'Must Have' Tips For Online Ticket Buying
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
Loonatixs.com
has 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.
