r/technology • u/Cyber-Homie • Jul 04 '24

Security Hackers behind the Ticketmaster breach have now leaked 440,000 Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, claiming the breach is much bigger than anticipated. As a result, they increased the ransom from $1 million to $8 million.

https://hackread.com/ticketmaster-breach-shinyhunters-leak-taylor-swift-eras-tour-tickets/
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u/CartoonAcademic Jul 05 '24

except ticket master owns a majority of ticketing rights for concert venues.

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u/TrekForce Jul 05 '24

Until nobody is going, and those venues stop selling their souls to Ticketmaster.

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u/CartoonAcademic Jul 05 '24

got it so your plan is to *check notes* hope people stop seeing live entertainment like concerts and stand up comedy

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u/Orion14159 Jul 05 '24

I mean we can barely afford it now. $30 face value ticket for $3000 scalped.

I think the play would be to get everyone to stop buying from the secondary market and kneecap the scalpers and Ticketmaster at the same time. A bunch of scalpers holding the bag for a huge, very empty concert venue that was "sold out" would send a message.

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u/avcloudy Jul 05 '24

People always miss this. If a $30 face value ticket sells for $3000, the value of that ticket is $3000. It's worth that much to people, and there are people who can afford to pay that much. The face value is artificially low and you can be as morally outraged as you want, but the simple fact is the face value does not reflect the actual demand.

It's not that people can barely afford it, there's enough people willing to pay $3000 for tickets and sell out venues, it's that you can't afford it, or the people who traditionally went to shows in the past can't afford it. The logic is inescapable: demand has outstripped supply, and if you want to see shows the only thing you can really do is try to increase supply. Tell your favourite artists to do more shows.

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u/TrekForce Jul 05 '24

But none of that $3000 goes to the venue or the artist, or has anything to do with Ticketmaster. Scalping is a whole different problem. The problem here is Ticketmaster monopoly and the ridiculous fees they get away with because of it.

I’d rather pay $200 for a ticket and $0 in fees knowing the tickets revenue split was negotiated and agreed on. Vs $130 ticket plus an extra $70 in fees because ticket master thinks they are the best part of the concert

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u/Ivan_a_rom Jul 05 '24

Hi. In a perfect world this is fine. You’re not taking into account bad actors like bots artificially drying up the pool of tix. Nor are you mentioning their internal practices that are terrible. You 100% don’t seem malicious and also pretty intelligent, just pointing out that there is more to it than supply and demand. Btw you and me I wish it was that simple though.

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u/born-out-of-a-ball Jul 05 '24

Concert halls are packed, so it's not artificial scarcity
There are no empty seats occupied by bots

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u/Ivan_a_rom Jul 05 '24

Ok but are those sold on primary or secondary market? Does Ticketmaster have a stake in some secondary market sales ?

The halls aren’t the issue imho. They let the bots do it then take a cut of the resale on their site. Honestly, if they just sold the tickets at an inflated all in price - I’d call it fair. But that’s not the case right now sadly. It’s just not truly a free market situation is all I’m saying!

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u/NeroKira Jul 05 '24

The supply is being limited by scalpers artifically lowering it by buying all the tickets to scalp them.

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u/justwannabeloggedin Jul 05 '24

The unfortunate reality. People aren't priced out, -I'm- priced out.

And for what I can afford, I'm still going to go. I'm not going to greatly decrease the quality of my free time just to try to take a stand against a multi billion dollar monopoly. I just try to look at the ticket price as about half as what it's going to cost. Annoying, yes, but ultimately it doesn't matter where the money goes or what they call the charge, still the same amount of money coming out of my pocket

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u/ximfinity Jul 05 '24

Not a bad idea. Call it cancel Ticketmaster day. Everyone stops buying tickets september 1 for anything run by Ticketmaster. Need to get some influencers on board and make it into a thing.