You're exactly right. Hype is created around the tickets. Tickets are held back by promoters and artists. The Tragically Hip loves to have the first five rows for fans only. All those things create hype and excitement around the ticket. The manager wants the artist to think the manager has sold out. If the artist is newer and the tickets aren't going quickly then the promoter has to do something with the tickets.
Quite often, secondary sale sites do not sell all the tickets. Sometimes the value of the tickets goes below the market face value. That's a consideration as well. The other thing is, in the case of The Tragically Hip, if you bought a ticket for $1,000, $2,000, that's a fairly high-priced item. If you get sick and can't go, what are you going to do? There's no recourse. There are many legitimate reasons somebody would not be able to go to a concert. Then what happens to those tickets? Do they go back to the venue, to the artist?