Elucidate Ticket Scalping - A Bum Rap

Question

Elucidate “Ticket Scalping:  A Bum Rap”?

Answer 1

1. “Scalping” refers to the practice of reselling tickets in higher rates as compared to the original rates, which happens often with athletic and artistic events.  Is this “ripping off” justified?

2. Ticket re-sales are voluntary—both buyer and seller must feel that they gain or they would not agree to the transaction.

3. “Scalping” market simply redistributes assets (tickets) from those who value them less than money to those who value them more than the money they’re willing to pay.

4. Sponsors may be injured, but in that case they ought to have raised the prices of tickets higher.

5. Spectators are not damaged, according to economic theory, because those who want to go the most are getting the tickets.

6. Both seller and buyer benefit and event sponsors are the only ones due to which their own error in pricing may lose and they would have lost from this error whether or not the scalping took place.