Ticket scalpers and the Taylor Swift fiasco (Encore)

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For most people, buying scalped tickets may be the only way to see Taylor Swift's Eras tour. Thanks, Ticketmaster. But economically speaking, the resale market is more complicated than it seems.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:11.8	Here at the indicator, we've been watching this fiasco around the Taylor Swift tour last
0:16.1	week.
0:17.1	And it's made us a little crazy, but you know, we don't blame Taylor.
0:21.3	When Ticketmaster carved out a pre-sale for registered fans, it got an enormous 14 million
0:27.4	users.
0:28.4	That was way more than expected.
0:30.6	You know, some of those users were bots.
0:32.6	They were scooping up tickets fast to resell straight away.
0:36.3	You know, they were scalpers.
0:38.2	Ticketmaster site crashed.
0:39.6	The sale to the general public was cancelled and scalped tickets were on sale for as much
0:44.8	as $28,000.
0:48.1	Of course, fans are angry and so are lawmakers.
0:51.1	Connecticut Center's Richard Blumenthal tweeted, consumers deserve better than this anti-hero
0:56.4	behavior.
0:57.4	Little reference, Taylor Swift there.
0:59.7	But you know, just stepping back and looking at this from an economist's lens, Ticket
1:04.4	scalping is a bit of a puzzle.
1:07.0	Like you don't see bots and scalpers in the market for, say, toasters or bean bags.
1:14.0	So last year, I dove right into the world of ticket sales.
1:17.9	I tried to get tickets for my favourite pop singer, Charlie XCX.
	...

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