Discuss the economic aspects of ticket scalping

Question

Discuss the economic aspects of ticket scalping also identifying the gainers and losers?

Answer 1

Ticket scalping occurs in situations in which the original ticket price is set below the equilibrium price. This means that holders of tickets can find buyers who are willing to pay a higher price than that printed on the ticket. Basically, there is a shortage or the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied at the original price. Various ticket holders are willing to part with their tickets by selling them at a higher price than the price they paid, and some buyers are willing to pay this higher price.  In some another words, both the buyers and sellers voluntarily enter into the “scalping” transaction because both expect for profits.  The buyers value the tickets more than the money and the sellers value the money more than the tickets. In this case only losers would be the sponsors of the event, who could have charged higher prices for the tickets originally.  However, they don’t lose because of the scalping, but because they originally priced the tickets below equilibrium.