Why you should never Google tickets and buy the first search result. Or the second.

NEVER GOOGLE TICKETS AND BUY OFF THE FIRST SEARCH RESULT. 


Even if you only click and skim a bit, we want to hammer that point home as many times and in as many ways as possible. This is the biggest mistake any ticket buyer can make. 


You find out your favorite band is coming to town so you google tickets, click on the first link, see the tickets are kind of pricey but aren't they all? You click through all the prompts and buy without reading. Then you find out tickets actually cost a fraction of what you paid or aren't even on sale yet. And that you may not get them until the day of the show. What you really have is the promise of a ticket shrouded behind a vague and highly conditional guarantee, that may only result in a refund if you don't get the tickets as you are standing by the gate watching everyone else go in. 


Probably the first and most important point I want to make before I get into the deeper details of buying concert tickets is you should never just use Google or any search engine for the event tickets you are inquiring about and buy off the first link. I know I am already being repetitive but it's something I encounter both online and from friends over and over.


Secondary ticketing companies, also known as "resellers" or more derogatively "scalpers" often pay Google for favorable search rankings. So the first tickets you see are often at inflated prices. Sometimes they don't even hold the tickets, they will merely take your money, buy the tickets off Ticketmaster and fill the order. 


Some of the top results aren't actual resale sites. They just aggregate all the resale listings in one place and add more fees on top. If the ticket is purchased, their automated system buys the ticket off another site and fills the order. Sometimes the site is buying off Ticketmaster and sometimes another resale site so you may be paying more fees to various middlemen than the base cost of the tickets. For physical goods, this is called drop shipping and some have found a way to make it very lucrative. But nothing can come close to the profits just using a bot to market digital goods from other sources and fill the orders with little physical and financial effort. 


When I was reselling tickets full time, I never listed tickets I didn't have. But I did have a good eye for the kinds of tickets the ticket exchanges would pay to manipulate advertising to sell them faster. Usually smaller independent venues and non Ticketmaster events and tickets that were so inexpensive I could purchase, mark up and relist and they would still appear relatively "cheap." But now there is no such thing as cheap tickets and the actual primary seller is rarely higher than 4th in search rankings. 


You should find the act's website or verified social media and look for any ticket links and purchase there, though I have also seen them get it wrong and even market my tickets to their fans. It's very rare though. And sometimes confusing. Which is the whole purpose of this site, to help you navigate the process more effectively.


I just cannot understate enough how important it is to research and not get tricked into making impulsive purchases you may regret later.


However there are advantages to buying off the secondary market and I will go more into that in future posts. 


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