The latest experiment in on-line ticket auctioneering may prove, at least in the early stages, to be unfruitful.
Stubhub's latest experiment - attempting to auction off all 650 tickets to the INXS concert at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, CA. - is yielding ticket prices that make eBay look high class.
As you can see here, with just three days left, most of the ticket prices are laughable and would barely cover janitor's fees for the show, let alone paying the band.
So, independent and corporate ticket brokers who are nervous about the widespread application of this idea of auctioning off every seat in a show can celebrate now, right?
Well, not quite. At best, we'll have to wait and see if prices take off the day the auctions end. (Most end Tuesday for those of you interested in seeing how it turns out.) Then we will have a better idea of whether the problem is related to the format of the ticket sales or if it is something else.
Imagine if this format had been used for a different band in a different venue - say Cream at Madison Square Garden. A band that people want to see in a venue people love in a city where there is a lot of "entertainment cash" floating around.
Compare that to what Stubhub used to kick off their "All-Auction Ticket" campaign. INXS, a band whose secondary market tickets have lower demand than VCRs, in Santa Barbara, where the Bowl is the only place people want to see shows, on a Wednesday night.
It does not seem to make a whole of sense to test how much people would be willing to pay on an event that few people would go to for free. But it also didn't make much sense for Stubhub to try make money selling tickets without ever buying any - and we all know how well that worked.
Check back Tuesday for the results!
It could be that the idea is just an ill-advised one. However, one has to wonder if it would be more successful given a different band perhaps the market and band chosen are at the
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