Touting for business

Tim Worstall thinks MPs have lost the plot with their ticket touting report (see below), but I have to say their ultimate conclusion makes perfect sense.

To recap - today MPs have called for the music industry, from record companies to concert promoters, to make more effort to regulate the touting of tickets (i.e. the 'secondary market' where a ticket is bought from the source and then sold on, often at a profit). In it's report, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee claimed  up to 40% of tickets were being sold on the internet.

Cue an outcry from those who think allowing people to sell tickets on is a travesty that needs heavy-handed government intervention  - presumably by way of a complicated and ill-thought out piece of legislation, preferably on the statute books as soon as possible.

The report struck a chord with me (sorry for that) as I for one think leaving it to the industry is just the thing to do. The frustrated record industry execs who claim they are losing money as well as all the teenagers with mascara running down their cheeks (yes, and the female fans as well) at the injustice of not getting tickets should think upon the following points and stop blaming those clever enough to make a bit of extra cash. (If you claim it's all organised crime doing this then all I ask for is one shred of proof).

1 - the secondary market is just that - a 'market' and I can't think of any other secondary market that we have chosen to regulate (aside from football tickets, but that makes sense to stop headcase football fans getting seats with the opposition to liven up the game through the judicious application of violence).

2 - a product is worth what people are willing to pay for it. If it goes at a premium then the face value was, by this rationale, too cheap in the first place.

3 - sorting this out is in the interest of the music industry as less and less money comes from cd sales as cheap downloads take over. Radiohead's recent plan to give away their album for free shows just how important the live element is to making cash. So get on with it and stop passing the buck chaps - Michael Eavis managed it for Glastonbury, so can you.

4 - if the record industry is so miffed at not making enough cash from ticket sales maybe they shouldn't give away so many as comps to VIPs and other hangers-on (estimated as up to 40% at some gigs).