4 Ways To Get Discounted/Sold Out Concerts & Events Tickets Online
For music lovers, few things are more exhilarating than going to a music venue to connect with their favorite band live. The same can be said for sports fans who regularly head out to the ballpark to see their favorite team in action. For some, such events tend to be a special occasion, if only because tickets to concerts and games tend to be pricey, and most people can't afford to buy them on a regular basis.
That being the case, it can be pretty devastating for any fan to get hyped up about one event or another only to learn that the tickets are either crazy expensive or completely sold out. As deflating as it can be to see an exorbitant price tag or "Sold Out" sign when planning your big event night, take heart in knowing that you may still have a chance to cop a few tickets for you and your pals, as there are several ways to purchase resale tickets online these days. Here are a few good options for buying discounted or sold out event tickets online.
What to consider before buying tickets on the resale market
Before you get too excited about being able to pick up sold-out or even discounted event tickets via one of the many online resales outlets, there are a couple of things you'll want to take into consideration before you dive in and buy them. First and foremost, you should know that most resale sites charge extra fees for their services, and those fees can often counteract any discounts you may find.
Of course, fans desperate to score tickets to a show or the big game will likely be happy to pay those service fees. But if you are planning to purchase those ticket from a resale site, you'll want to ensure you're doing so from a seller who not only has the tickets they're promising but actually has authentic event tickets. Yes, fraud is a legitimate concern with ticket resale sites, so please double-check that the seller is offering a guarantee on your purchase. Once you've got those proverbial ducks in a row, hit up these sites to procure those all-important event tickets.
StubHub
There are literally dozens of online ticket retailers to choose from these days. But StubHub is a name those in the know regularly reference when talking about the resale market, and their reputation for offering secure access to discounted and sold-out event tickets is second to none. StubHub has also become one of the safest online resale outlets, backing every purchase with the FanProtect Guarantee to protect buyers from fraudulent transactions. The site even has a rewards program for frequent buyers and makes transactions fast and easy by accepting virtually every form of payment, including all major credit cards and digital wallet apps like PayPal and Google Pay, among others.
Now for the bad news, which is that StubHub indeed tacks service fees onto every sale. To be clear, this is a standard practice in the ticket resale arena. However, some buyers may be frustrated that StubHub's fees are not applied at a flat percentage rate, meaning they can vary from one purchase to the next. Fees aside, StubHub remains one of the quickest and easiest ways to get your hands on sold-out event tickets. If you're willing to wait until the last minute to cop those tickets, StubHub can be a great place to pick up severely discounted tickets to boot.
SeatGeek
While StubHub remains one of the top dogs in the resale ticket market, they are certainly not alone these days, and SeatGeek is fast becoming one of its biggest competitors. Like StubHub, SeatGeek focuses largely on resale markets for concerts and sporting events, offering fans the chance to pick up tickets to events that have long been sold out. Likewise, you can often buy tickets at a discount to events that still have them available from primary sources.
Perhaps most importantly, SeatGeek also offers buyers a 100% guarantee to deliver authentic event tickets at least 24 hours before the start of the event. Like virtually every other resale site, SeatGeek does include service and processing fees on each purchase, and like StubHub, the percentage applied can vary between transactions. The site is very upfront about those secondary fees and even has an option that lets prospective buyers see the total cost of a transaction by choosing the "include fees" toggle filter.
It seems the one area in which SeatGeek may be lagging is in customer service, with some users bemoaning the absence of a live chat feature on the site and a lack of resolution when faced with challenges concerning ticket delivery. So, you'll want to take that under consideration when shopping on SeatGeek.
VividSeats
If customer service is a big selling point for you in a resale ticket site, Vivid Seats may be the reseller you've been looking for. The company may not be as well known as StubHub and SeatGeek, but Vivid Seats has been around since the early 2000s. Over its two decades-plus in the ticket resale game, Vivid Seats has established a customer service reputation that shames most of its better-known competitors, and the company is regularly ranked on Newsweek's annual list of America's Best Customer Service providers.
Like most top ticket resale sites, Vivid Seats backs every transaction with a 100% money-back guarantee. Astonishingly, Vivid Seats also has provisions that allow for full refunds on tickets to canceled events and will even work with buyers on events that are merely rescheduled to later dates. In recent years, the company has also brokered partnerships with ESPN and Rolling Stone to help users get their hands on some of the most sought-after sports and concert event tickets on the market.
Yes, service and delivery fees are tacked onto each Vivid Seats transaction, but they are on par with most other resale sites. Given the level of support buyers and sellers receive from VividSeats at every step of a transaction, said fees feel like a bargain.
Social media sites and message boards
There are undoubtedly buyers who'd prefer to eliminate those service fees altogether by cutting the resale middleman out of the equation. In the age of social media, you may be able to do just that by trolling sites operated either by an artist, team, or event venue for a ticket giveaway. While such giveaways are typically very competitive, the possibility of scoring free tickets to a sold-out concert or game makes it more than worth the effort.
It's hard to beat free tickets. While giveaways are a great way to score sold-out tickets in the social media sphere, if you're willing to take on more risk in your search, you may also be able to purchase them directly from a fellow fan. Yes, this approach involves the same level of risk as buying tickets from a street scalper outside of a venue, and we'd encourage anyone to be exceedingly wary of trying to broker a ticket deal with a total online stranger without the sort of guarantees offered by legit resale sites. But if you're comfortable working something out in the DMs or even on a message board, you could get a better price this way than with any online outlet. But again, we encourage you to approach any such transaction with extreme caution.