Comment by tomhow

> the existence of a second hand market with much high prices clearly means you aren't pricing tickets correctly

Only if you think spending power is the only criterion that matters when considering who you want coming to the event, and my whole point is that this is not (always) true, given that audience demographics influence the experience and the quality of the performance.

> everything Ive read already suggests that audience makeups are changing at music festivals as more tickets are bought second hand at these considerable markups

For some events, sure, like Coachella and concerts promoted by Live Nation, whose approach is to maximize ticket revenues and who are able to take a cut of the resale price via Ticketmaster's official resale marketplace (though, as I explained in the first comment, this can damage the experience and destroy the brand value of the festival over the long term, as happened in Australia).

Other festivals, like Glastonbury, actively eschew this approach, and have remained relevant and youth-oriented for five decades now.

And the very reason we're having this conversation is that some artists want to reserve at least some of their tickets for buyers who can be qualified more by authentic enthusiasm than spending power, with listening time on Spotify being an interesting proxy for authentic enthusiasm.