Sell Your Place in Line

ONE OF THE measures of strength in the Irish economy is the length required to sell out of concert tickets. The healthier the economy, the faster the ticket sales. That bothers me a little because I know some people are heading to concerts and they have no interest in the artists on stage. They are going for the occasion alongside friends. Fair enough--but what if I had wanted to vote with my presence in the sales queue and assert my consumer rights as a ticket purchaser? Help is at hand with Seattle-based SuperOyster.com. They have a merchant service that allows people to sell their spot in the sales queue. Imagine how much more money a concert promoter could make by announcing the opening of the sales queue online, first come, first served. You could buy your way into the queue and sell along your place in the queue. This could work for World Cup tickets, All-Ireland sales, car dealerships taking limited bookings for new models, travel promotions and memberships to exclusive clubs. Having this system in place would greatly reduce the number of people sleeping outside travel shops and department stores that sell consumer items like the Play Station.

In the US, some pro football teams have waiting lists extending for decades. As Brady Forrest explains, "There is no consistency in the waythese are managed. Some require paper submissions, some are managed with Excel, some a simple database. Some of them allow you to sell your place in line, but most do not. They need someone to bring them onto the web".

Enter the list management service. With this service, concert promoters, athletic clubs, estate agents, county council housing officers and merchants can provide basic waiting list facilities along with a revenue-generating queue-hopping concept. This could be a hosted service or an in-house add-on service. If the GAA ran this kind of thing, they could clip a transaction fee for every queue-jumper. This gives the club a new source of revenue without skewering the concept of waiting for your turn. After all, you still have to join a queue before you can leave it.

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Brady Forrest -- "Sell your place in line"
Superoyster the blog.

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Comments

[Antoin O Lachtnain]

In financial-land, what you are talking about is an option - the right, but not the obligation to buy a specific product at a specific price.

You are talking about giving customers free or low-cost options on tickets. Surely you'd just end up with a queue for the options? The only difference would be that ticket touts wouldn't need to buy stock, they'd just need to queue for options.

If you wanted to maximize revenue, it would make more sense to auction the options and allow a market to develop. Or just auction the actual tickets.

Many performers and managers want to avoid simply selling tickets to the highest bidder. It's just not all that sustainable because it doesn't reward 'true' fans. Not only that, but the performer doesn't get the benefit of the premium paid by punters.