Should I buy tickets immediately when they go on sale?
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Tickets have a very interesting, and fairly predictable life cycle. There is no simple answer to the best time to buy tickets. The key is to remember that Tickets are perishable (become worthless at some point) and are emotional purchases. For events likely to sell out, the best time to buy tickets is when they go on sale. If possible, purchase tickets directly from Ticketmaster, the team, or venue at face value.
When an event sells out, the next few hours and days usually lead to ticket prices soaring. Obviously there is a demand, and no supply, and emotional fans pay whatever it takes to secure a ticket. This is the worst time to buy a ticket. Resist the urge to pay a premium to get that seat for your favorite artist.
Once the price hits a peak, prices steadily decline until they eventually become worthless. The prices decline every day as the event nears, and usually returns to face value or lower by the day of the event. In the rare cases when the prices are still high as the event nears, you can still count on the ticket being worth less after the event starts, and being worth zero when the event ends. Your best bet on a sold out event is to buy on event day, or even a few minutes after the event starts.
In rare cases tickets prices rise as the event gets closer, but it is 1 in a 1000 type occurrence.
There are a few different rules for events that are unlikely to sell out. If tickets are unlikely to sell out you should definitely buy on the secondary market. That’s because many small time brokers and amateur sellers on eBay will have bought them in hopes of profiting, and will eventually be looking for buyers to take them at below face value so they don’t lose all their investment. If you want to research sell outs for a particular event, you can easily do so by going to Ticketmaster and seeing if tickets are available for the same event in another city, even though those tickets have been on sale for a while.
Good luck and please continue to send me questions. Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed or weekly newsletter. Both will provide links to my articles and information about tickets going on sale in the near future. Thanks!
