November 2, 2007
Scalping should be our right
America, a capitalistic society, is run by business. We tend to like the ones that offer desirable products at prices we can afford from a friendly salesperson. Your friendly local ticket “scalper” can offer this.
On October 16th, the Kaimin ran a story profiling the “scalping” business run by one student. Shortly thereafter, the popular message board for Grizzly athletics, Egriz.com, was rampant with stern words of criticism for the student. One poster wrote “Whatever happened to the integrity in this country?” and seemed to be in the majority on how unacceptable ticket reselling is from a moral standpoint. Another eGrizzer noted that they found the activity shameful because it prevented “people from going to an event at a reasonable cost.”
These claims are unfounded however, because in the cases of the events that people most want to attend, ticket buyers arrive early (or are prepared to buy tickets online) so that those who place the most importance upon attending the event are able to get tickets anyway. Reselling tickets at above face value is often referred to as a “victimless crime.” This can be attributed to the fact that the price for the scalped ticket still needs to be agreed upon by both the vendor and the recipient. In the case of the ultra-competitive market for Cat-Griz football tickets, which were valued at $50 by the Adams Center box office and have already been resold for around a $130 on Ebay, nobody has forced the bidder to pay the larger price. The consumer’s demand for the ticket was clearly superior to the cost, so pity for the buyer is unnecessary.
Organizations like Stubhub essentially make a profit by selling tickets for more than the original value set by the original vendor. Basically, these companies are afforded the right to legally “scalp” their supply of tickets and yet manage to avoid the same scrutiny an individual faces. The same type of profitable differentiation occurs in commodity, stock, and bond markets all the time, and people take advantage of this discrepancy to make very legitimate incomes. These individuals perform a similar type of manipulation of markets to amass a profit; they only do so sans legality issues. Essentially, your individual ticket reseller is the only one who is frowned upon, or in many cases, punished under law, for operating for profit in a capitalistic society.
One may reach the false conclusion that the artists are hurt by this loss of revenue to a reseller. They easily recoup revenue losses in the additional sales of souvenirs and snacks that are a result of a sold-out show.
When it boils down, not only is ticket reselling a victimless crime, it can actually be a situation where everyone involved wins, unlike the football game that you paid an exorbitant rate to see. God bless capitalism.
Matt Larcombe
freshman, undeclared
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