The recovery of the 700-performance market began with the scalper's circle of friends |

Author| Put blue

Edit| fig

"This year's performance is the year I can't understand in the 7 years of selling tickets." Recently, a scalper's complaining screenshot appeared on the Weibo hot search list, almost all the performances of scalpers are rising in price, only Wang Feng's concert thunderously reduced the price, although it is ridicule, but also reflects the current situation of the performance market.

Since the beginning of this year, the performance market has continued to be hot, and the tour concerts of singers such as Jay Chou, Lin Junjie, Zhang Jie and other singers have been officially announced, and various music festivals have also started one after another. According to the statistics of the Ferris wheel ticketing system, in the first quarter of 2023, more than 700 Livehouse performances have been opened and finalized.

The most obvious change in the recovery of the performance market is that scalpers who have been silent for three years in the circle of friends have begun to update frequently, and even many scalpers have begun to recruit "agents" in the circle of friends.

However, under the booming market, various chaos has also been exposed, especially the high premium is much higher than before 2020. "Zhang Jie used to be discounted every time, this year Guangzhou +50 I can't find tickets, Mao Buyi, Li Ronghao, Liu Ruoying no matter where they are also added a few hundred, the epidemic is over, the price of each star has become the standard of Jay Chou before."

Many scalpers feel the same way about this paragraph, and the high price seems to be a business opportunity for scalpers, but many scalpers have told entertainment unicorns that in fact, behind the soaring price, they have fewer channels to get tickets. "Everyone sees that the tickets we sell now are expensive, because the tickets we collect now are already expensive, in order to ensure that we make money, we also have to sell them at a little higher price, and the vicious circle of the market is getting more and more expensive, in fact, we are also helpless." Scalper Xiaoba said to the entertainment unicorn.

The high premium for the performance ticket, is it a scalper's pot?

"Sold out in seconds" has become the theme of this year's performance market, from the stadium concerts of Jay Chou and Lin Junjie with tens of thousands of seats, to the livehouse of hundreds of people, most performances, as soon as the ticket is released, it has almost become the norm. Fans who can't buy tickets can only retreat to the scalper, and the high premium of the scalper makes fans complain.

"Mainland Taiyuan and Hohhot are both on the shelves today, but they really can't grab one, scalpers still play with the price increase, 500 tickets can be increased to 2,000." After the tickets for Jay Chou's concert went on sale, some fans shouted Jay Chou on Weibo, "suggest Jay Chou grab tickets by himself", "I feel that scalpers earn more than Jay Chou" and other topics have successively appeared on the Weibo hot search list.

Under the current market boom, such a call is difficult to resist the huge market demand. According to the China Performance Industry Association, based on feedback from major ticketing platforms, in March last year alone, nearly 8,000 performances (including theaters and large-scale performances) in more than 20 provinces and cities across the country were cancelled or postponed. Audiences who haven't been able to see an in-person show for three years can't wait, and even if the price is significantly premium, the buyer market is coming to follow.

Oni, who has more than ten years of experience in the ticketing industry, can't help but feel a little outrageous about the current performance market, "Everyone has been suffocating in recent years, market demand is greater than supply, naturally the price has also gone up, as long as there are tickets, I can shout the price at will." ”

For the public to dump the pot of performance ticket premium on the scalper, Ernie also felt a little innocent, "To be honest, the price of ticketing is high, but some things are not priced by us, they are based on market conditions." ”

Xiaoba also feels that the high price of scalpers this year is actually largely due to the scarcity of ticket sources. "Before 2020, we had a lot of channels to get tickets, organizers, issuers, and various relationship tickets, these are the bulk of our tickets, and now it is difficult for us to get tickets through these channels, mainly by collecting loose tickets that everyone grabs. Originally, everyone sold it to me at a markup, and they must earn a little, and then increase the price a little, and the final price was naturally raised. ”

Collecting tickets - issuing tickets, just the simplest channel, according to Xiaoba, even some difficult tickets, we have to go to the peers at a high price to collect, and finally we have to post it ourselves. "What we do in this line is word of mouth, when people can't buy tickets, I always don't have tickets here, and over time customers are lost, so sometimes in order to get tickets, we will go to peers to buy, such as tickets with the original price of 500, peers sell 1000, I add to 1100 people to sell to me, but the price I sell is also 1000, even if I lose money to retain customers."

Xiaoba knows the importance of stabilizing the source of customers, and in the past three years of the epidemic, Xiaoba said that he has not had an easy time. From the beginning, I often earned thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan a day, and then I couldn't open it for a few months, so I had no choice but to find an ordinary job as a worker. In the past few years, Xiaoba has seen that the scalpers around him have begun to change careers one by one, and most of his own customers have also been lost, even if the industry is recovering now, Xiaoba feels that making money is not as easy as before.

In the era of national scalpers, how to regulate the industry?

Compared with small scalpers like Xiaoba, some "big cattle" are better. "The limit of WeChat friends is 10,000, and my current six WeChat friends are full, and there are quite a few people in my own team, and there are many agents under it." Ernie said.

More than ten years of experience has also given Erni a place in the industry. A customer who often buys tickets from Oni, told Entertainment Unicorn, "We are usually willing to buy tickets with Oni, mainly because she does not ask for a sky-high price like some scalpers, basically according to the price she collects the ticket plus two or three hundred, to an acceptable extent." ”

In addition to collecting tickets, robbery is also the most commonly used channel for scalpers to get tickets. Xiao Kai is from a generation robbery to an agent, "I first did the generation robbery in 2019, at that time there were also a lot of performances, at the beginning I added scalpers to buy tickets, and then scalpers built a generation robbery group, every time there is a concert will be sent in advance in the group, say that all kinds of tickets are how much is the proxy robbery fee, after the address is modified, you can immediately receive the agency robbery fee, for me there is actually no cost, I remember grabbing Andy Lau's consecutive seat ticket, and the commission alone took two thousand yuan. Then I started working as an agent for scalpers. ”

Xiao Kai, also known as "Pink Cow", is despised by many fans, standing from fans to the opposite side of fans, and also fueling the premium. However, in Xiao Kai's view, "I also have to spend a high price to buy tickets when watching the idou concert, this money can be earned by others, why can't I make money back."

In the face of huge interests, many fans have joined the ticket grabbing team, "which can now be said to be the era of scalpers for the whole people," Ernie said. As a result, tickets for various performances are becoming more and more difficult to grab.

Generally speaking, the order of ticket retention for a performance is the artist, the organizer, the scalper, the barley cat's eye and other public ticket sales platforms. The more upstream, the greater the right to get votes, the greater the right to speak.

A senior distributor said that unlike scalpers in the market, they usually get tickets through the organizer and the barley platform.

"Usually large-scale performances, even more popular livehouses, we will regulate according to the market price, and the price will refer to the second-hand platform such as the Ferris wheel." Even if he has been in the entertainment industry for many years and has strong connections, he can't get the original price ticket now, "In performances like concerts and music festivals, in fact, we already get premium tickets, so we can't sell them at the original price." ”

That is to say, in addition to official ticketing platforms such as Barley, the premium has begun from the organizer, and the premium is more serious when it comes to the hands of users.

Douyin live selling concert tickets into a new trend in the industry?

At the beginning of this year, Tao Yuan, a partner of Xi'an Yule Culture Communication Co., Ltd., obviously felt the recovery of the market, "On the one hand, it is reflected in the concerts of singers such as Jay Chou and Xue Zhiqian, and some singers who could only hold concerts at Livehouse before can even open gymnasiums now." On the other hand, there is an obvious premium, like Ma Siwei's livehouse before a ticket was two or three hundred, now it can rise to 800, basically all tickets are the original price to grab is earned, there is no situation that cannot go out. ”

In order to broaden the customer base, in addition to the traditional WeChat sales, Taro Yuan also began to try Douyin live broadcast ticket sales, in fact, this is also the ticket sales model that many ticketing platforms are trying at present. Taro Yuan introduced that usually users will place a deposit in the Douyin live broadcast room, and then direct traffic to WeChat and pay the final payment according to the pricing of different locations.

After several months of enthusiasm, Xiaoba found that many people began to find themselves to refund tickets. On the one hand, the singers are adding scenes, the difficulty of buying tickets is not so high, on the other hand, compared to when the tickets were first issued, the current market price has begun to slide, and the people who bought tickets at a high price feel that it is not worth it.

The recovery of the performance market is accelerating, and Wang Guanran, chief analyst of CITIC Securities' media industry, observed that during the Spring Festival this year, the number of commercial performances nationwide has exceeded 9,000, an increase of nearly 40% year-on-year in 2022. Compared with 2019, it increased by about 22.5%, and the number of people watching the show reached more than 3 million.

From the perspective of the market, concert premiums have always been difficult to eliminate. It is worth thinking about how the industry should continue to develop benignly when the market gradually calms down, and how should it be regulated in the era of the national ticket cattle?