Ticketmaster + venues are incentivized to maximize primary ticket sales.

Ticket brokers are generally willing to take on the risk of buying up tickets to events on the primary market and constrain supply to turn a profit on the secondary market.

This works because TM and secondary platforms can claim ignorance and control the narrative: “we do our best to prevent bots”/“fans should be free to resell their tickets”

The only way around it is for the government to regulate prices, like they do in the UK (i.e. you can’t resell tickets for more than face value)

That means that TM/venues likely aren’t guaranteed as much profit, and ticket brokering businesses disappear, but both of those things are ultimately net negatives for consumers anyway.

> you can’t resell tickets for more than face value

I believe some states have tried that but it runs afoul of individual rights and first sale doctrine. Once I buy something, it's my property and I'm free to sell it for whatever price I can get.

“The only way around it is for the government to…”

This isnt the only way at all

As a technologically literate libertarian, I will say that word HN hates: “blockchain”.

Yes, a lot that you think you need to place trust in large institutions for, can now be done with smart contracts.

Take for example the idea of not allowing secondary sales. You simply say that the ERC-20 token cannot be sent to any address other than the official ones you bought from. You can get a refund but that’s it. And just like that - no scalping!

Now if you want to maximize the amount for the venue, you do price discovery. You make a “bonding curve” (like an auction) whereby tickets in a section go up in price the more people buy them (or not — have whatever monotonically increasing curve you want). And people can get a refund if they return the ticket. You pay out after the concert, and take your cut, and all of it is guaranteed, with no middleman. You (the artist and the platform and the venue) keep the windfall.

No need to attract speculators who buy tickets and then expect to get a larger amount later.