Taylor Swift’s Gamification of Ticket Sales • Page 3

No matter how an artist tries to make money, there are always huge swaths of the fan base who get mad about it.

The bottom line is that music fans decided to pirate the industry until artists were forced to take pennies for streams. They took something they claimed to love and pillaged it until it no longer was viable, and created a new system where most of our favorite artists can't live full time on the art we claim to love. Then, whenever they come up with a new way of creating revenue, those same fans call them greedy and cry 'cash grab' and paint the artist - for whom this is supposed to be their JOB - as wrong for having the audacity to do what anyone in literally any industry ever tries to do (feed their families and accumulate wealth via their career).

It has never, and will never, make sense to me that an artist is wrong for trying to make money. If fans at large don't like it when artists get creative, maybe they need to remember that THEY were the ones who created the environment where artists had to do that to survive and make money.

 

I have no issue with artists doing new things to monetize their work. Rarely do I think it prioritizes fans who put more money into the same process as other fans and yield different results depending on how much you spend. She can do what she likes, she's still the satire of Josie and the Pussycats or Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping come to life.

 

Yeah, the whole "how dare this person try to make money?" thing is really tiring to me. The system for buying concert tickets is broken, so why not try to reward fans who care enough to buy a bunch of merchandise? It's either that or try to get lucky by getting through Ticketmaster's digital line to buy tickets in the five minute window that they are available. Frankly, I feel like this will help die hards get to shows without paying scalpers, which I'm pretty fine with. For more casual fans, it kind of sucks, because there are probably plenty of people who want to see her that aren't going to want to jump through the hoops. But like I said, it's a broken system. I'd applaud just about anyone for trying something new at this point. What I really wish is that big artists would find a way to stop selling through Ticketmaster, but that's a whole other conversation.

 

I thought some artists could choose to have the tickets where u must present the credit card u bought them with. Or do scalpers find a way around that too?

 

Scalpers can kinda find a way with that. I saw Lana Del Rey at the house of blues and you had to collect your ticket at will call with your credit card and ID, but if you can find a person to physically sell the ticket to then it would work. I saw these two girls held a sign near the door saying they would buy tickets for $300, and I later saw them in the venue

 

Because this is setting a very dangerous precedent. You know that if this is successful, the next move is to axe any tangible incentives like merch and move towards just getting fans to pay "to move up in line".

 

How would you all feel if tickets for Star Wars was done like this? Ie. Buy cans of Pepsi, input codes and get first access to tickets at your local theater.

 

After sitting on this a bit I really don't like this move. With her main audience being preteens and teens it really is just aiming to suck parents dry. Last time I saw Taylor it cost me $140 per ticket for some pretty bad seats (straight from ticketmaster's original sale. Not resale). By the time people actually get these tickets, they'll be in over $200 for the worst seats. Include a parent and two kids it's about $600 for okay seats. I know her concerts are sold from a money making perspective but it just doesn't sit well with me that the way to get tickets to "real fans" is to upsell it. At this point you are only going to make scalpers more money.

 

Yep, I recently bought a ticket off Stubhub that was a "credit card entry only" event, and they sent me an American Express gift card via UPS that had the ticket loaded on it. It included a letter from Stubhub saying that they only let their most trusted/verified sellers sell credit card entry tickets like that.

 

I'm pretty sure you can still get tickets without the Schrute Bucks I mean Taylor Bucks right? I mean yeah it's still unfair availability based on social strata but I don't think they can just do this, not solely based on income but based on internet skills

 

Those things are not equal, and consumers should be smart enough to see the difference. Right now, fans can willingly choose whether or not they want to buy merch to give themselves better chances at tickets. There's still no guarantee that they get tickets at the end of it, but they still get something that they theoretically wanted anyway. If fans don't like this system, they can vote with their dollars and not do it. That's how the market is supposed to work.

I think Taylor is a big enough artist with a following that loves her enough to go along with this. I don't think there are very many artists out there who could pull off the same thing. And I think if she (or anyone else) tried to push into "pay to improve you spot in line, even though we still can't guarantee you get tickets," there would be more pushback and fewer people would be willing to do it.

Frankly, fans are in control here. No one is forcing you to buy tickets to a concert. If you don't like the way the business is being done, walk away. It's the same thing with people who complain about beer prices at concerts and then buy five or six beers at one show. Or with people who complain about scalpers and then buy tickets from them. You're saying one thing with your voice and another thing with your money.

 

I'd either wait a week or buy Pepsi.

 

Good seats cost a lot of money, always gonna be that way when there's a supply shortage and a lot of demand. There's only a handful of artists that could get away with this anyway.

 

The terms and conditions clearly say right at the top that no purchase is actually necessary to receive a code. While these "boost" activities seem to give you additional entries to the pool of people that could possibly receive codes, I still think codes are sent randomly to people in the queue. Buying these copies of the album, tweeting the links, etc. only increase your chances of getting a code, which doesn't even guarantee tickets. Honestly I think this whole thing is so overblown. She's not the first person to do this exact thing with Verified Fan (Linkin Park and Imagine Dragons are two I can think of in 2017). It doesn't really change the odds that much more than how Ticketmaster randomly allows people access to buying tickets at the time of onsale (meaning it's not based on when you arrive to the site, you're placed in a random waiting room).

 

Uh, that's literally what all of these systems do ... been that way since people stopped buying music. Categorizing by who will spend money and segmenting in that way is virtually the only way any artist is making money these days. VIP packages on tours are keeping many "indie" bands alive right now.

 

Get out

Get out of your website

Leave!

 

And then donate it somewhere*****

Sorry sorry sorry I'm trying to delete it

 

i'll allow it lolol

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this not set up where there could be theoretically two consumers who want a chance at potentially the same seats, and the one who dumps more money into the program gets priority/more chances than a fan who can't afford to pay more? A VIP package is one thing: it's a set price for a unique experience. These are the same experience, concert tickets, and someone who pays more gets priority/more lottery tickets?

I'm honestly asking. I read two articles on the deal and that's what I came away from them understanding.

 

Oh my god how do any of you like Pepsi let's talk about the real issue here

But also, I have interpreted this T Swift thing the same way @Nathan has. Seems kinda crappy. But so's that new single ohhhhhhhh

 

The big misconception here is this is not even about actual tickets. This is all about the ability to gain access to codes that then gain you access to the ticket sale. There will be significantly more codes distributed than tickets available. Those who participate in these contraversial "boost" activities simply get more entries in the pool of people selected to receive these codes.

In the grand scheme of things, someone could only register with Ticketmaster and not buy any preorder, merch, or otherwise, and potentially purchase amazing seats when tickets go on sale. Conversely, someone could preorder the album, tweet the links, buy the shirts, then receive a presale code but might get upper level tickets, or even not get tickets at all because the show sells out almost instantly.

This is not gaming ticket sales in the slightest. This is having opportunities to slightly increase your odds of getting a single code that puts you on even ground with anyone else that also has access to the ticket onsale.

 

I completely understand what people have said, but I'm struggling to understand why you appear to be celebrating it.

Taylor is a capitalist popstar, yes, but surely so is Ed Sheeran, and he is someone who will go to lengths to make sure fans aren't being screwed over by touts. Ed Sheeran ups fight against ticket touts with strict rules for 2018 gigs

You're sort of demonstrating my point as well.. I don't expect cheaper tickets, but you're acknowledging this makes it harder for those who don't want to partake in the buying of shitty merch, and possibly alienates/prices out some people who may already struggle to get that sort of cash for a show. The "you're not being forced to do x or y" argument is as old as time, and its lazy. We live in a capitalist society - there's not a lot you can do about that. People who want to go to these shows, may start to become unable to because its being made harder by the artist.

Also, lets be honest, forcing people to buy shit isn't exactly a new concept. The specifics of what her team are doing is hardly genius. I think normally artists usually steer clear of these types of things. See it for what it is - a cynical marketing ploy, and hardly a "brilliant" one.