The venue gets paid regardless
it's the artist or, more likely, the promoter that takes the risk. If the show is good then reselling tickets should be easy, if it's shit, they would lose out anyway.

Personally I think if you went to the ticket agents, say, 3 weeks before the show they should give you a refund, i'd be prepared to agree that they could keep any booking fees you had paid. Then actual fans would be able to purchase the tickets.

I've not worked out all possible problems with my plan, but in principle, allowing refunds would cut down on a lot of touting.
(Bazongaloid, Sun 17 May 2009, 14:36, archived)