Rather than selling spots and risking getting scammed or missing a show run date while waiting around for a player to pay, we should be able to charge a higher entry fee into private shows ( $200,000 for example). That way if player a bit short on cash, we could host "open" private shows and thus give players the chance to enter less flooded shows.

 Update in Response to comments:

 I have not yet been scammed by anyone who offers to buy my private shows, but I have had them add last minute and I wasn't online to accept their animals, thus a show a was wasted and I had to refund money. I was thinking this might be a good idea for people who buy many private shows or spots, it might be easier than remembering to send which player the correct amount of money.

As for the open private shows, something like $25,000 could be charged. I'm not sure how people would respond to it and just how flooded it might get, but might work out for people who want to pay a higher premium for a slightly better probability of winning rather than a flooded Auto Show, yet not have to spend $300k-$3 million for spots or an entire show. Think of it as shows for the Middle Class, not the rich and can afford to buy whole private shows, but also not the poor who can only afford to enter $100 auto shows.

These open shows would work well for the opposite specie of your breed specialization. ie If you breed horses, your dog show could be an open private show.

Of course you could set limits too, say no more accepted after 20 entries.

As for the changing of the price. I actually messaged Sam a couple months ago about the error in being able to raise horse show tickets last minute, I believe she fixed this problem. For the shows, once you set a price, it shouldn't be able to be changed. I think its a rare occurance that oopsies would occur and you set the wrong price, if it does, just ask the person to send over the cash.

just ask for money upfront? or take the hit and not sell again to that person?

Commonly players wait to accept animals into shows until payment is received, so you may want to try that option. I'm not too keen on rising show prices personally because I do not see the need.

Personally I like the idea. It gets confusing for me trying to figure out how much to send when I enter more than two horses into several different private shows. That way if the show spot for one animal is $500k it would automatically take the $500k instead of me trying to keep up. 

Paints since 6-8-14

I both love and hate this idea.

I love it becuase yes it removes some of the confusion, amd makes sure that people are paying. No more chasing people up. AND would make it easier when I have people that just drop out and dont want spots anymore.

I hate it becuase i feel like this might open it up for more players that havent been approved to enter the shows. Also If i was entering an "open" private show what is the guarentee that there would only be 10 or so animals entered into it. If Im paying a premium I dont just want an unflooded show, I want a Limited show with guarenteed High point gains.

But then if u are promised a certain price and then request and then the seller ups the price just cuz they can wouldnt be fair...i have heard this was done with the tickets....like it being set at a certain amount and then someone requests and then the seller scams the requestee by upping the price and then accepting...there needs to be a limit on how many times the prices can change...

^ But people can do that now if they really wanted to. They could refuse to accept someone's request until they agree to pay the higher price. As far as I know sellers just don't do that because it's rude and deceptive. And if anyone is actually raising ticket prices after agreeing to a price with a buyer, i'd like to think that these dishonest people are being reported to the mods/admins. I'm not sure what could be done exactly, but surely there's something the admins could do. While anyone is free to raise their prices (that's what we were given the option for), generally everyone knows that HP is a tight-knit, honest community, and that kind of dishonest behaviour is not okay. That's one thing I love about HP; scammers might be able to pull their crap on HL where the staff don't care and everyone has to fend for themselves, but Sam looks after us here, and instead of just saying "oh well, sucks to be you, learn from it and don't let it happen to you again", we are protected, and dishonest people are held accountable for their actions.

Back on topic.. I love this idea. Mostly because at the moment, show prices are kind of a redudant feature and it would be cool to give it some purpose.

I don't like this idea at all. Honestly I think if someone's not paying you for shows you've got a few options.

1. Stop selling to them all together & find someone else.

2a. Tell them that they need to pay before you accept. 

2b. You can also tell them that they owe you [blank] amount for previous shows & if they want to continue having your shows they need ot pay that amount whatever shows are weekly up front before you will continue accepting shows. If they don't, sell to someone else.

There's been a few issues over people entering shows lately the last thing we need is for people to be able to set the fee that much higher and charge people even more. I pay a lot of money weekly for shows, if someone wants to charge me more than the agreed upon price then I wouldn't buy shows from them again.

Not to mention Zad makes an excellent point on the fact that this could open up to players who haven't been approved for that show. While it would be nice to have the shows do something I don't think raising the prices is the way to go because of one or two players not paying. Just don't sell to them and find someone else. Most HP players are honest and fair and pay their bills from my experience.

I like this idea! If, like current public/private shows, you can't change the fee after you start the show, that would prevent scamming from happening.

That way if some folks want to continue buying classes then paying all at once, they can still do it that way. Win-win?

I honestly don't think we should change the way things are set up now.  What we have in place has been working since the beginning of HP.  If it ain't broke don't fix it type deal.  

Also - I think it might be more of a headache as currently once you set your show prices you cannot change them.  What happens if you put in a wrong price?  Either you or the show buyer would have to exchange money, which defeats the purpose of the feature.  We could possibly make the show price editable but that would lead to people being able to change it last minute (like Aza said with tix).  Now as mods/admins we can track when things like that happen, but it just creates a headache for all parties involved.

I vote keep it the same. ☺

yes, i vote to leave it the way it is! :D