Low pricing at the box office fuels high resale on concert tickets
People will pay major bucks to see their favorite performers. Yet, face value prices are still set lower than the market would bear at the box office. When are they going to catch on?

/Connecticut News Articles/ - VERNON, CT, August 03, 2006 - Ticket scalping exists because tickets are priced too cheaply initially. The secondary ticket market wouldn't be around if people weren't willing to pay more than face value.

So if everyone knows that, why are prices still set so low at the box office for shows that everyone knows will go for top dollar?

Tickets to see Streisand this fall are expected to go as high as $750. Madonna tickets went for $350, and those are only the primary sales numbers. The resale market bears much higher results.

On the secondary market, tickets to the Sept. 20 Stones show in Foxboro, Mass. are selling for $5,000 each on StubHub.com. Barbra can be had for $4,500, and that's only third row.

There are some reasons that venues don't price this high. Obviously, all tickets aren't going to sell for thousands of dollars. A lot of what determines face value pricing has to do with the fan base, and the overall picture.

Artists want the venue to sell out. Empty seats don't help their image. And when the venue is sold out, those that were able to get tickets feel special, so they come back again.

In order to make this money over the long term, prices have to be set artificially low. The box office is trading profit for the certainty of selling out their tickets -- even when a percentage of the cheap tickets will be turned into high-priced seats by someone else.

The box office is thinking what they'll make over time. A secondary seller is sometimes only concerned with turning over one ticket for a quick profit. And the prices the scalpers are able to get, in turn, help the box office determine what the market will bear for the next time they set pricing for concerts.

For full text, visit www.TicketNews.com. The secondary ticket market news site aims to help give consumers choices by offering valuable information on the industry.

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Christine Paluf
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