A case study: How to rationalise concert entertainment ticket pricing

This paper demonstrates how we can rationalise ticket pricing to capture the surpluses, commonly found in ticket markets, for the artist. In the past two months, Ascertain-ment collected data and analysed ticket prices for Eric Clapton's sold out concert in Oklahoma City, OK. Clapton's tickets were sold at a face value of $65 and $85 through Ticketmaster. Yet the secondary market of ticket brokers found demand could yield as much as $700 per ticket, We determined that over $250,000 in surplus revenue was not captured by Clapton. The primary data we collected have generated statistical links between prices and demand for tickets. Specifically, we have found that tickets must be sold for a wider array of prices, and we have determined an exponentially priced schematic to estimate an optimal set of prices to reduce the differential between primary and secondary ticket prices, capturing more revenue for concert artists.