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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Ticket selling is a problem of economics, and trying to solve it via tech is pointless. If enough fans out there are willing to spend $2000 for Taylor Swift tickets then that is the value of the show. Ticketmaster selling them for $100 creates an arbitrage opportunity, and of course people are going to take advantage of it.

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The Glastonbury music festival, the largest of its kind in the world, requires each ticket purchase to be associated with a government ID. The ID must be presented at entry and must match the ticket sale. As far as I know, they do not have problems with scalpers. So tech might not help, but maybe beaurocracy can :)

(Well, they have an issue where everyone tries to buy a ticket at the same time and it crashes their servers. Tech could help a bit with that. But in the end, everyone trying to buy a ticket actually wants to go to the festival)

Yes, the obvious solution to the scalper problem is to drop the tech and go back to physical ticket sales outlets. You stand in line, buy a ticket, present your ID, and you receive a ticket with your photo printed on it and a QR code containing your ID info (encrypted if necessary).

At the venue, someone checks your photo, and you scan your ID, which must match the one on the ticket.

But Ticketmaster would never do that, because they make too much money from scalping.

Glastonbury was all online. Submitted a photo of my ID.

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