Great concert seats--how?

[gretel]

No matter how quickly I try to buy tickets from ticketmaster when they go on sale, the seats in the front 50 rows are never available. I realize they hold seats for the entertainer's family/friends, but how do the ticket brokers get these seats for resale?

I also realize that fan clubs may get an allotment of seats but that still leaves a large number of seats purchased by scalpers that were not available to the public. Is this the case? Is it who you know? And, if that is true, does anyone here know someone who can hook me up?

I am trying to get ACDC concert tickets (6 of them) for my son's birthday and know that it will be nearly impossible when they go on sale to get anything halfway close to the stage. Broker prices are already posted and astronomical! Any advice is appreciated.

 

[djs]

Sometimes there might be a presale through various credit card companies (not sure this is the case for the ACDC tour, but I have gotten presale tickets for other shows in the past).

Another strategy I've employed is to log onto Ticketmaster's site prior to the sale, for instance with tickets going on sale at 10:00 this Saturday, you might want to log on around 9:00 - 9:30. This way you're on the site before the masses try to.

Create a Ticketmaster account prior to purchasing the tickets so you can just log in and hopefully buy your tickets. Its possible that you'll "lose" the tickets selected if you take too long to enter your info in during the checkout process.

Don't necessairly assume that "best available" will result in the best available, perhaps everyone will be trying for floor seats and you can select balcony and wind up with the first row of the balcony. Since there's generally no elevation to the floor seats, often if you're more than 10 rows back you wont be able to see anything and will esentially have cruddy seats.

Good Luck.

 

[caribbeansun]

Join the fan club which gives you access to tickets before they go on sale to the public - don't know if this is true of ACDC or not but many bands it is.

 

[ctreelmom]

It can be nerve-wracking, but I and several friends have had the best luck waiting until the last minute, as in the day before or day of the concert. Remember the Hannah Montana fiasco? Well, the night before a "sold out" show in our area, I scored four seats on TM that, while high up in the arena were right next to the stage. I could have had floor seats, but let them go as I didn't think the view would be great--silly me-- the way the stage was set up, Miley/Hannah would have been right in my daughters' faces.

Being old school rockers, AC/DC may have a website with fans who know the ins and outs of last minute ticket "drops." Bruce Springsteen has a fabulous one with people who are genuinely interested in helping each other get the best seats.

 

[wackymother]

I have often wondered this myself. I know how people get the best tickets for events at our local theater, though. If you're on the subscriber list, they have a presale period. Every year you're a subscriber, you move up and up on the seating list so you can get really good seats after just a couple of years.

Also if you go in to the box office every day, you can buy primo tickets for events up to several days before they even announce the show. Then I see tickets offered on eBay and StubHub for two or three times the box-office price.

Local places also hold house seats till the end, so if you hit the box office at just the right moment, you can snag them. Our theater used to hold a huge block of great seats--for what, no one knew. Critics? Visiting dignitaries? Friends of the ushers? But inevitably we would be sitting in row ZZ or something, having bought our tickets months in advance, and we would run into friends during intermission who were sitting in row D, and they had bought their tickets the day before.

I understand that some big resale places have local buyers who purchase tickets for them--like hiring someone to wait on line for you. I'm thinking that even the big concerts keep tickets at the box office (including some of the best ones), so if you wait on line the night before, you can snag them. But who the heck wants to do that?

 

[dms1709]

We have gotten tickets a few days prior to a concert from a ticket broker for a decent price for what the ticket sold for originally (still pricey as they were floor seats). They get the tickets and if it looks like they might be stuck with them, they will let them go for a reasonable price, last minute. If it was a concert I had to see I wouldn't go this route. My thoughts are ACDC will be sold out.

 

[Dave M]

For many entertainers, joining the fan club is definitely the way to go. In the past 15 years, I have had tickets in the first 10 rows or so for Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Sarah McLachlan (twice - first row once), Mannheim Steamroller, Yanni, Cher, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart (four times - first row twice) and others. All purchased at face value through fan clubs. Most recently I got Jonas Brothers VIP tickets at face value through the group's fan club for a concert I took two of my granddaughters to last month.

Typically, tickets for fan club members go on sale a few days before the public sale. For some fan clubs, you might have to join the club well in advance of the sale date to qualify for preferential tickets. Membership typically costs only $15-$35 for a year. A bargain if you want the opportunity - not a guarantee - for good tickets.

The huge membership numbers of some fan clubs have caused them to disintegrate - or at least terminate the opportunity to buy advance tickets through them - due to the impossible task of giving favorable ticket opportunities to all members. With other clubs, the crush of members trying to buy tickets causes a meltdown of the system, making it difficult for most members to get some of those preferred tickets. Such was the case for the Jonas Brothers when I purchased this spring. Many members missed out.

How do you find such fan clubs? Google the name of the entertainer (in quotes, if it's a multiple-word name) and "fan club" (in quotes) and, if one exists, you'll likely find it. Beware that many self-designated fan clubs are not officially sanctioned by the entertainer. And not all official fan clubs offer advance tickets to members.

I couldn't find one for AC/DC.

 

[ciscogizmo1]

I always buy our front/second row tickets at the last minute. I've been very successful at it too. You can always practice by pretending to buy tickets for an upcoming show. It is amazing all the available seats that are available at the last minute. I love watching shows up close...

Good luck..

 

[Janis]

I have also seen very good prices and very good seats on stubhub.com

 

[gretel]

I did join the ACDC fan club. They are allowing only two tickets per person!

 

[mepiccolo]

The day of the concert you might check Craigs list in your area or call a ticket broker. If they think they're going to go to waste they'd rather get something than nothing, and the ticket broker's seats are always better than what you're going to get on Ticketmaster. I never have luck with Ticketmaster. I could be buying tickets 5 minutes after they go on sale and I end up with tickets for the furthers rows. Same for sports tickets. We got (at least) $200 Angels seats for $25 each (4 of them) when we bought them less than 2 hours before the game once on Craigs list. They were amazing seats, right up between 3rd and home plate). The guy who sold them to me got them as a gift from someone who had season seats and didn't want them to just go to waste.

 

[Autoeng]

I did join the ACDC fan club. They are allowing only two tickets per person!

Join again under another name

 

[gretel]

Tickets are on sale today. Wish me luck!