Event Tickets 101
There are two main types of ticket sellers: Primary ticket sellers and secondary ticket sellers. To understand the marketplace, you need to understand the differences between the two. We define the two categories below, then provide a few tips.
Primary Ticket Sellers
Primary ticket sellers are typically the first place where tickets are listed for sale. These include places like the box office the venue where the event is being held, directly through the team or artist, or a place like Ticketmaster. When you purchase through a primary ticket seller, you will only pay face value for the ticket (i.e., the ticket price will not be marked up or down from the face value). You may also be required to pay service charges and other fees, but these are not part of the actual ticket price.
For example, Ticketmaster tacks on additional fees such as "convenience charges" and "order processing charges". Unfortunately, you often don't have many options when buying tickets in the primary ticket marketplace, so you have to pay these fees whether you like it or not.
Secondary Ticket Sellers
Secondary tickets are tickets that have been received through a primary ticket channel (box office, direcly from the team or artist, ticketmaster, etc.) and are being re-sold by the holder of the tickets. Before the Internet became a medium for buying and selling event tickets, they were bought and sold through either professional ticket brokers or through ticket scalpers (typically outside of the venue where the event was being held). Now tickets are commonly exchanged online through a growing number of websites.
Perhaps the most well-known online marketplaces for secondary tickets is eBay. Others include StubHub, TicketsNow, Ticket Network, and RazorGator. CraigsLIst also serves as a channel for exchanging tickets, though there is no middleman (it is the equivalent to classifieds listings in the newspaper).
Unlike the old, pre-Internet days, buying tickets online today through the major online ticket reseller sites is safe and can be done from the comfort of your home.Companies like StubHub, TicketsNow, Ticket Network and RazorGator serve as middlemen and help protect you from any problems related to the purchase of event tickets. When you buy tickets in the secondary market, you often don't know much about the seller and whether or not he/she is legitimate and will follow through with the agreement. (Likewise, if you're selling tickets, you may not know much about the buyer.) By going through a third party, you are protected from fraud and scams, allowing you to purchase tickets from others without having to take on any risk.
eBay provides some protection, but not as much as you get from the companies that specialize in ticket reselling. We are aware of a few cases where either buyers never received their tickets or sellers never received their money, so make sure you learn about safe ways to buy on eBay.
A Few Tips for Puchasing Event Tickets:
Shop around.You'll often find big discrepancies between websites in terms of both prices of tickets and total fees. Once you find a pair of tickets that you wnat to buy, look to see if you can find similar tickets (same section, same row, etc.) on other sites. Also, once you've found tickets at different sites that you're considering buying, compare the final price of the tickets, including all fees. You may find that the more expensive tickets are the best overall value after factoring in the other charges.
Understand supply and demand. The online ticket marketplace functions a lot like the stock market. Prices of tickets are based on a combination of both the prices sellers demand for their tickets and the price buyers are willing to pay for those tickets. For events that are sold out, very popular, etc., tickets are obviously going to sell for a lot more than face value. Conversely, events that are not sold out and are not generating a lot of interest may sell for below face value, in which case you might be better off going through a ticket reseller than buying the tickets directly from the box office or primary seller at face value.
Check listings frequently. Some ticket resellers offer sellers different ways to sell their tickets, such as:
(1) fixed price model (seller sets a price and the tickets either sell at that price or don't sell),
(2) declining price model (seller sets an initial list price and a minimum price; the price drops periodically as the event date approaches
and stops dropping once it hits the minimum price that was set by the seller), and
(3) auction model (seller lists tickets and lets bidders determine the price).
If a seller is using a declining price model and the tickets go unsold for a period of time, the price will drop and continue to drop until either the minimum price is hit or the tickts are sold. A little patience could be to your advantage. And if a seller is using a fixed price model, the seller may lower the price as the event date approaches if he/she is concerned about their tickets going unsold. Again, a little patience could save you money.
Search primary ticket sellers for last-minute tickets. For some events, a small number of tickets will be released a few hours prior to the start of the event as tickets held by the venue/team/artist for VIPs and others will not be used. If you're lucky, you might find tickets on sale at face value through the primary ticket seller as they look to dump the extra tickets. In addition to checking online, be sure to call if a phone number is provided as we've found that sometimes last-minute tickets are only available through one channel (either online only or over the phone only, depending on the event).
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