Taylor Swift’s Gamification of Ticket Sales

From her perspective and a marketing standpoint this makes sense but I feel any fan should have an equal chance to get tickets not based on how much merch you buy or how many albums you bought.

If this is the only way to limit the bots, so be it.

 

It's not a perfect strategy, but hey, if we had a perfect strategy every artist would probably be using it. I like it.

 

NIN was able to completely eliminate bots by printing names on the tickets, but it creates an issue if something came up and you had to sell.

The VERY simple way to eliminate bots is to just require credit card entry...Springsteen, Radiohead, and U2 all did this.

She could easily do that, but why not make extra money if you have an audience that's willing to spend cash on the chance to have an "opportunity" to buy tickets.

 

I'm not a computer guy but could anything ever be done where the website only allows each IP address or device to buy 2 tickets, would that prevent the bots?

 

Like you said it's not a perfect strategy, but hey at least they're trying something new out. They will learn from this experience and hopefully make changes, and other artist/bands start picking up on this and implementing a similiar strategy.

Unfortunately people can use VPN's and change their IP address very easily.

This would be cool but people would just manipulate the system.

 

For sure, and the more new practices like this are used, the more we can work towards working out the flaws and get closer to what we want

 

If this catches on and the only way to get good seats for shows will be by buying merch prior to the on sale, ill def just stick to the secondary market.

Tickets for her tour will probably range $65-250 if the Gaga/Katy/Beyonce tours are used as a benchmark. So if you want the best seat you're paying $250 (prob another $20ish in fees/tax) and then lets just say a $75 hoodie (no joke, they're really $75) from her site, plus the digital album for another $15...that brings you up to $360-ish for one ticket.

Again, why not just require the ticketholder to have the credit card used to buy the ticket for entry and completely eliminate the secondary market? Imagine how different the ticketing industry would be had Pearl Jam held out and somehow defeated Ticketmaster in the 90s.

 

Verrrrrrrrrry interesting.

 

Smart Smart Smart!

 

Not many people know but this was actually MY idea. Me and Taylor were lying in bed last week and I was like "Babe, you should like totally gamify your ticket buying process and get all the Swifties to buy more merch so they get a better chance at seeing you live. And Tay was like "Awww babe, you're so smart. I'm so lucky to have you!" And I was like, "You're welcome."

True story.

 

This doesn't seem that much different from fanclub presales as a concept, I agree it's kinda unfair that more money gets you a better chance but again that's often already the case

 

Not to change the topic entirely but are most Brand New tickets bought by bots? Whenever I try to see them in NY (excluding the MSG show last year) the tickets are sold out the second they go on sale and then they are like 400 hundred on the secondary market. For the most recent tour coming up I never even had a chance to purchase any, they seemingly went from not on sale yet to sold out.

 

NY just passed legislation (or is in the process of) to help crack down on bots, but I think it may have only pertained to NY state outside of NYC.

 

Linkin Park did this same thing a few months ago

 

This is ingenious on her part, because her fans will totally go for it. In general, though, I don't like this idea. I don't want to have to buy a bunch of junk I don't need to be able to buy tickets to a show.

 

Get yourself 13 copies of that new T Swift album. Haha.

 

Christmas shopping: DONE.

 

According to the statement on her site, making people buy stuff makes it "fun" for the fans. I don't know if I'd use that word specifically, but the concept is brilliant.

 

Yeah, I don't know if I'd call it "fun" to run around to different retailers and buy the same album a dozen times.

 

Fuck fans on a budget, I guess?

 

Agree with most of the above. Genius ploy, but if this becomes the norm (for big acts at least, which I can see it becoming) it hurts the consumer in the end who wants to see their fav. artist but is automatically disqualified from the 'best' seats without spending additional coin. As it is, there's often 4-5 different presale periods (credit card holder exclusives, different fan tiers, etc). By the time the general onsale is open, what's left?

Also, if this is to deter scalping...does it? The only thing that really does that is making all tickets will-call, forcing someone to pick them up. Could someone just complete all these things knowing it now puts that much more of a premium on better seats (assuming they end up getting them), forcing them to go for even higher resale?

(Disclaimer: I jumped in the 1989 normal(?) tour presale as soon as it opened. got seats 6 rows back at Gillette on the first attempt... think in total it cost me maybe $170. Some things came up and unfortunately could not make the show 9 months later when it finally rolled around. When I went to list them, stubhub suggested i list the tickets ~$900/ea to be competitive against other tickets in the same area)

 

I would imagine fans on a budget aren't going for front row, and are therefore much less likely to be affected by those who buy 13 t shirts?

 

I think this is genius, and if a band like Gaslight were to do this I'd eat it up up up

 

Isn't that currently the norm?