author | Weinika
editor | Li Chunhui
"Why don't you come to me, VIP is 30% off, just over 300!" Mr. Hard Candy shared in the circle of friends that he was going to a certain idol concert, but he didn't want to attract a scalper. enthusiastic comments and told his story endlessly.
Brother A, the scalper who I haven’t contacted for a long time, may have forgotten that Mr. Hard Candy is not his target customer. We are just a coder who collects information. But hearing what he said aroused Hard Candy Jun's curiosity - is it that our idols are too mushy, or is the overall market this year poor?
"They are all bad, don't mention it." Brother A, who was originally persuading Mr. Hard Candy to take care of his business, suddenly changed the topic and talked about his history of losing money in 2024: "Who would have thought that a singer of the king level would lose money! After working hard for half a year , I didn’t even make a living. Can you imagine what it would be like to make an order worth hundreds of thousands, and only make 200 yuan? If you don’t make money this year, everything will be fine.”
I didn’t know what to do for a while. The Hard Candy guy who replied remembered that he had indeed seen a few days ago that many of 's popular sold-out concerts were reported to have low attendance. For example, Deng Ziqi's concert in Changsha was accused of having a high vacancy rate in a certain area. Zhao Lei even complained at the Jinan concert: "There were only a few people sitting, but the tickets were indeed gone."
This is just a physical sensation. Data from the ticketing platform Ferris Wheel shows that the number of music festivals and box office have declined in 2024. There are 142 music festival projects online in the first four months of 2024, and ticket sales have dropped by 20% compared to the same period last year.
Unsold tickets, empty seats, canceled music festivals, the bitter tears of scalpers reflect the new normal of the performance market in 2024.
html In the era of top 6 real-name names, where did the "votes" come from? The
concert has entered the era of strong real-name recognition, and two public opinion factions with opposing views have gradually formed. The
faction is an absolute supporter of strong real-name laws. They regard strong real-name laws as the gospel of the new era, and label opponents as "scalper parties" and "conniving criminals" who want to buy scalper votes. The other group are those who question the strong real name. They believe that the trouble and cost to individuals will be far greater than before. The original intention of
's "strong real-name" initiative was to combat ticket scalpers. For ordinary viewers, this is naturally a good thing. But more than half a year into the strong real-name era, have scalpers really been eradicated? Now that things have happened, the "Emperor's New Clothes" that enforces real names should be torn off. Naturally, the scalping tickets have not disappeared. There are many viewers on the Internet showing off their scalping tickets.
In fact, "strong real-name" does not prevent the main scalpers from cooperating directly with the organizers. According to Brother A, in an era when real names are not enforced, they can act as loose cattle and spontaneously grab tickets and resell them. But in the era of strong real-name recognition, the safest way is to find connections with the organizers to get tickets. In other words, those who enforce real names will be kicked out of the company without any interests, and those with connections will be left behind.
For the experts, the change brought about by strong real-name is that the ticket selling process has become more electronic. Now it is only used to enter information and issue electronic tickets. All of this is operated under a confidentiality agreement and is kept secret. You can also say that "ticket scalpers" no longer exist. However, the Internet is now full of scammers who record information. The audience is placed in a situation where the information is very unequal, and it is difficult to distinguish between true and false.
Therefore, if there is a problem with private account scalpers, it will be difficult for fans to hold them accountable and defend their rights. Platforms such as Ferris Wheel and Piao Niu also have local complaints and will handle complaints and compensation from some users. For example, in the case of "wrong tickets" for Deng Ziqi's Changsha concert, many fans bought e-tickets with information other than their own ID cards on the platform and were ultimately unable to enter the concert, but they were partially compensated.
In fact, "wrong votes" are also a new way for loose cattle to come back to life. Sanniu uses other people's identity information to buy tickets, betting that local concerts will implement a loose "real-name system" policy so that audiences who buy tickets from other than their own scalpers can also sneak in.
But if you encounter a more strict place, you will suffer heavy losses. For example, the city of Changsha, which brought down a group of real estate speculators, has recently allowed fans of Deng Ziqi to see the "selfless" approach of enforcing real names.In April, the ticket checkpoint for Deng Ziqi's Changsha concert did not allow any audience with "wrong tickets" to enter the venue. The police even dispatched police to arrest two scalpers who sold "wrong tickets" and incited people to rush through the security check. Netizens jokingly called it "a start" Kill the Cow” first shot.
With Changsha as a comparison, many netizens complained that the "strong real-name" in other places was in vain, which led to the current popularity of "wrong votes" and gave Sanniu a chance to be reborn.
But on the other hand, from a pure market perspective, more relaxed and convenient admission policies, allowing ticket refunds, ticket transfers and other services have indeed greatly affected people's decision-making to watch performances. Strong real-name support must be accompanied by a high-threshold refund and transfer system. Online shopping can be returned and exchanged within seven days without any reason. For a performance that is likely to be held in seventy days, who can guarantee tickets?
The strong real-name system is a countermeasure to the sky-high price scalping of tickets for super popular concerts such as Jay Chou and Mayday, and cannot be adapted to all performance situations. But how to implement hierarchical processing of strong real-names seems to be difficult - first of all, you have to admit that your tickets are not that easy to sell, who would be embarrassed by this!
Everyone calls scalpers, do you think you are the most unjust?
Scalpers are engaged in speculative business. Even if they lose money, it is not worth making a fuss about. But Brother A reminded Mr. Hard Candy, don’t forget, scalpers are only a part of the market. They are not the ones causing fans to be unable to buy tickets and the concert vacancy rate to be high.
The tickets obtained by the scalpers also have a purchase price. The purchase price is determined by relevant personnel of the organizer. The purchase price determines the price scalpers sell to the market. So when we see the sky-high price of scalper tickets on the market, we can’t blame the scalper’s premium entirely. It’s also expensive for others to purchase.
This is why Brother A still loses money during his concert as a king singer. It’s not that the fans are weak and the King has passed away, but that after the price increases, the fans are also deterred. Fans who accept the premium also have a psychological limit and cannot cut without limit.
Last year, the performance market experienced a year of retaliatory consumption. The fanaticism of the audience also gave the upstream a wrong perception: they believed that the market had inexhaustible demand and endless leeks. Singers, venues, equipment and other aspects have begun to ask for sky-high prices, and the organizer's concert costs are rising . The highest cost among them is of course artist fees. Even the strong real-name system also brings additional manpower, equipment, technical transformation and sales costs. After
increased prices step by step, scalpers were the first to sense that the market had changed. But scalpers are only end-sellers and cannot allow upstream prices to be reduced. He could only suffer a dumb loss, lose money in business and bear the greatest infamy. In addition to scalpers losing money, there are also fans who complain about being charged high fees for refunding tickets or being unable to refund tickets.
According to statistics from the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission, a total of 9,208 cultural ticketing complaints were received in the first half of 2023. A high proportion of complaints were caused by the inability to refund or transfer tickets after real-name ticket purchases. The "2023 China Performance Consumer Insight Report" released by "China Consumer News" and Analysys Consulting also shows that about 40% of consumers encounter difficulties in purchasing tickets and cannot return or transfer tickets. A more complete refund and change solution is performance consumption the main demands of the people.
I don’t know since when, fans from all over the world have been comparing “sold out in seconds”, as if whoever doesn’t “sell out in seconds” is outdated. If Hard Candy accidentally mentions that there are surplus tickets for a certain concert, he will immediately be chased and accused of spreading rumors. Talking about the sales of singers is the biggest public relations taboo on all ticket sales platforms.
In fact, before about 2017, it was normal for big-name singers’ concert tickets to be sold out within a month or two. At that time, many big-name singers who marketed "sold out in seconds" were overturned. For example, Faye Wong's "Fantasy Music" Shanghai concert in 2016 went from the sales myth of "sold out in seconds" to the inside joke of selling at a low price.
Everyone is just pretending to be confused as to who has the "sold out in seconds" tickets. Just like it is not difficult to deal with scalpers without causing trouble to the audience.
First, the ticket purchase process is transparent, and viewers can choose seats and constituencies. Just like grabbing tickets for a film festival, the audience can see how many seats are unavailable for sale. Once the tickets are issued, the seats will be locked when they click on them.The film festival is provided for insiders and guests to watch movies, and the concert is provided for firefighting, public security, culture, etc. In this way, the flow of scalper tickets is clear at a glance.
The second is to establish a guaranteed original-price ticket transfer platform to facilitate users who are temporarily unable to go to the original price to transfer tickets, provide opportunities for viewers who have not grabbed tickets, and also play a role in combating premium ticket scalpers.
These simple principles and methods are not unexpected by the organizers, but they cannot be used, right?
Nowadays, the singers who are making money from scalpers are all unexpected.
Not only Brother A, but also his group of scalpers who are losing money have said that they will never touch the concerts of king singers and first-line singers again. The purchasing price of the kings is too high, and they will lose money if they fail. Brother A's top-tier singer list this year only earned 200 yuan for his best performance. Nowadays, scalpers are more inclined to explore subdivisions where the market is not yet saturated, such as two-dimensional, folk singers, etc. Data from the
ticketing platform also shows that tickets in this segment are hot this year, especially for Japanese artists related to the second dimension. Take the recent "Dream Future Senju Music Festival" held in Hangzhou as an example. On May 4, there was Japanese two-dimensional singer yoasobi, and the sales volume significantly exceeded other dates.
The number of Japanese artists visiting China has increased significantly this year, and they are especially popular in Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region where there is a strong two-dimensional atmosphere. However, some singers who are hard to find tickets for in Shanghai will inevitably encounter discount sales in Chengdu and other places.
Among domestic singers, the prosperity index mainly depends on the previous scarcity of supply and the current popularity of short videos. For example, Xu Song and Wang Sulong, two of the three giants of QQ Music, did not hold many concerts before the epidemic. Xu Song has only held 7 concerts before 2022, and his songs are very popular on short videos. "If Then" has 2 million users on Douyin. It is not difficult to predict that the momentum of his concert will be strong.
It can be said that today, not only the Chinese music scene has the surname "Dou", but also the performance sales depends on "Dou". Douyin has "crossed" a group of unexpectedly popular singers, including Joker Xue, Zhao Lei, and Phoenix Legend.
Joker Xue's career improved in 2016 because of "Actor", but he only had two tours from 2017 to 2019, and the market was not saturated. In 2019, Xue Zhiqian began to become popular with his funny style on Douyin. His personal Douyin topic views reached 84.9 billion. Among Chinese singers, his traffic volume is second only to Jay Chou.
But after wearing masks for three years, Xue Zhiqian’s tour was postponed. It was not until 2023 that Joker Xue officially began to harvest his traffic fans, holding a total of 75 concerts, becoming the singer with the most concerts in 2023. Until this year, Xue Zhiqian's tour has not yet ended, but he can still sell out every venue and command a premium, which is even better than the kings of Hong Kong and Taiwan singers.
Zhao Lei also has a similar growth trajectory. In 2016, he became known to the world because of the song "Chengdu". He held some tours in 2017 and 2018, but the results were not good and they were often canceled due to "force majeure".
But in the past two or three years, Zhao Lei’s songs have become popular on short videos and are often used as video BGM by Internet celebrities. The number of Douyin users of "I Remember" reached 3.81 million, which is similar to Jay Chou's hit song "Daoxiang". Therefore, this year, Zhao Lei held a concert with thousands of people, and the sales were so great that scalpers were shocked.
Short video BGM giant Phoenix Legend recently held a concert at the Bird's Nest with 100,000 people, and it was all sold out. Short video data is the most accurate indicator of the performance market. Singers who have emerged from Douyin and become famous in recent years, especially those who have not held many large-scale concerts before, have exceeded expectations.
But not all singers on Douyin are "du". For example, even though Xu Jiaying and Guo Jing’s songs became popular on Douyin, their concerts were still not sold out. Because the videos that are popular on Douyin are all DJ variations, which have nothing to do with their original songs.
Looking back, today's Chinese music scene and performance market are really weird. Old drivers like scalpers are overturning their business frequently. All we can do is hold our purse strings tightly and consume rationally.
