The author | Liu Xiaotu
Editor| Li Chunhui
Scalper Zhang Ji (pseudonym) The first career anxiety in 2022 began with the resale of celebrity New Year gift boxes.
In 2021, he suffered a series of unfortunate things such as no work to pick up, selling tickets and sticking road fees, and fans forcing money back, and he gritted his teeth and survived. But when encountering ordinary netizens out of ultra-low prices, to buy a single item in the top idol New Year gift box, the old cow that has gone through the storm still shed tears of defense.
The gift box was ordered by Zhang Ji for 400 yuan from a media friend. His abacus is loud: the goods of popular male stars, fans are notoriously able to spend money, and the price of 3800 yuan is absolutely no problem. In case there are too many people who want to buy, they will engage in auctions as in previous years, and the highest price will get.
As a result, the gift box hung out for a week, only three or five fans came to inquire, and the chat finally stopped at "good expensive". Zhang Ji's circle of friends with goods copywriting, also from "gift box limited, price X000, slow hand" to "gift box discount, price 1XXX, welcome private chat". Things can't be sold, he has to go to idle fish, Weibo, fan groups to shout, began to worry about smashing in the hand.
The celebrity year-end thank-you box has always been an important peripheral that has been robbed by fans, and scalpers have to take the opportunity to catch a wave. Pre-orders, auctions, benefits... Rolling that up is called hilarity. But now, peers are complaining that "to lose is to lose." Zhang Ji ordered 48 gift boxes this time, and only 6 of them have been sold so far, and the two buyers are not fans.
Zhang Ji is particularly concerned about "whether the buyer is a fan", which is related to the future of his profession. Entertainment industry scalpers do emotional premium business, and celebrity New Year gift boxes are only valuable when they are sold as special offerings in the rice circle. "Fans are not interested, and they don't compete with their families, what else is going on here?"
Zhang Ji's pessimism overwhelmed the sea. In his view, the serious slow sales of celebrity New Year gift boxes are the epitome of the decline of the idol economy and the decline of fan culture.
Entertainment water cold, scalper prophet, "good days are the end."
The most shabby year
Buying and selling celebrity New Year gift boxes sounds simple, in fact, there are many doorways, especially this year.
The most basic and important job of scalpers is to grasp the popularity of the current stars. They must not only cherish the old stars, but also keenly observe the renewal of fresh meat idols. Bet on the wrong treasure, you can lose a bottom.
In the past year, the supervision of cultural entertainment and the clear action have been dealt with one after another, which can be said to be "the fire of the rice circle is extinguished, and the internal entertainment has no top stream". In this subversive "examination reform", the difficulty of scalper pressing questions can be imagined. The star is low-key, the fans have become Buddha, and Zhang Ji is also worried that he can't grasp it, and he has the idea of giving up selling New Year gift boxes. But there was really no business to do, so he decided to try it.
The resourceful scalper began to diversify his investment, no longer clinging to the goods of popular stars, but packing and recycling a variety of New Year gift boxes from the media. The more than 40 gift boxes that Zhang Ji ordered back came from nearly 30 star studios such as Zhang Yixing, Lu Han, Zhao Lusi, Tan Songyun, Xiao Zhan, Xie Xingyang, and Jinsha.
But the reality is: put the eggs in different "baskets" and watch them flip over one by one.
If the previous clear action, the clear or the mind of the rice circle, this round is completely clear to the wallet. Fans who once shot generously returned to rationality, no longer brainlessly grabbed the star's peripherals, and began to selectively buy star-chasing products. With the mentality of not creating trouble for idols, the competition between fans is reduced, and naturally there is no impulsive consumption.
The New Year gift box hung out was not cared for, and Zhang Ji couldn't help but find several old customers to ask why. These fans generally said that the gift box is basically their own idol endorsement products, "before the grab is not used up, buy back to waste." Once the endorsement product has been out of the big character newspaper with goods, it is equivalent to the completion of the task, and fans rarely buy back support.
More importantly, brands that pursue profit maximization prefer monthly cooperation, and the "honeymoon period" with stars is getting shorter and shorter. The previous spokesperson has not yet warmed up the resources, and the next ambassador can't wait to take over the baton. Fan Xiaoqi (pseudonym) complained to Zhang Ji that her brother's gift box at least two product endorsements would soon expire, and the brand had secretly rubbed sales before, looking upset, "no longer love wants to spend money to buy guilt."
According to Zhang Ji and other scalpers, the gift box of the male star is better than the female star, and the gift box with the autograph is better than the ordinary one. Of course, the average pricing is one or two thousand cheaper than in previous years. Stars such as Xiao Zhan, Lu Han, and Zhang Yixing will not be slow to sell, but they can no longer sell for a high price of three or four thousand, and it is already a pleasure to earn three or five hundred.
The New Year gift box is a limited product, do not seize the time to get out, in two weeks it will be completely smashed. Zhang Ji, who could not wait for fans to pay the bill, decided to open and sell some gift boxes to ordinary consumers. Hard Candy Jun also noticed that there are many similar commodity links in Idle Fish, and the words "only out of fans" are silently hidden.
Unfortunately, Zhang Ji repeatedly tossed and did not sell a few copies. Because this batch of celebrity New Year gift boxes, it is too shabby!
It is not uncommon to be young and extravagant, and this year's parity is the norm. More than three hundred gift boxes were received, which contained only a few worthless skin care product samples, and brought Taobao nine pieces of nine can be customized calendars and posters.
"If you can't cut your fans, you're losing money, and you definitely won't sell them next year." Zhang Ji didn't have to mention how much he regretted it.
A hundred self-help postures
In the past two years, I have not been able to make much money from fans, but Zhang Ji has already mixed well. He entered the industry early, successfully accumulated the next batch of mature resources and agents, and had a strong ability to resist risks.
The most tragic is the group of "new" players who entered the market in 2019. At that time, the talent show variety show broke out, and the news of various fans throwing thousands of dollars was dazzling, and many people entered the scalper with the dream of getting rich. In half a year, Zhang Ji recruited more than forty agents, and more than 100,000 franchise fees were easily obtained.
Initially, novice scalpers also tasted sweetness. Zhang Ji and his assistants will follow up the star activities in the group, and give the tickets obtained from the media and the organizers a little higher to the agent. In this way, they can not only earn the difference, but also save the trouble of docking fans and arranging the scene.
"At that time, it was really easy to sell anyone's tickets." If you are lucky, you don't have to grab the top resources such as Cai Xukun and Xiao Zhan, and you can earn tens of thousands of dollars as a meeting for small idols. The small brokerage company held an annual meeting, and we sent fans in as waiters, and one person asked for two or three thousand. Then say hello to the artist team, arrange a group photo to take a photo, and the income is also good. Zhang Ji recalled.
In short, at this stage, the enthusiasm of fans to help continues to rise, especially in the close contact with idols. Celebrities follow the machine, crew shooting, brand activities, everywhere there is scalper business. The sunshine of the rice circle shines on them, unless the vision is extremely poor to bet on pure paste coffee, "ordinary agents earn more than 100,000 yuan a year."
Until the beginning of 2020, the sudden epidemic brought a quick-frozen blow to all walks of life. The fog of sorrow shrouded the entertainment industry, the crew suspended filming, all the meetings were cancelled, the concert was postponed indefinitely, and the scalpers entered the winter overnight.
Scalpers mainly earn money from live entertainment, and the epidemic has blocked the financial road as soon as it comes. Zhang Ji told Hard Candy Jun that peers who had no income were driven crazy, and even started to sell celebrities' private information. The telephone and ID card of the inner entertainment aided the beans were leaked in a large area, and the illegitimate meal became extremely active and rampant.
By the end of 2020, the domestic epidemic situation has finally stabilized, and live entertainment has slowly recovered. However, large-scale concerts and meetings are still limited, there are more monks and less porridge, and the competition in the scalper's pen has become unprecedentedly fierce. As a result, they began to turn their attention to relatively small brand events such as dramas, annual festivals, and award ceremonies.
Of course, new opportunities and new businesses are also emerging. Since last year, various variety shows have focused their lenses on ordinary people, invited media and members to participate in the recording of the program, and fans have more opportunities to face the stars. Hard Candy Jun noticed that Zhang Ji's circle of friends in the past year, the most appeared copywriting is: recording quota, want Didi.
Zhang Ji grabbed the position from the entertainment marketing number and "internal staff" and let fans participate in the recording as journalists or viewers. The service has become comfortable and decent, and the asking price is naturally not low. According to him, he sent two fans to participate in the recording of the music roundup, and the cost of shaving was more than 6,000 yuan. "It's better than making money from concerts, but it's better to live."
It's just that the repeated epidemics have also made scalpers bear high risks. For example, if fans arrive at the scene early, the program team suddenly delays filming or cancels the audience seats, which means that scalpers need to refund the entrance fee and bear huge compensation for machine liquor. Hard Candy Jun has encountered a rights protection scene in which scalpers run away and fans cannot enter the scene at the scene of variety show recording.
But the biggest difficulty comes from the rice circle itself. Since the Qinglang action, the rice circle has obviously calmed down a lot. Zhang Ji has repeatedly sighed that staying is not a long-term solution after all, and there may be a glimmer of vitality in transformation.
Where are the scalpers going?
After idleness, Zhang Ji often thinks about whether the scalper business in the entertainment industry is still good or not, and whether it can be done. He concluded that the epidemic may have only accelerated the collapse of the industry, but the real destruction came from within.
To do business in scalpers, they must not only have an economic foundation, connections and doorways, but also meet the requirements of continuous changes in fans – which is also the key to generating consumption. But the reality now is that new customer needs have not yet been cultivated, and old customer needs have lost their attractiveness.
Around 2015, the pattern of internal entertainment traffic has been solidified, and the first generation of traffic idols represented by the "four sons of returning to China" have steadily occupied the country. Thanks to the blessings of the top stream, the vast number of scalpers have lived a comfortable life of drought and flood protection for several years.
Since 2018, talent shows and delay dramas have spawned new top streams. In this round of small-scale shuffling, scalpers must not only quickly grab the exploded traffic, but also bet in advance on the players to be exploded, and maximize the value of idols with a shorter and shorter life cycle.
At this stage, the scalper is most afraid of the trainees who are bet on the virtual fire. After the end of "Idol Trainee", Zhang Ji once bet his chips on the boy band of Xiaohong at that time. In the first few months, the itinerary and brand activities sold well. So he optimistically restocked the tickets for the meeting, but he did not expect that "the members collapsed and tore up, and the fans scolded and grinned", and failed to sell to the psychological price.
Regardless of whether the traffic changes or not, as long as the fans remain active, new monetization opportunities will always come. But nowadays, the rice circle has become commonplace for shooting, pick-up, and even face-to-face contact with love beans. Coupled with external adjustments such as star chasing and burden reduction and rice circle rectification, fans have gradually lost their desire to fight and spend power.
The most obvious thing about Zhang Ji's physical feeling is that the friends in the WeChat list who are marked as "rich women" and "gold lords" have not taken the initiative to ask him which star's activity itinerary for a long time. Not long ago, the tickets for the program participated in by the top of the two words were unsalable, Zhang Ji knocked on his fans privately with a reasonable price, and the other party sent a cold response of "the last recording was not interesting, I don't want to go for the time being".
The bubbles of the entertainment industry have shattered, but the tide play, virtual idols, and Internet celebrity food are launching a new call to scalpers. Zhang Ji told Hard Candy Jun that many peers are developing the business of Disney, Universal Studios and Bubble Mart, and intend to revitalize from the new consumer field.
At the beginning of January, the joint blind box launched by KFC and Bubble Mart quickly became popular among young people. Limited number of dolls are in short supply, and the scalpers who smell the wind have finished hoarding, so they are mixed into Weibo, Little Red Book grass publicity, creating atmosphere, and boosting the price of related products in the second-hand market overnight soared seven or eight times.
The same story is also played out in the fields of tide play, food, and tide shoes. The popularity of Disney's top actresses is inseparable from the efforts of scalpers. According to Zhang Ji, they are not only following the trend of reselling, but also hyping with brands and merchants, making Internet celebrity models, making the plate bigger, and trying not to be as passive as before.
So, what is standing in front of you now is not an ordinary scalper, but a scalper KOL? Those competed milk teas, dolls, sneakers, may be a game of chess jointly planned by the brand and scalpers.
After all, the reason why the east side is not bright and the west side is bright, Zhang Ji, who has reselled hospital expert numbers, concert tickets, variety show recording quotas, and limited dolls, understands best.