Thursday, May 5, 2016

Elaborating on the amount Hamilton ticker resellers make

I was quoted in this Bloomberg story as saying:

At least $30,000 from every show goes to ticket resellers instead of the musical’s investors, producers and cast, according to Matt Rousu, an economics professor at Susquehanna University. With eight shows a week, that comes out to $240,000 every seven days, or almost $12.5 million a year filling the pockets of brokers, he said.

How did I come up with my estimate of $30,000?

Resale tickets rarely sell for less than $800 on ticketmaster.  Some sell for $1500-$2000.  The average price of a ticket from the Richard Rodgers Theatre is about $100-$200.  So that means we can conservatively estimate $600+ per resold ticket is going to resellers.

If you look at Ticketmaster, there are resale tickets available - and usually from 50-200 seats for sale for each show.

If you assume that just 50 tickets are sold on the resale market (likely way too low) and resellers are getting $600 per ticket (also low), you come up with an estimate of "at least $30,000" going to resellers.  In reality, it is probably much more.




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