Why Louis CK is to blame for ticket scalpers

Louis CK has warned people not to buy tickets from scalpers to his upcoming performances, including two shows in Vancouver.

The comedian, a vocal critic of ticket resellers, says his goal is protect average fans who can't afford to pay exorbitant prices. 

A note on Louis CK's website says "we take great efforts and have many methods of finding out what inventory is being sold on "broker" sites like Stubhub and Vivid Seats and immediately invalidating those tickets. Due to this we recommend that anyone who chooses to purchase these seats does so at their own risk."

This means that someone may buy a resold ticket, which is legal in British Columbia, and find their ticket invalidated when they arrive to see the show. The ticket scalper keeps the money, but the buyer is out of pocket and a night of comedy.

But the Emmy-award winning actor and comedian doesn't want his fans to lose out. 

He told NPR that he lowered the price of his tickets so people with less money could see his shows.

I reached this critical mass place where I realized I'm making enough money doing stand-up. I don't want people to be in pain to come and see me, I want it to be an easy thing for them. So I'll drop ticket prices.- Louis CK, NPR's Fresh Air, 2012 

But Rafi Mohammed, who consults with companies on their pricing strategy and is author of the book The Art of Pricing, says by pricing his tickets below what people are willing to pay, Louis CK is to blame for the ticket scalpers in the first place.

Mohammed says very often, entertainment tickets are simply priced too cheaply.

In many instances tickets are under-priced,  and that could be a deliberate move by someone like Louis CK, or it could just be an act that's just nervous. They don't know what price to set and they shade it on the low side just in case demand isn't what they hoped it be... but any time you have a price that's below what the market is willing to pay, there's always going to be an arbitrage opportunity, and this is where scalpers come into play.- Rafi Mohammed, author of The Art of Pricing

In the case of Louis CK's ticket policy, the people who it hurts are those who legally buy a resold ticket. The scalpers keep the money, while the buyer gets nothing.

To Mohammed though, the situation gets really out of hand when entertainers want the government to enforce the price that they decide to set, such as when the creator of the Broadway musical 'Hamilton', Lin-Manuel Miranda, teamed up with a US Senator to introduce a bill to crack down on ticket-buying robots. 

It's like, gee, you could actually solve this issue very easily. You could play a larger place, you could do paperless tickets, there's a lot of ways you could do it, but for some reason these performers think you can just dump the tickets on the street and expect the public to pay to regulate the prices. And I think that's actually offensive.- Rafi Mohammed, author of The Art of Pricing

In Mohammed's view, if Louis CK really wanted as many fans as possible to see his shows, and keep ticket prices low, there's a simple way to do it.

Play more shows.

None of this changes the fact that Louis CK feels he has enough money as it is.

There is also another option to deal with the problem. To get rid of the scalpers, the comedian could raise the ticket prices to what people are willing to pay, and give the extra money to charity. 

The 180 wants to hear from you on the morality and economics of ticket scalping. Is it wrong to resell tickets for a higher price than you bought them for? Is it acceptable? Why is reselling tickets for a higher price unacceptable, but selling a collector car or a vintage hockey card for more than their original value okay? Email us at the180@cbc.ca