Madonna, George Michael, New Kids on the Block, Janet Jackson.
Jay Z, Coldplay, Boy George, Celine Dion, Sarah McLachlan.
Nine Inch Nails, Hedley, Backstreet Boys, Cyndi Lauper.
Tom Petty, Tom Jones, One Republic, The Cure.
That’s just a partial list of the acts swinging their way through Vancouver this year. Some have come, some are coming, some are sold out.
Last weekend was the big Madonna on-sale. A fiasco that saw many people left with hanging browsers and disconnects and, ultimately, no tickets to the show.
CBC’s Marketplace had an interesing episode this weeked, where they revealed that ticket scalp.. err .. brokers .. screw that, ticket scalpers use automated programs to slam the on sale times and scoop the best tickets. You can see the episode streamed here.
In it, they interview Mario Livich a notorious Vancouver ticket scalper who gets his smug mug on the tube everytime a big show comes to town. He tries to legitimize the exhorbitant mark-ups by saying it’s “supply and demand.” He tries to say he offers a service to fans who need tickets at the last minute.
I’d argue he and his fanny pack and track pant styled brethren are creating an artificial lack of supply by snapping up hundreds, if not thousands of tickets and hoarding them with no intention of attending. If 15 000 people want to see the Dixie Chicks in Vancouver, but 12 000 tickets are sold to fans, and 3 000 are sold to scalpers, then 3 000 fans are being held for ransom. Yes, there’s a shortage of supply, because the scalpers, just like the Sheiks in Arabia, are sitting with their finger in the faucet.
Marketplace went on to list some methods you could use to get tickets for the next big show:
1. Register with the fan club. Some big bands want true fans to get first crack at tickets, and will offer pre-sales to registered members of their fan clubs.
2. Plan ahead. “Scalpers make money off the laziness of concertgoers, so know the ins and outs of the three main ticket-dispersal systems: online, phone, and in person. Bookmark the web page and familiarize yourself with its structure. Enter payment information ahead of time. Put the hotline on speed dial. Know where tickets are going on sale, and at what time. Know your payment options. The buyer’s name, shipping address, and billing address often have to match.
3. Take multiple routes. Get online at work with six of your friends. Get those same six friends on the phone to the ticket hotline. Recruit siblings and spouses to help.
4. Get e-savvy. When the Web floodgates open at 10:00 a.m. on a ticket sale day, hundreds of thousands of fans (and bots) rush the virtual door. The gatekeeper is a character recognition test designed to keep out automated ticket-buying programs. Problem is, everyone gets stuck in the bottleneck. Hit “refresh” in your browser when the word-test page lags. Enter the new word and hit “enter.” When the page freezes again, repeat until you get through.
5. Be patient. Sometimes promoters hold back blocks of tickets until close to the date of the performance. If you miss out during the rush, you may get lucky later. [source]
Tips 1 and 5 are the best. Madonna fans were given a unique code the week before the tickets went on sale with the chance to guarantee they could see Madge. Yes, some of the hardcore “fans” were selling those presale codes on Craigslist, but many used them and will be front and centre.
The last minute scramble is also a great way to get in. Yes, your heart will be racing as the day arrives, but often tickets are held back for family, friends, VIPs, and stage configuration. The seller can guess how the stage will fit once it’s loaded into an arena, but they won’t know for 100% certain.. so they give an extra wide berth and hold those tickets back. Usually, around noon on the day of a big concert, you could scoop one of a couple dozen tickets that will have you right upfront.
95Crave has at least 3 concert announcements to make this week and tickets for New Kids on the Block go on sale Monday at 10.
Good luck!
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The thing about pre-sales is that they are only for a certain sections of seats. For example, Beck just had a pre-sale, and like any other pre-sale I’ve ever dealt with, the tickets are for about rows…I dunno…25 to 30 or something like that. I got better seats buying when they went onsale. Lots of people I know have bought through pre-sale, and then people who don’t have gotten way better seats.
BUT, for something like Madonna, where you know it’s gonna sell out in 5 seconds, then ya…pre-sale does make sense.
Hey Buzz, nice post, with some good ideas in there on buying tickets.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the ticketing biz is changing very rapidly in recent months. For example, TicketMaster bought TicketsNow, a major ticket reselling site,
which caused the criminal element to flee in panic as TM would now have their info.
(TM previously brought suit against them)
>He tries to legitimize the exhorbitant mark-ups by saying it’s “supply and demand.”
Thing is, there is a legitimate need for a secondary ticket market - lots of people buy tickets months ahead or own unused season tickets they want to sell, etc.
As long as an open market exists, there will be speculators, and supply/demand will rule.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that speculators, aka scalpers, frequently misjudge demand, and they can and do lose lots of money since the tickets they risk holding become worthless. As you mention, though, smart buyers can exploit this weakness if they have the right information and tools. The ticket marketplace is becoming more like a stock market.
Check out this page: http://squidoo.com/best-concert-tickets
>creating an artificial lack of supply …If 15 000 people want to see the Dixie Chicks
Yeah, but they have no real way of knowing how many people want to see the show.
If only 1000 people really want to see the show, the speculators start panic selling the excess supply in the days before the show - that’s when you can get tickets for less than cost.
You can now use gruvr tickets to monitor the market for a specific show and get alerts based on PRICE. Tell it your email and name your price - then as sellers start dropping their prices it mails you notifications. There’s also a lot of info on price ranges and (soon) supply trend. This should be a serious weapon in the hands of smart ticket buyers - no other service supplies this to my knowledge.
I follow you on twitter, keep up the good work!
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