Seminar Elasticity Part Elasticity recap

Part 2. Ticket touting and why elasticity matters here.
Do you know Ed Sheeran?
If not, watch this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkPLD8dPpE

and then read the short article below:

Ed Sheeran ticket touts jailed in 'landmark' Leeds case
BBC, Manchester evening news. February 2020.


T wo men who made millions reselling gig tickets have been jailed.


Internet touts Peter Hunter and David Smith bought tickets to high-profile events - including Ed Sheeran, Liam Gallagher and Adele - for a total face value of £17 million and sold them for £26.3 million. Hunter and Smith made the £9.3 million gain between 2010 and 2017.

In one year, Peter Hunter and David Smith, bought more than 750 tickets for Sheeran events alone.

They used multiple identities and computer robots to buy tickets, selling them for inflated prices on secondary ticketing websites, including Viagogo, GetMein, StubHub and Seatwave. Hunter told the jury how he started his business when a friend without a credit card asked him to buy tickets to see Madonna and he realised he could re-sell extra purchases at a huge profit.

The two men used at least 97 different names, 88 postal addresses and more than 290 email addresses to evade platform restrictions. Hunter, 51, and Smith, 66, of Crossfield Road, north London, claimed they were a trusted and reliable source of tickets.

The jury found them guilty of three counts of fraudulent trading and one of possessing articles for fraud. When their home was raided, investigators found 112 different payment cards in 37 names. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said: "This was a case of sustained dishonesty for a number of years. A lot of people in this case paid a lot more than they could have paid."

The case has provoked calls for a wider criminal investigation of the secondary ticketing market.

Case study: Economics of ticket touting.