Chapter 3355: Eradicating Scalpers

The next day, Ye Chen, Xiao Churan, and Dong Ruolin, following the original plan, took a flight back to Jin Ling.

Ye Chen had specially arranged to meet He Yuanjiang and Han Meiqing, wanting to discuss the Tavana concert with them in person the next day.

After sending Xiao Churan home, he made the excuse that Master Hong Wu had something for him, left the house, and went to Tianxiang Mansion.

He Yuanjiang and Han Meiqing were already waiting there.

Master Hong Wu waited at the door; when Ye Chen arrived, he personally escorted him to the Diamond Private Room, then said: "Mr. Ye, I'll have someone bring the cold dishes first—you and Professor He, Professor Han, can chat in the meantime."

"Alright." Ye Chen nodded and greeted He Yuanjiang and Han Meiqing: "Uncle He, Aunt Han."

He Yuanjiang laughed and said: "Ye Chen, you just got back from Japan and already arranged to meet us—what's so urgent?"

Ye Chen said: "There are two things I want to discuss with you both. First, I met Miss Fee in Tokyo this time, and she gave some suggestions on future car models for Changying Automobile. She thinks we're best suited to use this for our first car model, which should be positioned as a neutral mid-to-large sports sedan. I don't know what you two think?"

Han Meiqing laughed: "I don't know much about cars, but Yuanjiang seems to have the same idea."

"Exactly." He Yuanjiang nodded: "We brought over Gao Heng's car models, but they're all rather unconventional crossover vehicles. After discussion, everyone felt those crossover models don't suit Changying Automobile's positioning and planning, so we currently have three prototype designs in development: one is a five-seat family SUV, one is a six- to seven-seat SUV, and the other is the mid-to-large sports sedan you mentioned. Moreover, we are indeed preparing to launch the sports sedan first, with the SUV models as our second and third vehicle types."

Ye Chen laughed: "That basically aligns with Miss Fee's view, though I'm a bit worried our positioning might directly compete with the currently hot Leimi Automobile."

"It will." He Yuanjiang said: "We currently treat Leimi Automobile as our primary competitor. Leimi Automobile has many aspects worth referencing and learning from, but we will still pursue differentiated competition on the same positioning basis. Leimi Automobile's total investment is roughly 20% of ours, which means we can use better, higher-end manufacturing equipment without increasing material costs, thereby boosting our overall competitiveness. Besides, Leimi Automobile's production capacity is a major bottleneck for their development—current delivery cycles are already approaching half a year, and if new models launch, delivery times will only get longer. This is an area where we can outperform them."

Continuing, He Yuanjiang analyzed: "Besides, we also have a major trump card: AI. Our AI computing power is absolutely the highest among all vehicle lineups worldwide—even if you added theirs all together, they still couldn't match ours. This means if our vehicles connect to our AI model, each vehicle would receive far more computing power than the current peak of automotive terminal computing power. So we have a chance to build the best intelligent driving system, and by then, our overall competitiveness will have solid support."

"Good." Ye Chen said satisfiedly: "Since you already have everything figured out, let's move on to the second matter."

Speaking, Ye Chen sold a mystery and asked them: "I don't know if you two have any understanding of Tavana·Svet?"

Han Meiqing laughed: "That big star, right? The famous singer—she's very popular, and I sometimes enjoy listening to her songs."

He Yuanjiang said: "I don't listen to her much, but Zhīqiū used to like her a lot, and I passively listened to some through her."

Ye Chen laughed: "The matter I want to discuss with you two next is how to let Changying Automobile undertake hosting twenty Tavana solo concerts in Huaxia."

"Twenty?!" He Yuanjiang, with an economics background, was shocked upon hearing this number and said: "I've seen some financial articles before that analyzed the economic benefits of Tavana's few concerts in Singapore. When I saw the specific data, I was utterly amazed—her performances are no longer just about ticket sales, advertising, venue, and catering; they can drive massive fan movements, with fans traveling tens of thousands of miles just to attend a concert lasting a few hours, bringing huge consumption in transportation, accommodation, dining, and shopping. If she holds twenty concerts in Huaxia, it would greatly boost our domestic economy."

After speaking, he couldn't help but ask Ye Chen: "I seem to have heard this singer hasn't held any concerts in Huaxia yet, and Changying Automobile isn't a professional event organizer—do we have the ability to invite her over?"

Ye Chen laughed: "I've already reached an agreement with her and her management company—over the next few years, she will at least perform 50 concerts for me satisfactorily. But I don't plan to hold all 50 consecutively; this year we'll start with twenty to test the waters."

He Yuanjiang exclaimed delightedly: "That's incredibly impressive! Twenty concerts—we won't even discuss how much economic benefit they could generate; just the advertising effect alone is unmatched!"

"Exactly." Ye Chen nodded: "These twenty concerts will be exclusively hosted and sponsored by Changying Automobile—I mean, we might as well not sell any other ads, using all advertising slots solely to display Changying Automobile's brand name and logo."

He Yuanjiang said: "In that case, wouldn't we lose a lot of advertising revenue invisibly? If her performance fee is too high, losing this income might mean we can't recover costs?"

"No problem." Ye Chen smiled: "These twenty concerts won't charge us any fees, so we only need to cover venue costs. For a star of her stature, we don't even need to spend a penny on promotion—once officially announced, once she officially announces she's coming to hold these twenty concerts, all domestic media will take turns reporting, and it'll be on front-page headlines."

He Yuanjiang exclaimed excitedly: "That's truly fantastic! Only top-tier star concerts have such terrifying long-tail effects—classic concerts are still talked about years later, which means our advertising effect will continue to extend with the concert's long tail."

Han Meiqing, standing nearby, thought for a moment and said: "If Changying Automobile undertakes these performances, we first need a full set of performance organizing qualifications—from performance application approval onward, we must ensure all qualifications are complete. Requirements for foreign performers' performances are actually stricter, and frankly, we currently don't possess them."

Ye Chen said: "This should be something Aunt Han excels at—what do you think we should do?"

Han Meiqing said: "The simplest solution is to buy a company with full qualifications. After acquiring it, regardless of its name, we can rename it to Changying Automobile Performance Agency Limited Company Cultural Communication Limited Company. Finding a suitable one should allow us to complete the change and renaming procedures quickly."

"Good." Ye Chen said: "Then let's just buy an existing one."

He Yuanjiang pondered and said: "If we undertake the performance organization, should we partner with a platform for ticketing?"

Ye Chen waved his hand: "I don't trust any domestic performance ticketing platform—I worry they'll be motivated by profit and become official scalpers."

He Yuanjiang asked: "You mean we should handle ticketing ourselves?"

"Exactly." Ye Chen said: "Before coming, I thought about it—the biggest challenge for this performance should be ticketing. For someone like Tavana, an international superstar, all procedural approvals for the performance will definitely pose no problem. Huaxia is now strongly supporting international stars performing domestically. As for the venue, there's no need to worry—these years, Huaxia's economy has developed rapidly, the domestic performance market is thriving, and second-tier and above cities all have performance venues with excellent hardware. Conditions are met, and Tavana's team brings their own required stage visuals and sound systems, so all hardware issues can be set aside."

"I don't make money from performances, so I hope the ticketing process involves no favoritism or fraud—it must be fair, fair, and fair again. We must not only implement real-name ticket sales fairly, but also conduct real-name entry checks strictly, to the point where even if someone buys a two-thousand-yuan ticket, someone wanting to spend twenty thousand or even two million to buy it up can't gain entry with the ticket."

Ye Chen said at this point, then added: "Since we want to ensure absolute fairness and justice, I lean toward us handling ticketing ourselves—we can develop a software or a mini-program to carry the ticket sales."

He Yuanjiang said: "Such ticketing software might face high instantaneous traffic demands—it's very likely that when tickets go on sale, millions worldwide will rush in simultaneously to grab tickets. If we develop the software or mini-program temporarily now, wanting to handle such massive instantaneous traffic while ensuring no issues, it could be very difficult."

Han Meiqing, standing nearby, said: "Even if we handle ticketing officially and implement real-name sales, we still need to worry about one thing: technical scalpers."

"When I previously studied some domestic new-type case files, I saw cases about technical scalpers. These technical scalpers target-specifically develop ticket-grabbing software. Some viewers who don't have time to grab tickets or fear they won't succeed hand over their personal information to them, who then input it into the software to grab tickets on their behalf. This greatly boosts their ticket-grabbing success rate, and they usually charge extremely high fees in advance. After such tickets are sold, they are still real-name purchased and real-name entered, but scalpers remain inside, earning large amounts of illicit profits and severely damaging other viewers' legitimate rights and interests."