Wallabies fans forced to change plans

[BLR]

Wouldn't the fact that people and companies are purposely buying tickets to re-sell them at a higher value sort of break up the system of setting prices? It's not like every single ticket is going to the final customer and it's not even certain that all tickets will end up being sold to actual customers, so the existence of scalpers is essentially a market inefficiency.

[Moses]

not really, if punters are able to bid on seats against the re-selling companies and each seat sells for the maximum that the market will bear. resellers would have to offer something more in order to make their packages attractive, say catering and busses.

Say the ARU have a website allowing you to bid on blocks of up to 10 seats at a price, and for arguments sake use the graysonline method of beating a bid (match the price at a higher quantity or beat the price). When you're bid is beaten you get notified via email.

The Auction could be open for a month before an arbitrary cutoff date, allowing people plenty of time to find the best seats at the best price. There would be no trouble having a larger group as you'd just make sure you get the seats next to each other.

Rather than have half full stadiums, wouldn't we rather see people paying $5 to fill up the top tier of Stade de Aus? They'll still buy $5 hotdogs and $8 beers, plus get to see the spectacle and maybe next time decide to bid on a better seat.

[Burgs]

Just send more matches to Perth, we'll sell them out for the ARU.

[jargan83]

when would said auction end Moses??

[jargan83]

Edit: Thanks for the info Jargs, wasn't sure about that.

thats cool, i have heard the Tickemaster terms of sale enough times just in the last 12 months alone

[BLR]

Rather than have half full stadiums, wouldn't we rather see people paying $5 to fill up the top tier of Stade de Aus? They'll still buy $5 hotdogs and $8 beers, plus get to see the spectacle and maybe next time decide to bid on a better seat.

This is to assume that scalpers will not adapt and use the same principles as eBay, not bid until the final moment to keep the prices down and then make the last bid only slightly larger then the previous bid, and from there re-selling it at a hugely inflated price. Some of the larger companies could forseeably get all thier workers to simply bid on all events at these lower prices so that many fan's won't be guaranteed any ticket.

$5 tickets won't happen in any case, the ARU won't risk such a situation where tickets are sold super cheap, there will be a reserve price that will make them break even no matter what price the tickets go for.

There is too many dangers, tickets should only be sold on a personal basis and re-sold if those previous tickets are cancelled by the same ticket seller, it keeps the same level of cost and prevents blow-outs in price.

[Darren]

As far as I know, anyone can start a rugby team and hold a match and sell tickets to see such a match at a ground they have leased - no anti competitive behaviour there...

[Thequeerone]

As a punter without many friends - wouldn't on selling 8 tickets be difficult - say you found a mate and they bid too then you could end up with 2 lots of 10 tickets w/o the possibility of on on selling you just wouldn't do it.

Having said that what Burgs siad about "Saving up for the game" rings in my ear - I suspect that a last minute ticket sale in say the week preceeding the game would get punters in - you would still have the oppurtunity to get tickets before hand at premium prices for the true fans (and they would be able to specify a block not just what ticketmaster tells em) and then pot luck for $1- whatever as a last minute sale - ARU wins they must get a cut of the drinks sale and all that merchandise etc..

[TOCC]

not really, if punters are able to bid on seats against the re-selling companies and each seat sells for the maximum that the market will bear. resellers would have to offer something more in order to make their packages attractive, say catering and busses.

Say the ARU have a website allowing you to bid on blocks of up to 10 seats at a price, and for arguments sake use the graysonline method of beating a bid (match the price at a higher quantity or beat the price). When you're bid is beaten you get notified via email.

The Auction could be open for a month before an arbitrary cutoff date, allowing people plenty of time to find the best seats at the best price. There would be no trouble having a larger group as you'd just make sure you get the seats next to each other.

Rather than have half full stadiums, wouldn't we rather see people paying $5 to fill up the top tier of Stade de Aus? They'll still buy $5 hotdogs and $8 beers, plus get to see the spectacle and maybe next time decide to bid on a better seat.

i actually think there is some merit to the idea, what i think would work better would be if the ARU just auctioned off tickets in blocks of up to 5'000 to a company. This said company could be a marketing company which then sold the tickets at whatever price or in anyway they pleased.

Realistically i dont see that happening in Australia, but if it was somehwere like the US or England were there are more companies then it would work really well.. The ARU would know well and truly before the game how much there income will be, they wont have to worry about the costs of tickets or anything like that.

And whichever company bought the tickets would have it in there best interest to find the equilibriam between full capacity and max ticket prices.