Fair presale ideas?

[NewUsername 9,977]

With all the Ticketmaster mess with Taylor Swift, the also insane demand for Beyoncé tickets and the overall general phenomenon with scalpers and bots since years, what are your ideas for presales?

How can artists and ticketing sites guarantee to a maximum that (the first rounds of) tickets get in hands of real fans?

Things artists already do:
- (Unique) presale codes via artist's mailing list: good system, but everyone can subscribe to a mailing list (Beyoncé closed hers off before the tour announcement, which prevented last minute scalpers sign ups)
- (Unique) presale codes via purchase artist's webshop: good system because scalpers don't buy cd's, merch etc. that they wouldn't be able to sell afterwards, but this means more expensive for fans who don't have the extra money.
- (Unique) presale codes via Spotify Top Listeners: good system, but not everyone uses Spotify as their main source to play their favorite artist's music (other apps, physical media ...)
- (Unique) presale codes via point system: Spotify follow playlists, stream song, stream on YouTube: Ok, but see above

I thought of something some days ago:
What about a kind of quiz that you have to take to get a presale code?

Of course the quiz shouldn't include questions that can easily be Googled or shared, but should be questions only big fans - superfans would know the answer to.
Imagine a quiz where somebody of Gaga's team made custom sketches of scenes of Gaga's MV's or important performances or looks or ... that are easily recognizable for fans, but would be rather hard to describe (so that you wouldn't be able to Google the description). 
If you get at least eg. 8/10, you get a code for the presale.

What do you all think about this? I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

Edited February 6 by NewUsername

[bionic 30,730]

• Update queueing system. Very few systems struggle as much as Ticketmaster etc when faced with a surge in visits. Those that do struggle it is usually one-off or unpredictable events that cause the surge in interest. Ticketmaster's whole trade is on ticket sales so they should be fully prepared for busy ticket sales like Beyonce, Madonna, Taylor, etc.
• Split up the Ticketmaster monopoly
• Two pre-sales maximum. Ticketmaster presale, fanclub presale, then general sale. The most recent Beyonce shows had about 8 different pre-sale options.
• Ban surge pricing
• Ban the resale of tickets until 31 days before the event
• Ban the resale of tickets above face value + 10%

[bionic 30,730]

44 minutes ago, NewUsername said:

I thought of something some days ago:
What about a kind of quiz that you have to take to get a presale code?

Of course the quiz shouldn't include questions that can easily be Googled or shared, but should be questions only big fans - superfans would know the answer to.
Imagine a quiz where somebody of Gaga's team made custom sketches of scenes of Gaga's MV's or important performances or looks or ... that are easily recognizable for fans, but would be rather hard to describe (so that you wouldn't be able to Google the description). 
If you get at least eg. 8/10, you get a code for the presale.

This is extremely problematic and discriminatory. It would be unconstitutional in the US.

Edited February 6 by bionic

[monstertoronto 5,028]

Basically if scalping was actually banned and tickets were not allowed to be sold at a higher price it would fix everything. The ticketing issues are due to the thriving scalpers market. If you remove the secondary ticket market then there’s no incentive for scalpers to buy it will only be fans. 

[NewUsername 9,977]

2 hours ago, bionic said:

This is extremely problematic and discriminatory. It would be unconstitutional in the US.

Is it more discriminatory than having to buy merch beforehand?

 

2 hours ago, bionic said:

• Update queueing system. Very few systems struggle as much as Ticketmaster etc when faced with a surge in visits. Those that do struggle it is usually one-off or unpredictable events that cause the surge in interest. Ticketmaster's whole trade is on ticket sales so they should be fully prepared for busy ticket sales like Beyonce, Madonna, Taylor, etc.
• Split up the Ticketmaster monopoly
• Two pre-sales maximum. Ticketmaster presale, fanclub presale, then general sale. The most recent Beyonce shows had about 8 different pre-sale options.
• Ban surge pricing
• Ban the resale of tickets until 31 days before the event
• Ban the resale of tickets above face value + 10%

 

2 hours ago, monstertoronto said:

Basically if scalping was actually banned and tickets were not allowed to be sold at a higher price it would fix everything. The ticketing issues are due to the thriving scalpers market. If you remove the secondary ticket market then there’s no incentive for scalpers to buy it will only be fans. 

Here in Belgium there's a blacklist of resellers that everyone can consult and legal reselling is capped at the price printed on the ticket 
 

[bionic 30,730]

49 minutes ago, NewUsername said:

Is it more discriminatory than having to buy merch beforehand?

Yes because buying merch is transactional. If you insert a quiz then it can exclude those with learning difficulties, and also exclude those with lower educational backgrounds (which in the US is unfortuantely generally black Americans). You'd also be excluding older people who aren't great with technology from buying tickets- they can just about click through a queue but adding a quiz in is not cool. Tickets to shows aren't exclusively for fans and no artist would claim that 100% of tickets should go to fans

[salty like sodium 697]

59 minutes ago, bionic said:

Yes because buying merch is transactional. If you insert a quiz then it can exclude those with learning difficulties, and also exclude those with lower educational backgrounds (which in the US is unfortuantely generally black Americans). You'd also be excluding older people who aren't great with technology from buying tickets- they can just about click through a queue but adding a quiz in is not cool. Tickets to shows aren't exclusively for fans and no artist would claim that 100% of tickets should go to fans

also artists rely on shows to attract new fans

[Debithius 4,612]

I mean I had no issues getting presale tickets at all. The queue was smooth 

[TheBadRomancer 584]

i will cry if they start doing things based on spotify- i don't use music streaming services and would be heartbroken if that prevented me from getting decent tickets. 

i don't have great problem solving skills but would something like... a pre-queue ever make sense? so instead of scalpers getting ahead in the queue to get tickets to upsell them, there'd already be like numbers assigned to people with presale codes and streamline those instead of having a lot of outsiders pop in first? idk how that would even work but it'd be nice if like... the first 5-10k people or so were people who actually wanted the tickets to go to the show. 

regardless, the scalper **** is a rough one- i don't know how to begin to address such a big business like that but we can hope.

[NewUsername 9,977]

9 hours ago, bionic said:

Yes because buying merch is transactional. If you insert a quiz then it can exclude those with learning difficulties, and also exclude those with lower educational backgrounds (which in the US is unfortuantely generally black Americans). You'd also be excluding older people who aren't great with technology from buying tickets- they can just about click through a queue but adding a quiz in is not cool. Tickets to shows aren't exclusively for fans and no artist would claim that 100% of tickets should go to fans

 

8 hours ago, salty like sodium said:

also artists rely on shows to attract new fans

 

True, but I don't/didn't get how it's that more discriminatory than buying merch, that's why I asked the question. Asking people to spend tens of dollars/euros/... more could also exclude people with lower socio-economic backgrounds.
But maybe that doesn't balance out, yeah.

Oh, and also, I thought this was clear for everybody, sorry if it wasn't: I was talking about presales, so it would only be about a percentage of the tickets, I of course agree that not 100% of the tickets have to go to superfans.

Edited February 7 by NewUsername

[salty like sodium 697]

18 hours ago, NewUsername said:

 

 

True, but I don't/didn't get how it's that more discriminatory than buying merch, that's why I asked the question. Asking people to spend tens of dollars/euros/... more could also exclude people with lower socio-economic backgrounds.
But maybe that doesn't balance out, yeah.

Oh, and also, I thought this was clear for everybody, sorry if it wasn't: I was talking about presales, so it would only be about a percentage of the tickets, I of course agree that not 100% of the tickets have to go to superfans.

I actually think the first 100 or 200 fans to pre-order the album should get a free ticket to the show or something. That type of stuff. Anyone who pre-ordered the album before the tour was announced should also get access. I don't think it needs to be millions of dollars, but if you're willing and able to spend 10$ for your artist's CD, you should qualify for an exclusive pre-sale imo.

[tylertremallose 1,197]

41 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

I actually think the first 100 or 200 fans to pre-order the album should get a free ticket to the show or something. That type of stuff. Anyone who pre-ordered the album before the tour was announced should also get access. I don't think it needs to be millions of dollars, but if you're willing and able to spend 10$ for your artist's CD, you should qualify for an exclusive pre-sale imo.

And those free tickets would be in the nosebleeds lol

[sarcamstic 1,127]

15 minutes ago, tylertremallose said:

And those free tickets would be in the nosebleeds lol

honestly if they did like a few dozen free/discounted nosebleed tickets for the first few dozen album preorders & gave them the option of keeping a nosebleed or getting a presale code for the actual sale… i’d kinda live for this as little perk for fans!