Ok, you want to surprise that special someone and score tickets to their favorite band for your anniversary. You search Google for tickets to the show. A bunch of ticket broker websites appear on the first page. All claiming to have the seats to the concert. You click one and find the concert and date to score the tickets. Holy S@3%!! the lowest cost ticket is $250 and that’s not even a good seat in your opinion. How can this be? Simple Supply and Demand. Maybe that concert is Madonna’s first in 10 years or U2, or Elton John’s opening night at Caesars Palace. All of these concerts will have a high demand and very low supply of tickets.
Beside the economics of ticket selling what other factors play a role in the ticket broker pricing? When Elton John announced that he signed an exclusive 2 year contract with Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for his anticipated Million Dollar Piano Tour, Fan all over the world (yes World) were looking to score tickets to the event. That is a hell of a lot of fans for a limited amount of tickets. If you were lucky enough to get tickets to this event, good for you, but for most fans they were not as lucky. There were pre-sales for the concert prior to the event going on sale to the public and those brokers (mostly) scooped up a gigantic amount of seats. These tickets ranged from $100-250 “Face Value”. Tickets were listed on every Secondary Market Website immediately after being bought even though the concert was 7 months away and the public sale had not started. Tickets were listed at $250-$1000 per seat on the public sale date and tickets sold FAST in the first week. Tickets sales slowed down as weeks went by. Ticket prices will remain steady for the months ahead until the event approaches at which time the prices will start to decrease somewhat. One caveat; prices will spike a couple weeks before the event, and decrease only within a day or two before the event.
Top 3 Considerations:
Price Point #1: Supply and Demand for an event plays the biggest role in ticket broker pricing.
Price Point #2: Prices are highest right after a public sale begins.
Price Point #3: Prices remain steady until a week or two before an event when a spike in the price can be noticed, prices only start to be lowered a day or two before the event.
Other consideration:
Price Points #4: The day of the event matters. Saturday events are the best sellers thus highest priced, followed by Sunday, Friday and moving backwards towards Monday.
Price Point #5: is the event a Rival? i.e Redsox vs Yankees, Celtics vs Lakers
Price Point #6: Is it extraordinary? This mean is it one of a kind, Professional All Star games and playoffs; Super Bowl; a New Stadium for the Florida Marlins in 2012.
Final thoughts about ticket pricing.
Brokers know that fans will be fanatical about their chosen events, whether its sports, concerts, theater or whatever one fancies and count on that enthusiasm to move inventory. I understand that many, myself included, are risk-adverse and would prefer not to wait out a brokers price cycle and just get the ticket NOW and not risk losing that perfect seat location, but for those who are patience deals can be found. What is the saying? Patience is a virtue, it can be true in buying tickets too.