The Downlow on Buying and Selling Concert Tickets Online



Posted: Wednesday, March 01, 2006

by jared lock
TicketSpot

Buying concert tickets online isn’t scary. In fact, it’s as easy as visiting Google and typing in the event you are looking for and follow with the word “tickets". However, a couple of questions may come to mind when browsing for sports or concert tickets.

1. Why are tickets so expensive on the internet? On Ticketmaster the tickets are so much cheaper. Why should I pay twice as much for tickets?
2. Does the ticket broker website I am visiting really have this many tickets in their inventory?
3. How do I know the website I am visiting is offering the lowest prices on these tickets?

First, concert tickets are more expensive because you are not buying them off of the primary market but the secondary market. Brokers are buying the tickets before the fans can get them and selling them on the secondary market. The brokers make their money off of the arbitrage.

If you want decent seats to a hot event you are pretty much going to have to buy tickets through a broker. eBay has a decent inventory of tickets. Also, sites like http://www.ticketspot.com hundreds of thousands of tickets in their inventory which you can browse and purchase. Second, ticket broker websites don’t have the concert ticket inventory on hand that they are displaying on their website. Rather, they are displaying inventory from a central database of brokers which reads out on many brokerage websites. The websites mark up the tickets accordingly while acting as a “retailer" for the tickets.

Finally, the vast majority of the concert ticket brokerage websites have the exact same inventory. Because of this, the only decision you need to make is choosing which one to buy from. I recommend shopping around a couple of the websites to see what kind of markup they have on the tickets. Keep in mind, you are looking at the exact same pair of tickets, but the markup of the different websites is going to be different.



Jared Lock is the co-founder and webmaster at http://www.ticketspot.com and has written this short article detailing concepts around buying and selling concert tickets online after ticketsellers (like Ticketmaster) have sold out.

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