I have 2 VIP floor tickets for Eminem and Jay-Z on Friday, 9/3 at Comerica Park that I want to sell. As far as I know the event is sold out. What is the best way to sell these? I had them posted on stub hub but the commission seemed very large and the prices kept dropping. The buy it now prices on ebay seem ridiculously high. I saw my exact tickets listed for $1,700 as a buy it now when they are $250x2 face value. would I have a better chance selling on ebay for a reasonable price/small profit?

Also I don't want to make it sound like every single transaction I am buying @ $11 ea and selling for $60 ea. I've definitely made some big scores on playoff games and a couple hot shows this year, but my average margin on tickets is 15-20% (still very good imo since my volume is pretty high).

Ebay is quickly dying as a ticket marketplace. For most events, 95% of the auctions will be for buy-it-now only. You will notice that most of these auctions are in the exact same template listing. There is one company that broadcasts our entire ticket inventory to ebay at a 20-25% markup (My stuff is on my website for wholesale, ticketnetwork and other broker sites for 20%, Stubhub for 10-15%, ebay for 25%).

This is because ebay+paypal+listing software fee is like 12%, plus I **HATE** dealing with ebayers. I would much rather sell a ticket for $90 on stubhub than $100 on ebay just because of the BS I have to deal with.

hmm, thanks for the response.

i do find it all pretty cool fwiw

OP, i have a row of tickets for a MLB game Saturday night. 14 in total, on the right field foul line 26 rows up. How would you go about getting maximum value for these tickets? Should I go downtown and try to sell them outside or StubHub/ebay?

Detroit Tigers vs Cleveland Indians 7:05PM

His goal is to convince you (falsely) that he's not gong to sell at the price you want in hopes you offer more.

Your goal (whether false or true) is to convince him you're not paying any more than that. I would have offered even less, btw.

The best advice I can give is be willing to stand around. When he sees you wait him out for 20-30 mins he'll realize you're not budging. If you can also try to buy tickets off non-pros walking by then you're now a pain in his butt as well (cutting him out) and it gives him more motivation to get you in the arena.

Tried this for a Rockies-Cubs game at Coors a couple weeks ago. Tickets were ranging from $40-60 right before the game so we stop in a bar and figure we'll try again after the 3rd inning and get in for $15-20. It was a super fast game and it was already the 5th inning when we tried to buy so we were just gonna pay a max of $10, but one of the scalpers was still trying to sell mediocre tickets for $60. Why wouldn't that guy just be in unload mode instead of eating all his tickets?

FWIW I agree with everything Edge has said ITT, and those of you that don't are ******ed.

This is probably the stupidest thing you've ever said. Basically you're saying there is a demand for 40 000 tickets, but **** all those people that want to pay face value, my crack team of people, and other crack teams of people (all with Zero interest in actually attending the event) are going to sell them to a different 40 000 people at an inflated price.

Yes, you're making money, it's not a service. What you and other ticket brokers are doing is a great disservice in fact.

Example. I live in Canada, the CFL is kinda a big deal here. Every Labour Day, the CFL has "Labour Day Classics" across the country. I live in Winnipeg and we play Saskatchewan every year.

Every year, either I or my wife, sits at the computer at 10am, happily trying to get tickets, but b/c or ******ed ticket brokers (and an otherwise high demand) they sell out in 5 ins every year. Only to go on sale on Stub Hub mins later. What service are you providing me here exactly?

FWIW, part of the problem is that Sask, is the only team in the league that uses Tickets.com to sell their tickets (and Tickets.com is LOL bad). But mostly it's brokers like you ****ing me.

Ugh. Why aren't you getting it? Lets put it this way:

There's 1000 tickets available.
The original ticket prices are $100.
10,000 people want to get into an event.
Of these, 9000 only want to go for the $100 price.
1000 people are willing to pay $1000, therefore the actual market value of the ticket is $1000.
If you are one of the 9000 you aren't "owed" the $100 price. What you should pay is the actual market value of the ticket - what people are willing to pay. What its actually worth.

If it didn't work this way, the only fair way to do it would be go into a lottery with the other 9999 people to see if you can buy it for $100. And obviously, the chances for you would be 1 in 10. Which is ******ed.

I understand the economics. But what you are saying is not exactly true.

So there are 1000 seats and 10 000 people 9000 of which are willing to pay higher then face value for their tickets.

So those 9000 people have a 1 in 9 chance of getting a seat at your new "fair market" value.

Yep, I rather take my 1 in 10 chance at the face valued ticket.

Now, the real problem, is I don't actually have a 1 in 10 chance, because I have to compete with OP's crack team of Ticketmaster "professionals" who can click 99% faster then me. Not to mention other brokers using software and w/e to steal tickets away from me even faster.

Honestly, I love paperless shows. I laughed so hard at OP's whole "what if little Suzy falls ill suddenly and can't make Hanna Montanna"

I would gladly take the risk of missing a show I paid face value for tickets to, then pay his ******ed inflated price.

As already indicated in the thread, the service he's providing is offering a chance to buy the ticket after the event is sold out. The event isn't sold out because of ticket brokers, it's because tickets' face values are so low, so that 150k people want 40k seats. Would you be happier if venues just charged $50 face value for tickets instead of $10 and there were no need for ticket brokers?

What you're trying, poorly, to complain about, poorly, is paying a fair price. All those extra people at their computers for a $10 ticket prevent you from seeing the show 90% of the time or whatever. You should be mad at the venues for enabling this, not the scalpers for selling tickets at a fair price.


OTP, maybe you should comment on wtf tickets are priced so low to begin with.

I realized after, you said only 1000 people are willing to pay the higher price, but my basic example still stands.

If his price is inflated, then noone would buy tickets from a scalper because it's a ripoff, right? If they're charging too much, they should all be out of business, then. Noone is holding a gun to your head and making you buy tickets above face value. Scalpers charge what they do b/c people will pay it, and if you don't want to, then you're SOL. Face value is not the correct price for a ticket anymore than a "retail value" $500 low-end suit is at Jos A. Bank when every other week they have a buy 1 get two free promotion or whatever.

The event is sold out, b/c he bought as many tickets as he possibly could.

It's not like he's waiting until the event is sold out, buying tickets people no longer need or can't use for w/e reason and then reselling them (b/c that would be an actual service).

He's just creating more competition when I try to buy my tickets initially.

Any chance you can score me a ticket for the Dallas Washington game on Sept 12 at Fed Ex Field? Looking for lower level seats but will accept uppers. Expect to pay above face but not going to pay 4-5x face like some people are asking for.

You're an idiot. His price is inflated b/c he is selling his tickets at more then what he paid for them. I didn't say anyone was holding a gun to my head, I have purchased tickets from broker sites in the past.

What I'm saying is, that he is my direct competition, not my service provider. His job is to buy the tickets faster then I can buy them for myself, and sell them to me at an inflated price. That's a terrible service.

I didn't say it wasn't a viable business venture. It obviously it or he wouldn't be doing it.

Just get down off you high horse and tell it like it is. You are not providing a service. You found a way to beat/cheat the system, and exploit people.

No, the event is sold out because too many people want to buy the tickets at face value. All the people like you sitting at the computer at 10am want the $50 ticket for $10. The scalpers also want the $50 ticket for $10. People who pay $10 and value it at $50 get $40 worth of extra enjoyment. Scalpers get $40 worth of profit. There's no economic difference. You should be most angry with people who only value the ticket at $25 and get one in the draw, because they only "profit" $15, wasting the other $25.

People who pay $10 for the ticket are exploiting the arena for not charging $50. Scalpers who charge $50 aren't exploiting anyone.

Uhh... the scalpers aren't turning that $40 of profit over to the arena, so yeah they are exploiting the arena just the same. As well as exploiting me.

But thanks for agreeing with my previous point;

Well, we got a lot farther in this thread than I thought before it turned into a bitchfest.

LOL, tonight friend calls me up and asks if I want to get pre-sale tickets ($50+10) with him to Arcade Fire at Shrine Auditorium in L.A. for Friday, Oct. 8. Tickets officially go on sale this Friday. I said yeah.

He got the tickets and the seats are probably in the bottom 30% of all possible--the place seats 6k. Could probably sell them at a profit though (we won't).

My biggest pet peeve:
People who are dead-wrong but are convinced they are right.

I'm going to return to the thread tomorrow morning and answer the rest of these questions, and will try to resist wasting more time on replies like this. Thanks to everyone for the discussion.

Only thing I got from this thread is that ticketmaster sucks, specifically in two ways:

1. "first come first serve" online selling benefits powerusers: you should get entered into a random place in line instead
2. New paperless ticket / "reselling fee" policy: instead, an auction system should be used to sell premium seats, with the proceeds benefiting the artist

A local radio station (kroq) releases a set of presale tix for the Arcade Fire tomorrow at 10am. Any chance these will be any better than the "late" amex tickets we got. Official onsale is Friday, but I'm guessing they won't have many left to sell

The band is preforming thurs and fri, and i imagine everyone wants fri. Latecomers will prob mainly get thurs tix.