After countless attempts to get verified fan presale codes, you have been put on the dreaded Ticketmaster waitlist. By the time you get off of the waitlist, everything is sold out. But, still committed, you plan to get tickets, so how should you find them?
My first tip is to always check Ticketmaster first. This is the official ticketing platform for almost any major artist. Depending on the artist, you’ll be able to find tickets at its original ticket prices or resold tickets. However, if the majority of seats are overpriced for their location, like $1,000 for obstructed seating, or if tickets are all sold out, the next step is to check third-party websites.
If an artist doesn’t use Ticketmaster, use its ticketing equivalent.
I have personally used Ticketmaster’s verified resale tickets for a concert days before it started in the summer. There were many available seats left. However, you should always stay vigilant for scams.
StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats are some of the few third-party ticketing sites that are mostly reliable. Always verify the validity of tickets and value of overpriced seating. Resellers on websites attempt to get as much money as possible, so back row behind the stage seating can cost as much as $1,000, or even $10,000 for front row seats.
If you’d like to try your luck, you can plan for a concert date ahead of time and try to get tickets as close to the concert dates as possible. Either one of two things may happen: the artist chooses to add more tickets or resellers lower their prices.
Some artists with heavily anticipated and sold-out concerts will release brand new tickets via Ticketmaster a few days prior to their concerts. These tickets will go very low in price, so always check.
Another option is to wait for the resellers. Their $1,000 concert tickets go down fast in the hours ticking down to the start of the show. Some daring fans wait until a few minutes prior to the show or even after the show starts to buy tickets, as they can go down to a couple hundred dollars.
A last resort for tickets is to buy at the stadium’s box office in person. Depending on availability and how early you get there, the line will most likely be long, so prepare yourself for the worst case scenario where there are no available tickets.
