I think on a macro level, teams don't always want to sell every single ticket for maximum dollar. They really want to ensure a year over year constant revenue stream. So they contract with ticketmaster to sell all of their tickets at fairly set rates. The "Market Price" for an event for 6-8 months from now is going to swing up and down a lot.
There's also the perceived unfairness (think what would happen if a popular restaurant doubled its price on Friday and Saturday, people would flip out).
After a while, they realized that a pretty large secondary market had formed for tickets (teams get hot, rival team in town on a Saturday night, etc, etc) and the team / venue wants in on the action. So Ticketmaster created an "official scalper" marketplace to compete with StubHub and friends.
"Having either static or dynamically variably priced tables by day of week and time – in a fully transparent manner – simply gives customers the option of paying a bit more for a prime time table or saving a bit of money for an off-prime table. It acknowledges the obvious.
No one pays $ 275 for a good seat at a Cubs game, looks up at the nose bleed seats and complains that it’s not fair that those guys up there only paid $ 25. People accept the difference so long as the choice to buy either was their own."
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I think on a macro level, teams don't always want to sell every single ticket for maximum dollar. They really want to ensure a year over year constant revenue stream. So they contract with ticketmaster to sell all of their tickets at fairly set rates. The "Market Price" for an event for 6-8 months from now is going to swing up and down a lot.
There's also the perceived unfairness (think what would happen if a popular restaurant doubled its price on Friday and Saturday, people would flip out).
After a while, they realized that a pretty large secondary market had formed for tickets (teams get hot, rival team in town on a Saturday night, etc, etc) and the team / venue wants in on the action. So Ticketmaster created an "official scalper" marketplace to compete with StubHub and friends.
Interestingly enough fine dining establishments are moving in the direction of tickets with a variable price.
Long, but a worthwhile read on the subject: http://website.alinearestaurant.com/site/2014/06/tickets-for...
"Having either static or dynamically variably priced tables by day of week and time – in a fully transparent manner – simply gives customers the option of paying a bit more for a prime time table or saving a bit of money for an off-prime table. It acknowledges the obvious. No one pays $ 275 for a good seat at a Cubs game, looks up at the nose bleed seats and complains that it’s not fair that those guys up there only paid $ 25. People accept the difference so long as the choice to buy either was their own."
EDIT: There was also some discussion about this on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786