Graph of tickets available vs minimum price on StubHub

[raftin]

Here is a graph of of the minimum price for a ticket on StubHub in case anyone cares:

http://idisk.me.com/Idahomojo/Public/BMSH.jpg

[img]http://idisk.me.com/Idahomojo/Public/BMSH.jpg[/img]

[url]http://idisk.me.com/Idahomojo/Public/BMSH.jpg[/url]

[junglesmacks]

We don't. Prices on SH are irrelevant. I'll sell you a ticket for $100,000 too if you're dumb enough to pay for it.

[illy dilly]

We don't. Prices on SH are irrelevant. I'll sell you a ticket for $100,000 too if you're dumb enough to pay for it.

Damn Straight!!!

[Dr. Pyro]

For $100,000 I'd screw all my campmates and sell you their tickets as well!

[raftin]

Sorry abut the confusion, it was not a graph of the highest priced tickets on StubHub but rather the cheapest ticket. It is a basic indicator of the secondary market and a rough indicator of demand. I thought it was nice to see that we may have hit a high for ticket value and that as value drops, people would be less tempted to scalp. If the low StubHub price drops to near face value then there would be many more tickets flowing into STEP and other face value secondary markets. This post was not intended to make people want to sell their tickets for $100,000, I am not sure how that opinion was derived.

[theCryptofishist]

If you read around this sub-forum a bit you'll find that there are a lot of people panicking about ludicris stubhub ticket offers. We've gotten jaded. and annoyed.

[BBadger]

If you look closely in that graph, the plot line showing how many tickets sellers actually have is there right at the "$-" line.

[gyre]

You need sale prices to have useful information.

[junglesmacks]

You need sale prices to have useful information.

Useful information of what? A dipstick of collective intelligence level of people that are clueless enough to pay money to strangers for things that don't exist?

[gyre]

For anything.

[socks]

What I see is that when the scalpers oh I mean newbies saw that the S.T.E.P. program was also a epic failure the prices started to climb.

[junglesmacks]

Intelligence level = blinding.

[raftin]

I updated the graph with today's current data. It looks like supply is trending up and price is trending down. My belief is that as soon as paper tickets get distributed those trends will move much quicker creating more tickets for much less money. It is my thought that most scalpers on StubHub are basically selling futures meaning they have no tickets, but think they can buy later for less than what they are selling for now. There were some large spikes in available tickets on single days which to me means a scalping organization is raising its bet.

With the camps I help run I am currently getting a feeling of over supply in our market. Tickets are getting turned in by members that decided not to come, and members that originally wanted tickets have now made other plans. Our personal situation is that we need to hold our excess supply in case we find the right person in the next month, but if we don't we anticipate selling our remainders on craigslist a few weeks before the event at face value.

If you legitimately want to attend this year and are willing to hold out until the week before the event, I think you will find a reasonably priced ticket. Very few people can tolerate the risk of not knowing until the last few days so demand will fall off right before the event. This year is much different than last year where many had committed to go, but couldn't find a ticket, thus pushing prices up right before the event. There won't be that kind of demand spike before the event this year as the the ruling philosophy went from 2011: "Oh crap, I invested in this event and now there are no tickets" to 2012: "The event is sold out so I am making other plans".

Good luck to everyone, and keep in mind I could be wrong.

http://idisk.me.com/Idahomojo/Public/BMSH.jpg

[junglesmacks]

Just so everyone knows, I updated this meaningless graph that's full of conjecture and irrelevant information that proves nothing just in case.. well.. someone wants to make it relative in their own head.

[catinthefunnyhat]

just in case.. well.. someone wants to make it relative in their own head.

Relative to what?

[junglesmacks]

Relative to deez.

[catinthefunnyhat]

Relative to deez.

Everything's relative, man...
*inhale.... pause... exhale*
But not everything's relevant.

[BBadger]

I see I high correlation between the number of tickets in hand in the first graph and the one by JS, i.e. zero tickets in hand.

[wraith]

I see I high correlation between the number of tickets in hand in the first graph and the one by JS, i.e. zero tickets in hand.

You really have no idea how stubhub works, do you. They're an escrow service. The seller doesn't get paid until the ticket is delivered. So it doesn't actually matter that they don't have paper in hand now, so long as they don't -tell- BMOrg that they intend to turn them over as soon as they get them. After all, neither party has any reason to inform the Org, as the buyer would be simply cancelling his own ticket. If the seller isn't genuine, StubHub guarantees replacement tickets or a refund, so the buyer isn't at risk beyond possibly not having tickets, which is right where they are now.

So while you would very much like to think they aren't relevant, the prices up there are a pretty good predictor of what the secondary market demand for tickets is doing. It was very interesting watching everything under $1k sell out the day the public sale was cancelled, for example.

[trilobyte]

It's probably worth noting that the Stubhub data appears to have been junked again. Over the last couple weeks there's been an uptick on the number of available tickets, but the increase is coming from 3 suspicious sellers. Two have fairly outlandish quantities and are likely bogus speculators - when similar listings were made months ago, a number of users complained to the site's management and after a brief investigation the listing was removed. Another only has 7 tickets, but an asking price of $999,999. That's not so much someone trying to move a ticket so much as someone fucking with the system or making a statement on what they feel the value of the experience is.

[knowmad]

It's probably worth noting that the Stubhub data appears to have been junked again. Over the last couple weeks there's been an uptick on the number of available tickets, but the increase is coming from 3 suspicious sellers. Two have fairly outlandish quantities and are likely bogus speculators - when similar listings were made months ago, a number of users complained to the site's management and after a brief investigation the listing was removed. Another only has 7 tickets, but an asking price of $999,999. That's not so much someone trying to move a ticket so much as someone fucking with the system or making a statement on what they feel the value of the experience is.

As mutch as I loath the man:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld

Scalping, which by some estimates is a $4.5 billion business nationwide, remains a hot-button issue for consumers who increasingly find the secondary market the only source of tickets to desirable events.

“The secondary market is not just everyday folks trying to sell their tickets because they can’t go to a show at the last minute,” said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who has proposed legislation to curb scalpers’ access to tickets. “It’s worth billions of dollars a year and is dominated by professional brokers, some of whom use every trick to snatch up hot tickets before the average guy and sell them at a profit. The result is that the average consumer is forced to pay a premium for a ticket they should have the ability to purchase at its face value.”
NYTimes

to believe that all scalped tickets out on the secondary market are posted up and procured by honest-hopefully-attending people who can't make it is just plain stupid. to believe that an organized multi billion dollar industry will not by hook or crook get tickets is just as stupid. people who would rather call statistical studies lies and "Speculation", and meaningless projections really aught to (re)read Kunth; because the guys fucking with the tickets did/do, and their known knowns are heads and shoulders above.
There are things I know I don't know, I also spend very little time speculating about them.
the known unknowns are by all means (phunie hu?) worth investigating.

[trilobyte]

It's absolutely worth investigating, though it's fairly unlikely. The 'pro' market has shown time and time again that they don't actually care about either having tickets in hand or any other subtle games with regards to ticket listings, as soon as they get them they'd be listed. If they managed to get a bunch of tickets, they wouldn't have waited until mid-May to list them, that's contrary to the way they do business with every other event out there.

[knowmad]

It's absolutely worth investigating, though it's fairly unlikely. The 'pro' market has shown time and time again that they don't actually care about either having tickets in hand or any other subtle games with regards to ticket listings, as soon as they get them they'd be listed. If they managed to get a bunch of tickets, they wouldn't have waited until mid-May to list them, that's contrary to the way they do business with every other event out there.

quite right, because max demand doesn't even hit until July, when all the lookie loos wanna do something other than.... oh squirrel!

Pretty sure the 'Pros' are holding a serious clutch of tickets. and they know how to foment demand, it's their stock in trade.

[Janet Planet]

Cool thread. I'm learning a lot. I never understood what futures were until now.
Thanks Ratty!

[gyre]

... that's contrary to the way they do business with every other event out there.

You're assuming speculators can't tell the difference between burning man and other things.
Any reason to assume this?

I am unaware of any similar events large enough to be a target for scalping.


I have pointed out that speculation in the market for many things does not follow the concert paradigm.

[Sail Man]

We don't. Prices on SH are irrelevant. I'll sell you a ticket for $100,000 too if you're dumb enough to pay for it.

*reaches for wallet*

[junglesmacks]

We don't. Prices on SH are irrelevant. I'll sell you a ticket for $100,000 too if you're dumb enough to pay for it.

*reaches for wallet*

*reaches for ticket*

[Just_Joe]

We don't. Prices on SH are irrelevant. I'll sell you a ticket for $100,000 too if you're dumb enough to pay for it.

*reaches for wallet*

*reaches for ticket*

*offers 2% fee escrow service *

[kiss-o-matic]

Cool thread. I'm learning a lot. I never understood what futures were until now.
Thanks Ratty!

As someone who works in an industry based on them (and took years to grasp it) don't think that theory always holds true. Nobody has a crystal ball in anything, which is why nobody magically makes money in finance. Even the computers are wrong a lot of the time, which is why there's hedging. I'm just a computer dork though.

[Ano]

I've been noticing more tickets showing up on craigslist and e-mail lists. Still expensive, but they are starting to trickle out.

Once the EDC-kids realize they didn't buy a ticket to the next biggest "underground" candy-rave party, they'll first try to scalp their ticket for some ridiculous price, and then a month out when they realize they can't sell them for that price they'll get desperate and sell them off cheap, and in large quantities.

Just hold tight, friends. The newbies don't really do much research beyond watching a few youtube videos - once they start getting some stuff into their hands that tell them all the ways they could die in the desert, I expect to see some tickets appear.