and set the price accordingly, it's fair that if anyone made any extra money out of inflating the prices for tickets via selling to people who could pay the most it should be them, and not touts making money off the back of the efforts of a charity. It's not just charities though, the same should go for all events, for example the reading festival, if anyone should be making any extra money it should be the people putting the effort in (meanfiddler etc..) not someone who just got lucky enough to get through to a server struggling to cope with the amount of people trying to access it. but then that's all down to how much the event organisers don't want people making money off their back. If they don't care then so be it, let people tout, but all that shows is a lack of respect to the people who want to go to the gig/event.

With regards to people buying tickets genuinely that they later don't need, event organisers could always offer a buy back system where you can sell the tickets back to the organisers and they can sell them on, on the day. That way you're not taking any risk of not making the gig when buying the tickets in the first place. Again, all down to how much effort the organisers are willing to put in to make things fairer.


I realise this is an idealistic and some what niave view of how economics could/should work but it's just my point of view of whats fair, and what this gig did show is that with a bit of adjustment and effort from the organisers it certainly is possible to make things fairer and help cut out touts.

As for the Wii/retailers just raising the price of the base unit, rather than forcing people to take bundles, it makes more sense for them to force the bundles, as this way they ensure they sell off stock that might overwise not sell (hence why the bundles always contain the older or worst games).
And stopping people from selling them on here is a completely different topic as they have no control over it once it's left the shop.


I'm with Whiternoise and Nick on this, i have no problem with people buying things and selling them on, or even selling them and making a little money on them if they are no longer needed, but what i am against is people buying things TO sell on deliberately for profit at other peoples expense.


As always, i've gone on too much, but there you go.

Bres