Are There Any Scalpers in the Audience Tonight? Get 'Em Up Against the Wall!

Bob Geldoff is incensed that folks are selling tickets to his upcoming Live 8 charity benefit show on eBay. (People won the tickets by entering a raffle via mobile phone text message, at a couple bucks per entry.)

EBay UK has shut down ticket sales (after outraged users started making false bids in ridiculously high amounts to prevent the tickets from moving), after Geldoff turned down eBay's offer to donate their listing fee for the tickets to help fight povery. According to Geldoff, eBay and the ticket sellers are "profiteering on the backs of the impoverished."

Except, as reader Paul Wilbert observes, that's idiotic. The poor get not one cent less as a result of a third party transaction between ticket-holders and prospective buyers. If anything, it's Geldoff who's depriving the poor by turning down eBay's offer—and, more importantly, by raffling off all those tickets instead of reserving some to auction off himself.

Comments

[SPD]

Poor Bob was never the same after he shaved his nipples off.

[smacky]

Tell me why! I don't like ebay
Tell me why! I don't like ebay
Tell me why! I don't like ebay
I wanna shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot
The whole bid down.

[SPD]

smacky,

Nice one. In the words of Matt Welch, you get a taco.

[Michael A. Clem]

Why should I feel sorry for promoters or artists who sell their tickets *too cheaply*? They're the ones shorting their potential audience who may be willing to pay more than the person who simply gets in line first.

[joe]

Maybe the scalpers should have offered to give half their profits to the relief charities.

That would be a win-win-win-win-win, by my reckoning.

[Galius]

Geldoff, of course, charged $3 per raffle participant and raked in $6 million which is going to the artists and their labels, and--presumably--to himself, but not to charity.

[Curious]

Anyone else notice how rich people make really bad shills for the poor?

[David]

Bob Geldof, you're a tool.

[kevron]

If Sir Bob - and what self-respecting Irishman accepts a British knighthood, anyway? - wanted to maximize revenue going to charity, Live 8 should have partnered with an auction site and put tickets up for bid themselves. What sort of bidding war do you think ebay, uBid, Amazon and any others might have gotten into in order to be the Official Auction Ste of Live 8? Wealthy hipsters could brag about the premium they paid over the plain vanilla lottery tickets, "Well, the ducats cost a pretty penny, but it's for a good cause, and that's what matters."

Clueless, Bob. If you don't capture the consumer surplus, some other economic actor will.

Kevin

[Troy]

Hey, if it takes a million starving Africans to get Pink Floyd back together, I'm happy with that.

[Stretch]

Joe, for all we know some of those scalpers did donate part of the profit to charity.

Tickets to any event always go up in aftermarket price when supply goes down. Duh. Did Bobby not think that was going to happen or what? Second, if someone is willing to pay alot more for a ticket, then just maybe they really care about your cause du jour.

Bob, next time give the tickets away for free and ask for donations at the door.

[joe]

Stretch, if you were selling tickets to a charity event, and were giving the profits to charity, and wanted to maximize the sales price you could get from the people who want to buy tickets to a charity event...

Don't you think you'd let your buyers know that you're giving the profits to charity?

[Muggs]

Okay. Lemme see if I've got this right.

I buy the tickets. Bob Geldof gets my money for buying the ticket and takes his part for charity. (Bob got his money).

I decide to take advantage of some Pink Floyd freak who HAS to see the show and sell my tickets to him for $500 on EBay. (Bob already got what he was going to get, don't forget.)

Other then my illegal scalping, I don't see how Bob's pissed. He got what he was going to get.

Kev definitely had the right idea. He should have gotten a sponsorship out of EBay.

If Bob's already got his money, where's the issue?

[ChicagoTom]

Troy:

Amen, brother, Amen!

[anonymous coward]

Uh...this reminds me, does anyone have tickets to see the Roots tonight in SF? 😉

[Russ D]

Geldof trying to create a rat trap where one did not exist.

And can I add the obligatory "It's not a Pink Floyd reunion with Syd Barrett" line?

Why not cut out the whole possibility of scalping and just have Pink Floyd play for a crowd of poor people? Or give the tickets directly to the poor people and let them scalp them on ebay and get the true market price.

[Russ D]

WITHOUT Syd.

Damn!

[Ken Shultz]

"If anything, it's Geldoff who's depriving the poor by turning down eBay's offer?and, more importantly, by raffling off all those tickets instead of reserving some to auction off himself."

Helping the poor isn't enough. You have to want to help the poor and you have to want to help for all the right reasons.

[Douglas Fletcher]

If anyone out there is looking for someone who's morally pure to send money to, well, here I am.

[Daze]

A full reunion with Syd -- now that would be worth the price of admission.

[Ari Soglin]

eBay buckled under pressure on this one, a bad precedent. I wonder if the pressure would be less if eBay allowed users to post comments directly on auction item listings. Let people vent in a prominent way, they feel heard, and they don't resort to outrageous bid amounts or pushing eBay to pull all the ticket listings. More thoughts on my blog, CitizenPaine.com, if you're interested.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

"Hey, if it takes a million starving Africans to get Pink Floyd back together, I'm happy with that."

Anyone know if The Floyd will be touring? There is no question that they will have many fans as their bitch who would very happily shell out $600 for a ticket. I'm not kidding.

I saw Roger Waters a few years ago and it was simply the best show I've ever seen. The only thing missing was Gilmore (and Wright/Mason to a lesser extent).

Syd Barrett.. no way. The guy is still batshit crazy. Plus the Barrett Floyd was a much different animal then when Waters took over. The show wouldn't be coherent. And who would want to listen to a 30 minute trippy, improvised guitar solo, when there would be so much other stuff to cover??

[Paul Coulam]

The tickets to Live8 were issued on a clearly non transferable basis. The concert is a private affair and the organisers can invite whoever they want and exclude whoever they want. Clearly they want only to invite those who won on the original text lottery, that is their choice and right for whatever reason. These invitees can either accept or decline, they cannot resell their invitations anymore than someone can resell an invitation to a private dinner party. In selling these invitations they are selling something they quite clearly do not have legitimate title to and are therefore committing fraud pure and simple.

[jimmy]

why is eBay caving in to this uppity elvis costello ripoff in the first place, and suspending sales of the tix? screw this concert. now i wouldn't go to the "twenty years later and africa is still a f&%#ing s$-hole" concert if you paid me. (geldof should read melinda ammann's article on africa in the latest issue of Reason and see how futile his gesture is anyway.)

i saw pink floyd twice in the 80s, sans roger waters, and didn't miss him a bit. he had gone off on his own geldof-bono whine-trip by that time anyway. maybe he's changed since then, but his voice was gone by the time of The Wall and sounded like sting with a painful case of hemorrhoids.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

"i saw pink floyd twice in the 80s, sans roger waters, and didn't miss him a bit. he had gone off on his own geldof-bono whine-trip by that time anyway. maybe he's changed since then,"

Waters definitely changed. He was very earnest during the show I saw.. he smiled warmly and sincerly thanked the audience many times. In the concert progam he wrote a long essay about his guilt for spitting into a kid's face during the Wall tour.

And since when was Waters' voice any good? The guy can't sing. But his genius in composition and lyrics more then makes up for it. As long as he stays within his limited range he can pull off a song.

I have a ton of respect for Gilmore, but there is no Pink Floyd without Waters.

[kevrob]

Taranto just linked to this thread on the WSJ's Best Of The Web. Comb your hair and tuck in your shirts, those of you wearing shirts. Company is coming. 🙂

Kevin

[Jenny]

If Bob is so concerned about people profit making from this gig he should stop worrying about people selling on tickets and have a word with the local hotels who have doubled the tariffs for that night.

[Jayanne]

"If anything, it's Geldoff who's depriving the poor by turning down eBay's offer?and, more importantly, by raffling off all those tickets instead of reserving some to auction off himself."

He wasn't trying to maximise revenue to charity -- that isn't what the concerts are about -- or he'd have charged a lot more and made more than the lottery brought in. (BTW about ?1.6 million has to go to the Prince's Trust because they gave him their fund-raising "space".)

[Cain]

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/06/18/markets-in-everything-not/