Strategies for Finding Good Tickets on Ticketmaster
I will outline some solid strategies for finding quality seats when concert
tickets for sale are offered via Ticketmaster and other reselling
operations.
- Join the bands forum and see if they have a fan club. Sometimes the fan club is free, others charge around
$25 per year. Don't join until you read some comments in the forums to ensure the seats are better than what can be purchased
thru normal ticket sales.
- Participate in the bands website forum and often forum members will have extra tickets for sale and offer
them at face value for other forum members.
- Look for radio station and credit card pre-sells. These are often a couple days before the normal sales.
- When the tickets go on sale thru Ticketmaster (TM), ensure you have an account with TM and are logged in to the sales page
with 2 different browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox).
- Print out the large version of the concert venue for reference.
- Don't always select the first seats offered unless they are excellent. The best seats are on the side near
the stage and the 1st 12 rows on the floor. I would not get floor seats past the 15th row because the viewing can be bad, especially
if tall people are in front of you.
- Ticketmaster uses captcha and you will be required to enter a funky looking word. It will show 2 words but only one of the words needs
to be entered. Select the longest word. If it appears illegible, hit enter and get a new word.
- Often, the same tickets will appear in a section for a few minutes and then the seats offered are for a different section.
Keep requesting new seats and select diifferent options like lower reserved or select best available.
- You have about 30 minutes to grab your tickets or Ticketmaster will block your IP address for too many querries within a designated time.
The block will last for 24 hours.
- With that 30 minute window, usually a couple of really good seats will appear to be selected. You will know from the previous offerings,
what is a good seat.
- Don't be afraid to select seats slightly in back of the stage near the side. These seats are usually really
close to the band and not bad seats at all. If you need to see all the visuals and tv screens, then bypass these seats.
- Try to pre determine where the dynamic pricing is and get seats near the top tier pricing but at a second
level tier price. For example, the venue may sell $100 seats in sections 101 and 102 from rows 1-50. Starting in row 51, the
second tier price is offered.
Learn the tips and tricks of the
ticketmasters and start enjoying your bands today.
