Sarah Barron | Contributing Writer
This year’s Trinity Ball looks set to be the fastest selling on record. With its relatively high price of €80 and the Irish economy still not back in optimal shape, one might wonder how almost 7000 €80 tickets could have been sold in one day to frugal college students. Maybe Ellie Goulding and The Vaccines have a disproportionally high fan base among Trinity students and this could thus explain the near instantaneous sell out of this year’s ball. I, however, doubt this and think that the explanation lies elsewhere.
Trinity Ents seems to enjoy creating the “hype” – a concept that consists of the over-promotion and publicity of an event. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of said event and so an increased demand for it.
Students queue for T-Ball tickets. By lunchtime yesterday, more than half off the Ball tickets had been sold. Photo: Owen Bennett
“The 2013 Trinity Ball will be taking place on Friday the 5th of April. This year promises to be the biggest Ball in the event’s history with an eclectic array of artists and entertainment to suit a wide spectrum of tastes.”
With its hyperbolic tone, the introduction of the Trinity Ball’s Facebook event description screams of the hype. Other social networks such as Twitter are also strategically used by Trinity Ents in order for Trinity Ball to gain even more hype and so rush students to get a Trinity Ball ticket before it’s too late. With every Trinity Ball claiming to be better than the previous one where does the hype stop? Or can it ever stop?
It seems that the Trinity Ball hype and its almost immediate sell-out have some common characteristics to economic bubbles. Has this phenomenon created a bubble?
Let’s start from the basics. An economic bubble is the trade of a product at a higher price than its face value. The reasons behind the overvaluation of the product differ from bubble to bubble. The common thread to every economic bubble however is that there comes a point where the bubble abruptly bursts and prices collapse.
The first bubble to ever be recorded was the Tulip Mania of the 1630s in the Netherlands. Tulip bulb prices swelled to remarkable heights and became the fourth leading export product of the Netherlands which contributed to high economic growth for the country. Everyone started to speculate, selling all of their assets to buy tulip bulbs, convinced that their prices would rise and that they would be able to sell them for a premium. Some even exchanged tulip bulbs for their house, thinking that even one flower had a higher value than their property. The sustained demand for tulip bulbs fueled the increase in their prices and in one month the tulip bulb saw a twenty-fold increase in value. The bubble eventually popped and plunged the Dutch economy into a deep recession.
One might wonder how the creation of hype can lead to an economic bubble. Especially in the case of Trinity Ball tickets where tickets can only be bought for €80 and there is a strict limit of two tickets per person. In this case the bubble may be constrained, but we can still observe the main characteristics of the classic model.
Because of the hype, time had a higher cost than usual. As the Trinity Ball ticket cost is fixed, in our bubble situation it is time that is over-valued and thus has a higher cost. The longer students waited to buy a Trinity Ball ticket, the higher the cost they would bear because of the threat of not getting a ticket. Although there was as many tickets as previous years, the hype phenomenon changed the value of time and this is what explains the record sell out.
In a more standard bubble approach there is also the possibility that the believers in the hype will buy more tickets than needed and start speculating. Indeed in Trinity, as in the Tulip Mania, they are convinced that they will be able to re-sell their tickets for a premium. However if everyone believed in the hype and bought extra tickets for resale, the supply will eventually exceed demand thus lower prices. The sellers might even get less than face value for their tickets. The bubble will have exploded.
In an economy like ours, why are we not weary of such bubbles, or in this case such hype?
Maybe the “hype” is an intrinsic part of the Ball, and the mystique of going through the Front Gate on April 5th would be lost without it. But in thinking twice, maybe we will realise what we are actually paying for, and at least it’s not tulips.
Disclaimer: I know that it is Trinity Ents job to promote their events and this article is in no way a criticism of how they are doing things. The hype phenomenon has served them well, hence this article. I just thought it would be interesting to apply my economic knowledge to the event I’m looking forward to the most this year (#hype).
