The Definitive Guide to Buying Concert Tickets

The Definite Guide to Buying Concert Tickets was created to help you increase your chances of landing tickets to your favorite artist or show. For popular artists, concert tickets selling out in minutes is common and you’ll need every advantage you can get. If you have any suggestions or tips, please send them to feedback [at] ticketstumbler [dot] com. Enjoy!

Things to Do Before the Tickets Go On Sale

Ticket Sale Information

The first thing you need to figure out is the concert’s ticket sales information. Questions include:

• -When do the tickets go on sale?
• -What venue is the artist playing at?
• -Is there a fan club password
• -Is there a public password?
• -Where and when are the tickets being sold?
• -What company is selling the tickets?

TicketStumbler freely publishes ticket onsales for any given day. The list aggregates Ticketmaster and Livenation ticket sales in a sortable fashion, but often doesn’t include less popular bands and venues. If you’re looking for specific tickets, it’s best to visit the band’s website, Ticketmaster or Livenation. A quick Google search usually does the trick. Although not every ticket sale has a presale password associated with it, obtaining a password for ticket sales that do will give you a significant advantage.

Ticket Presale Password Information

Ticket presales allow fans to purchase tickets for an artist before they go on sale to the general public. Often these can be obtained by belonging to the band’s fan club or through presale password sites. If the password is unique (one-time use) you’ll have to obtain it from the artist’s Fan Club or buy it from a marketplace like Ebay or Craigslist. If the password is generic (multiple use), it’s much easier to obtain. For more information about ticket presale passwords, read the presale password FAQ.

The Setup Before the Sale

1. Get a Little Help from Your Friends

Enlist the help of multiple friends and family members to help you buy tickets. If the concert is popular, thousands of people will be trying to purchase tickets at the same time. The more chances you have, the better. Also, depending on the type of sale and what information you can dig up, it might be wise to have some members of the group access the tickets online, some go to purchase the tickets in-person and some try via phone.

2. Know Your Ticket Provider

By now you should know which ticket provider is selling the tickets (e.g. Ticketmaster, Tickets.com, the Venue). Call the ticket provider in advance to get as much information as possible.  Although ticket companies aren’t exactly known for their warm and fuzzy customer service, occasionally you’ll find someone who is very helpful. Questions to ask:

-How are the tickets going to be sold (online, in-person, via phone)

-Is there any sort of presale password or lottery available?

-Do you expect there to be long lines for purchasing tickets in-person (if applicable)?

-If you were me, how would you increase your chances of getting tickets?

-Are there any other locations that would increase my chances of getting tickets?

Be polite. Be sincere. These people have to deal with idiots and angry customers all day every day; a little common courteous can go a long way.

3. Know the Venue and Your Seats

If you’re ordering by phone or in-person there probably won’t be an easy way to see the seating chart. Use Google Image Search to find a picture or look it up on the venue’s website. If the venue has an ambiguous layout and it’s hard to tell what seats are good, post in the bands’ forums and ask. Or, remember the customer service representatives you became friends with? Call them up and ask – though you probably won’t get the same person :).

4. Create a Ticketmaster.com/Livenation.com/Tickets.com Account

If tickets are available online, make sure you create an account with them (whether it’s Ticketmaster or someone else) before the sale. This way all your billing and personal information is stored, which translates in to less clicks, less typing and speedier access to the tickets.

5. Take Advantage of Rewards Programs

Citi Cards, American Express and the Best Buy Reward Zone Program are all examples of programs that offer member-only deals for numerous tours, concerts and events.

Things to Do The Day the Tickets Go On Sale

1. A Few Hours Before

Set Up Your Computer/Phone/Location

For the Computer: If you can, use multiple computers and browsers. Ticketmaster.com can usually detect multiple tabs, so go with a combination of Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera. For Tickets.com sales, the waiting rooms tabs are normally allowed. To help you manage the tabs better, download Tab Mix Plus for Firefox. Careful not to open too many tabs at once or else the waiting rooms will time out. Make sure you have a fast connection. If you don’t go to a friend’s house or somewhere that does (e.g. internet cafe, library, coffee shop). Have your friends and family do the same – the more chances the better.

For the Phone: To decrease the risk of a dropped call, use a land line phone. If you use a cell phone, use it with a Blue Tooth Headset so you can easily use the computer as well.

For In-Person Location: Figure out what the earliest you can stand in line is and get there 15 minutes before that. Be sure to bring a pen, paper, arena seating chart and phone. While you wait in line also call to get tickets. If the “more chances the better” theme hasn’t hit you yet I’ve failed you.

2. 20 Minutes Before

Start calling. Ticketmaster is now largely automated as are many of the other ticket providers out there. Expect the line to be busy but keep trying and make use of redial. Your goal is to get in to the system “on-hold” before the on-sale time. If you manage to speak to a person BEFORE the tickets actually go on sale, stall. Ask for more information about your favorite artists and other concerts in the area. Once the sale time hits, then ask to buy tickets. Managing this can be tricky so you will probably have to call a few times.

3. 5 Minutes Before

Start hitting refresh on your browsers every 30 seconds to 1 minute in case the ticket providers’ time is different from yours. Be sure not to hit refresh too many times as you could get locked out of the site. I’ve found my cell phone time to be in-line with Ticketmaster’s time, but obviously this could vary. Time.gov is useful for getting in sync.

3. When the Sale Begins

• -Keep hitting refresh on your browsers until you get in.
• -Quickly enter the seats you want. This should take you to the captcha screen. For Ticketmaster, you can usually get away with entering only one of the two words/numbers. Normally the required word is: the longer of the two words, and not a number. However, if you have any doubts, just enter both words.
• -Keep going and going. For some large tours, tickets could be on sale for hours. Expect to put in at least an hour or two.
• -Remember that even if a show sells out, tickets can appear later. Sometimes not all the tickets are released at once, other times people’s orders are dropped or they are kicked from the checkout.
• -If the show is popular, don’t worry about ending up with too many tickets. You can always give them to friends or sell them on Craigslist.
• -Buy etickets/ticketfast tickets. The fees are usually lower (no postage) and it’s easier to transfer/sell etickets than traditional hard tickets.

After the Sale

What Now?

If you snatched tickets your work is done. All you need to do is convene with your friends, figure out if there’s any extras and enjoy the show. If you did not land any tickets don’t panic.

• -Ticketmaster often releases more tickets up until the day of the show. Check it every day.
• -Compare tickets on TicketStumbler.com that’s why the site was created! There’s no such thing as a sell out – there’s always a way to get tickets.
• -Other places to check: Ebay, Craigslist and the Artists’ Forums. Be warned though, those sites don’t offer 100% guarantees so be weary of scammers.

Good luck! And please email me if you have any other suggestions or corrections.