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An economic guide to ticket pricing in the entertainment industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Pascal Courty
Pascal Courty*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, London Business School
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Summary

This paper reviews the literature on ticket pricing in the entertainment industry. All along, I try to evaluate whether ticket markets outcomes are consistent with theoretical predictions. Overall, the literature provides a good understanding for observed variations in ticket prices. The literature, however, fails to explain situations where prices do not vary. We have but a poor understanding for why prices often do not vary over the run of a show, why more popular shows do not charge more and why most venues are scaled in just a few sections. I also review the empirical literature of price discrimination in ticket markets. By contrasting the theoretical and the empirical literatures, the paper identifies a set of promising directions for future research.

Résumé

Résumé

Mon article étudie la littérature portant sur le prix des billets dans le secteur des spectacles. Son objectif est de voir si les prédictions théoriques sont confirmées empiriquement. Dans l’ensemble, la littérature théorique fournit une bonne explication des différences de prix. Par contre, elle échoue à expliquer certaines situations d’absence de variations des prix. En particulier, les faits suivants restent peu compris : que les prix ne changent pas durant le cycle de vie des spectacles, qu’ils n’augmentent pas en cas de succès et qu’il y ait si peu de types de prix différents pour un même spectacle. J’examine également la littérature en matière de discrimination des prix dans le secteur des spectacles. Finalement, quelques pistes de recherches prometteuses sont suggérées.

Keywords

Ticket MarketsPrice DiscriminationPrice CompressionD4L82Z1D4L82Z1
Type
Research Article
Information
Recherches Économiques de Louvain/ Louvain Economic Review , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , 2000 , pp. 167 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2000 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Gurdeep Stephens, Victor Ginsburgh and two anonymous referees. All errors are my responsibility.

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