Cartoon with the aid of Google Gemini AI
There’s always a playoff series going on in some sport, there’s always a superstar megatour happening and there’s always a big furor in the media about how much the tickets cost. How does this really play out?
There are two completely different games in play here, two sets of social mores. One is completely frivolous, the other deadly serious.
The Actual Prices
Let’s get rid of the silly one first. Performers are selling a product: the laws of supply and demand apply. If someone is willing to pay more for a ticket than you are, then you don’t get the ticket; they do. If tickets are too expensive, people won’t buy them.
We’re not talking the price of groceries, here. We’re discussing a completely non-affective product that nobody needs. Advertising and social pressure have created an artificial demand, and gullible people are falling all over themselves to throw away their money.
Don’t worry. This too shall pass. People will come to their senses and find something else to spend their money on. Your grandchildren will laugh when you tell them you paid several days wages to sit in a crowded, uncomfortable venue to watch a mediocre performer with terrible sound quality on a jumbotron screen. And all for the bragging rights because you got to go.
In the Real World
The serious part of the ticket price argument leads us to the other half of the situation. In fact, the entertainment business suffers from the aggrandizement problem that all our businesses have. It’s not precisely a monopoly. It’s the fact that a very small number of players take a huge percentage of the income.
While teenagers are paying thousands of dollars for show tickets, their grandfathers are spending millions on Impressionist paintings. (Their parents have a more realistic beef; they’re trying to pay for a house.) It would be better if the $2 billion gate for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was spread more evenly down the line to support a couple of thousand aspiring artists and pay the concession workers a living wage.
The Price of Success
There is general recognition that a smaller and smaller number of larger and larger companies are running the business world, and historically this has never worked out well for the average Jane and Joe. Witness the oil industry, where a small political hitch has disturbed the flow of their product, resulting in huge price increases that are passed immediately on to consumers, while the producers make even more money.
But it’s very difficult for governments to garner the support to take on these megaconsortiums. Any legal leverage they can find is fair game.
The Bottom Line
That’s how social pressure works. If a bunch of crybabies want to complain that they shouldn’t have to pay x dollars for a performance or playoff ticket, then the government can use that publicity to take down another monopoly.
But no, those that can do it, do it, gathering money for the sake of gathering money. Otherwise known as greed. And the rich keep getting richer.
New anti-trust legislation, anyone?