ExTicketBroker.com

I get the question “when is the best time to sell my tickets?” a lot, and while it’s not an exact science, I thought I’d take a stab at answering it.  Ticket brokerage is really all just simple supply and demand.  To maximize your price, you want to sell when supply is low but demand is high.  It’s hard to control the supply portion of the equation, so let’s focus on the demand aspect.

So the question is really, when is demand for my tickets the highest (so that I can sell them for the most money)?   For big shows that sell out quickly, the demand is generally highest immediately after it sells out.  Rabid fans who came up empty during the primary sale at Ticketmaster are most likely to get caught-up in the moment and start searching for tickets on Stubhub, eBay, or other secondary ticket outlets.  These die-hard fans are more likely to be willing to pay top dollar for your tickets.  Since these fans are likely to go directly from Ticketmaster to Stubhub or other ticketing sites, it’s incredibly important that you list your tickets for sale IMMEDIATELY after you purchase them.  Time to market is crucial here and the faster you get them in front of people who want to buy them, the better.  After all the die-hard fans buy their tickets, demand generally flattens or declines up until the event date which is why I think it’s better to sell them sooner rather than later (not to mention that you get your money back faster which you can reinvest into other tickets).

There are occasional cases where prices go up as an event approaches, but they are not all that common.  One example would be that a concert for a hot new band sells out, but the band keeps getting more popular as the show approaches which leads to higher demand, this higher ticket prices.  Another example where prices may rise is when there isn’t much supply to begin with, and most brokers sell their tickets quickly leaving very limited supply in the market.  With low supply, but equal or greater demand, ticket prices will rise.  It’s very difficult or impossible to predict these two scenarios which is why I think it’s best to sell the tickets quickly after the event sells out, and then move on to the next opportunity.

I hope that answers your question of “when is the best time to sell my tickets?”  Again, it’s not a perfect science but after years of experience I’ve found this to be the best general strategy.

Well, that may be a bit of a stretch, and it certainly won’t happen anytime soon, but a start-up company called qcue is developing software that may help primary ticket sellers (such as Ticketmaster) more effectively price tickets from the start.  This could essentially do away with the arbitrage opportunity that ticket brokers exploit - buy tickets at the onsale at below market prices, and then resell the same tickets at higher prices as determined by market supply/demand.

Qcue’s goal:

Accurately pricing event tickets is difficult due to unknown and fluctuating consumer demand and the risks of overpricing. Scalpers have taken advantage of this arbitrage opportunity to create a multi-billion dollar secondary market While primary sellers fail to capture the mark-ups that result when tickets are under priced, they face the consequences of poor attendance from overpriced tickets. qcue exploits the synergies between the primary and secondary markets by integrating elements of airline pricing and NASDAQ trading into current selling platforms, providing primary sellers the ability to dynamically price-to-market. The qcue team members include Barry Kahn, PhD Economics 2007; Jitendra Dalvi, MBA 2007, and Andrew Mills, PhD Computer Science 2008.

The opportunity for primary ticket sellers, labels, and artists to capture more of the money in the initial onsale is huge.  In turn, the potential downside to the secondary ticket industry from this software is huge.  If Ticketmaster were to implement such software and dynamically price tickets at the time of onsale based on market demand, there’s the potential that most or all of the upside to secondary market ticket brokers could be go away altogether.

Qcue won the University of Texas Moot Corp business plan competition and the last three winners moved forward to receive venture capital funding.  It will be interesting to watch this company develop…

Radiohead is playing two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on August 24th and 25th. There is a KROQ radio station ticket presale taking place on Friday 4/11 at 10am PT, here are the details for the Hollywood Bowl Radiohead presale:

Presale Password: fishes

Ticketmaster On Sale Page for 8/24

Ticketmaster On Sale Page for 8/25

There is a two ticket limit per person, not per show (see my post on how to go over Ticketmaster ticket limits).

I think these shows should do well for resale - Radiohead is one of the most popular bands in the world, LA is one of the best markets for resale, and the Hollywood Bowl is a hugely popular venue - especially during the summer (plus it holds just over 17,000 people which is not that large for such a major band). I recommend going for the best $75 seats, otherwise look for bargain seats in the $39 face value range. Good luck!

I just got an email update announcing new Death Cab for Cutie tour dates in May and June with corresponding ticket presales and thought I’d share. Death Cab ticket sales have been surprisingly strong thus far in the tour, even in some of the larger venues, and I expect some of these shows to do well also. Below is the info from the Death Cab for Cutie presale ticket email:

Below are new tour dates for upcoming DCFC shows in May and June. For fan
club members only - we will have a presale for some of the shows beginning
Wednesday, April 2nd at 3pm Local Time. We have a very limited number of
presale tickets available and they are on a first come, first served
basis. Also, a portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased through the
fan club presale will go to charity.

• 05/26/08 Lehi, UT @ Thanksgiving Point (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/02/08 Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theatre (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/03/08 Chicago, IL @ Millenium Park Pritzker Pavilion (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/16)

• 06/06/08 Montreal, QC @ Jacques Cartier Pier (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/07/08 Toronto, ON @ Toronto Olympic Island (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/10/08 Brooklyn, NY @ McCarren Park Pool (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/12/08 Philadelphia, PA @ Mann Center for Performing Arts (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/14/08 Indianapolis, IN @ The Lawn at White River State (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/19/08 Mesa, AZ @ Mesa Amphitheatre (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/2)

• 06/21/08 Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre (DCFC Union Pre-Sale Date: 4/9 )

In order to access the presale, please go to:
http://tixx1.artistarena.com/dcfc/

You will need USERNAME: dcfc PASSWORD: tickets

As an update to my post a couple weeks ago on the top selling tickets, here’s an update as reported by Ticket News. The top selling event tickets for the week of 3/23 are as follows:

1. Wicked

2. Jimmy Buffett

3. Jersey Boys

4. New York Yankees

5. Boston Red Sox

6. Jonas Brothers

7. Kenny Chesney

8. James Taylor

9. Alicia Keys

10. Jay-Z & Mary J. Blige

11. Celine Dion

12. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

13. Bon Jovi

14. Michael Bublé

15. Eric Clapton

16. Eddie Izzard

17. Lion King

18. Billy Joel

19. Bruce Springsteen

20. Rascal Flatts

No big surprises on the list, though it’s good to see MLB tickets picking up with the Yankees and Red Sox in the top 5 as baseball season rapidly approaches.

As a broker, I never focused much on hockey ticket sales  (and I’ve been away from it for a while now) so I’m not sure how they’ll do for resale, but there is a Philadelphia Flyers playoff ticket presale going on right now that is not supposed to start until tomorrow (Friday 3/28).  I just checked and I’m able to pull lower level playoff tickets without any problems.

Tickets for Home Games 1 & 2 are available HERE and no presale password is needed.

Below is the text from the Philadelphia Flyers’ playoff ticket presale email:

Playoff Presale Tomorrow

As a valued Flyers customer, we’d like to give you the opportunity to purchase individual game Flyers playoff tickets before the general public.

You can purchase tickets for the first two home playoff games from Fri., Mar. 28 at 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM.

To reserve your seats CLICK HERE

Tickets for the first round of the playoffs, home games 1 and 2 will be available to the public on Sat., Mar. 29 at 10:00 AM.

If you’ve spent any reasonable amount of time on ticketmaster.com you’ve noticed the multitude of American Express Gold Card presales. Ticketmaster has a partnership in place with American Express where they offer presale tickets to Amex gold level cardholders for many popular events. This is a great perk for Amex gold card members, however, the catch is that American Express charges a fee of about $125 per year for the gold card (if you can even qualify). Fortunately, there’s a simple way to get American Express Gold Card presale tickets without even needing to have an Amex gold credit card.

The only two things you need are the following:

1. The presale code for the Amex gold card presales. This is always the customer service phone number on the back of the gold card. Here is one number that has always worked for me, just copy and paste it into the presale code box on ticketmaster.com when the presale starts: 8006391202

2. Any American Express credit card. It does not have to be a gold card, ANY Amex card will do. Ticketmaster only checks to verify that the ticket order is being made using an American Express card; they have no way of verifying whether or not it’s a gold card.

Another great tip for staying on top of the Amex gold card ticket presales is to sign-up for their weekly event email updates. I am signed-up for all the major cities (New York, Boston, San Francisco, etc) and they send out weekly updates with upcoming presale information which is very useful.

If you don’t have an American Express card, you can easily sign-up for one. I personally love my American Express cards for their member rewards and their customer service, so it’s great to have one both for the gold card ticket presales, and just in general.

I have ordered literally hundreds of tickets using American Express gold card presales using the above method with 100% success.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from new ticket sellers is “how do I find out which events to buy and sell tickets for?” I’ll cover a number of excellent ways to research which events to buy for in upcoming posts, but one great way is to see what successful eBay sellers have sold and are currently selling, and follow their lead. Ticket brokers who have a great track record on eBay - tons of great sales and high feedback ratings - are likely to be selling for current tours and events that you can potentially learn from to buy tickets for any upcoming on sales.

So how do I know which sellers to follow?

1. Go to eBay and search through eBay’s ticket listings for any events that catch your eye – events that are selling particularly well, artists that you are familiar with or that keep popping up, tours that you have seen listed on Ticketmaster or other sources – basically anything to get yourself familiar with what’s currently selling well.It’s not an exact science, but rather an art that you learn as you invest more time in researching events and selling tickets.
2. Over time, you’ll start to see a trend of certain ticket brokers that continue to pop-up for the best events.That’s not a coincidence; those are the ticket sellers that know what they’re doing and the ones that you should be tracking so that you can learn from them.
3. To familiarize yourself with a particular seller, click from the search results to their item auction page (example here) and look at the “Meet the seller” section on the top right of the page.There you will see their feedback rating and other stats.

• To easily view all of the seller’s listings to get ideas for events to sell, click on the “view seller’s other items” link.This will display a list of all their current ticket listings and should hopefully spark some ideas.
• Once you find a seller that you think knows what they’re doing, you can easily track their activity in order to get new ideas by clicking the link to “Add to Favorite Sellers.” This will add the seller to your list of favorite sellers in your My Ebay page, and you’ll receive weekly email updates about their sales activity and current listings.

To get you started, here are a few ticket brokers that I know (and that you may want to follow):

• bestavailabletickets
• calpaul – this guy knows broadway/theater ticket selling
• totallytickets
• sporttix – the name says it, they know sports tickets

A college professor of mine once said that “past performance is the best indicator of future performance” and this is true in the ticket industry as well. Follow successful ticket brokers to learn what they’re selling, when they sell them, how they price their tickets, what info they include in their listings… the list goes on and on so learn away!

I only have a couple minutes to write as I’m about to board a flight, but I just got an email about this Death Cab for Cutie presale for their show at Red Rocks in Colorado. Tickets have been selling well for the shows that have gone onsale so far this tour (mostly smaller club venues), and I like Red Rocks as a venue. I think tickets in the first 20-25 rows should sell well, and this presale should be more under the radar than many Ticketmaster presales. Good luck!

Death Cab for Cutie Ticket Presale

May 28 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks

Pre-sale Date/Time: Wednesday 3/19 - 3:00pm MT

In order to access the presale, please go to: http://tixx1.artistarena.com/dcfc/

You will need:
USERNAME: dcfc
PASSWORD: tickets

I recently came across this $100 off credit that Yahoo! Search Marketing is offering to any new advertisers on their search engine. I have never seen a credit of more than $25 or $50, so this is a great way to get $100 in free clicks to your website.

For those who aren’t familiar, search engine marketing ads are the sponsored links at the top of the search engine results. You can select which search terms your ads appear for (ie: “concert tickets”, “ticket broker”, etc) and when someone clicks on one of your ads, they are sent to your site and you pay a small fee for each click.

This is a very effective way to drive qualified ticket buyers to your website as search engine traffic is generally one of the best forms of web traffic since people are entering exactly what they’re looking for.  For example, if someone goes to Yahoo! or Google and searches “buy world series tickets”, they’re probably pretty likely to buy world series tickets, so if your website is selling world series tickets, you may want to think about getting your site in front of those eager ticket buyers.  This is obviously just an example and would work for any ticket event.

Now that my pitch on search engine marketing is done, here’s what you came for, the $100 off credit!

Yahoo! Search Marketing $100 Credit

Promo Code: US2302

If the above link should ever stop working for any reason (I don’t know if/when it expires), you can always get $25 off using this link:

Maximize your marketing ROI with Yahoo! Sponsored Search. Sign up and get a $25 credit.

Note the $100 off offer terms:

1. Offer open to new Sponsored Search advertisers only. (A new advertiser is one who has not advertised with Yahoo! Search Marketing for the past 13 months). Each account requires a nonrefundable $30 initial deposit. Advertisers signing up for Self Serve will receive a $100 credit into the account. Advertisers signing up for the Assisted Setup service will receive $100 off the $199 service charge. In each case, initial credits are nonrefundable and will be applied to click charges. There is a minimum bid requirement of $0.10 per click-through. Limit one offer per customer, and one use per customer on a single account.