The sale of standard tickets for the Glastonbury music festival took place. Within 27 minutes all of the 120,000 tickets had been sold and it was reported that over a million people had tried to access the website - Essay Example

The Sale of Standard Tickets for Glastonbury Music Festival October 27, Introduction The selling of the tickets during the annual autumn scrabble festival attracted much interest due to the speed at which the tickets were sold. The annual festival takes place in autumn and the good marketing strategies saw it emerge as a very successful event in the last event. The number of people who fail to get the tickets despite having been willing to attend the festivals remain to be very high. Looking at the last festivals it was reported that all the available tickets were sold within twenty seven minutes after the sale started.

This was historic with the one hundred and twenty thousand tickets having been sold in the record time and over a million people having been reported to have tried to access the website in their bid to get the tickets. This essay will therefore try to establish whether the current price of the tickets is at a market clearing level as that could have been the reason behind the high number of reported sales. The essay shall also address the relative merits of using alternative mechanisms to allocate tickets such as ballot, first come served or the price mechanism.

The impacts of limiting the re-sale of the already bought tickets on Pareto/allocative efficiency and the factors that would determine the size of any allocative inefficiency caused by limiting the re-sale of tickets. The essay shall also critically look at the marketing channels that could have been used and the reason behind the increased popularity of the event that definitely played a positive role in ensuring that the sale was that good. It is also important to mention the trend of the event in the previous years.

Marketing Strategies and Growing Popularity The organizers of this event adopted a new way of selling their tickets a step that made them sell the tickets more in the concluded Glastonbury festival. The way the tickets were sold ensured that there were no re-sales and so the whole process was completed in a record twenty seven minutes duration. This new and unique way that had not been used anywhere else was adopted a year ago and after testing they found out that it could run on well. The people who were to buy the tickets were supposed to have registered earlier so their information was already recorded in their data base.

This was a brilliant idea as it eliminated the hustle of creating the data base and taking the information of the willing buyers on the day when the festival was supposed to take place (The Sloman Economics News Site). This means that the people who were to get the tickets already had an account created and so issuing them with tickets was highly efficient and fast. The registration process was simple and free and though it required the submission of personal details and a passport sized photo, people still turned up in great numbers and created their accounts while waiting for the ticket buying window to be opened.

The event holders enhanced their systems so that they could handle heavy traffic that would come with the high number of people who were registering and the time when the people would be purchasing their tickets. The people were informed in advance that those who had not registered with the company would not have a chance to purchase the tickets. The price of the tickets and the implications to the market shall be discussed later in the essay. The initial registration process ensured that the customers were issued with specific registration numbers that would later be used when purchasing the tickets.

To ensure that people did not trade in their tickets the organizers also set the maximum number of tickets that a single user could buy to be six. The tickets sold could not be re-sold. This made the process highly fast. Ticket touting has been a common process in the buying of tickets for various events where some people buy the tickets in bulk then sell them at a higher price (Besanko & Braeutigam, 2013).. With this prevented the organizers were sure the sale would be successful. The Market Price of the Tickets The tickets were selling at £215 which is quite low.

This must have been a market strategy that was aimed at luring more people to attend the festivals. With a total of 120 000 people making it to the festivals the total reap was supposed to be high. However, the price was too low for the event and economists argued that an increase in the price of the tickets would have been used to turn away some of the willing buyers and hence reduce the commotion that was created as they tried to get the tickets. The people who had registered expressing their will to attend the event were more than one million and as the manager said there was nothing they could have done as with a slotted number of 120 000 and registered people being more than a million, majority were still bound to miss the event.

This came after people complained that the method used to select the winners was not authentic ad alternative methods could have been employed. The cost of production micro economic theory relates the production of a commodity to the demand in the market (Begg, Vernasca, Fischer & Dornbusch, 2001). The event holders would therefore have used it to evaluate the market and know the price to set for their services. Also using the consumer demand theory, it was evident from the number of people who registered for the event that there was a high number of people who were willing to attend the event.

This could therefore have been used to solicit more money from the buyers and reduce the competition. In such a situation where so many consumers are willing to get a commodity, its price can be used to turn some of the buyers away. Merits of Using Alternative Methods to allocate tickets The method the organizers used to allocate tickets was highly criticized. The people complained on the constraints that they encountered as they were purchasing the tickets claiming that a better method such as the use of a ballot could have been better in doing the same.

However, in defense the event manager claimed that they saw it important to make the people who really needed the tickets to work for that. It was evident that so many people wanted to attend the event and so they had to improvise a way of making some miss. So they opted for the first come first serve mechanism. They also limited the re-sale of tickets a condition that really inconvenienced people. There are merits of using alternative methods which include fairness. Once a ballot is used, the computer will randomly select the number of desired lucky winners and since the practice will be fair no one will be able to complain.

This may be one of the changes that the organizers may put in place in the coming events to avoid the complaints coming their way which could taint the image of the ticket selling procedure and hence drop the sales. The Impact of Limiting the Re-sale of Tickets The tickets that one was given had the image of the passport photo submitted embedded upon it and with the measures taken to avoid re-sale of the tickets this was made almost impossible. This had a positive impact on the organizers and a negative impact on the people who wanted to trade in the tickets.

It’s common in such event for people to purchase tickets in large numbers then keep them until the sellers are out of stock. Once the producers are out of stock they dictate their price and sell at a higher cost and hence make a profit out of it. To maintain the integrity of the event, the organizers ensured that the tickets issued could not be resold easily and hence the process was quick and highly efficient. This method has been employed by various event holders to prevent confusion and chaos that follow once the tickets are being resold.

Extortion is also common as the secondary sellers can dictate the price of the commodities they are selling (Glaeser & Luttner, 2003). Factors that would determine the Size of any Allocative Inefficiency caused by Limiting Re-sale of Tickets The maximum number of tickets that one registered user could get was six. This means that after the organizers limited the re-sale it would prove quite tricky for some people who were aiming at selling some of their tickets and some of their money would end up having been lost.

In such a case, if the organizers know that re-sale won’t be allowed they should make sure that they limit the number of tickets one has to buy. It is not in order for a person to buy six tickets then have them spoilt since the re-sale has been blocked. Conclusion The record sale of the tickets at the Glastonbury was a result of good marketing strategies and analyzing the market to know how such an event should be held. Since the organizers were aware that many people would turn up during the day when the tickets are being purchased, they ensured that registration is done earlier and people allocated with numbers that they would use to purchase the tickets.

The inclusion of passport photos limited the re-sale of tickets while the first come first serve method ensured that the process was completed in the shortest time possible. The cost of one ticket was £215 which is quite low. Bibliography Begg, D., Vernasca, G., Fischer, S., and Dornbusch, R. (2001). Economics. 10th Edition, McGraw Hill. Besanko, D. and Braeutigam, R. (2013). Microeconomics, 5th Edition. Wiley. Glaeser, E. and Luttner, E. (2003). The Misallocation of Housing under Rent Control, American Economic Review, 93(4).

The Sloman Economics News Site. (n.d). The Annual Autumn Scrabble for Glastonbury Tickets. Available at.