Comment by leetcrew

I simplified it so the example would fit in a single sentence. there are also more entities than just the artist+label organizing the tour/show. the fundamental point remains though: if scalping is a profitable business, the seller is seriously mispricing their product. I'm sure there's a good bit of variance in ticket demand show-to-show, but in total it looks like they are leaving a huge amount of money on the table. I'm not sure why, but I suspect they feel it is "uncool" to have very expensive tickets and worry that it might hurt the artist's image. maybe so, but the pricing is the original problem that is hurting fans and limiting the proceeds. arbitrage is merely a symptom, and the tickets would still be just as scarce without them.