I've got into ticket scalping lately. It's not legal in many states but it is completely legal in my state as long as you do it online and conduct business using your real name. Check your local laws.
It is really, really easy. All you do is check http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/ for upcoming sales and refresh ticketmaster at 10AM when they're on sale. I don't use a script, though a simple one to get you direct to the CAPTCHA would save 2 seconds which definitely makes a difference in quality of seats.
Don't buy seats at the back of large amphitheaters unless it is for Phish.
It's easiest to sell on Stubhub but using Craiglist can add 8-10% to your margins. It's annoying to have to email/call back and forth with the people though.
Wow, that's genius! Let me make sure I have you straight (I've never heard of this before)...
You check the TicketStumbler blog for hot pre-sale tickets. You buy them for face value when they go on sale (10AM?) hoping they'll get sold out. Then, you flip them on StubHub/Craigslist after they're sold out? What if the show doesn't get sold out?
Also, did I understand you correctly in that TicketMaster gives the best tickets to the first people who buy them, and you might get bad seats buying at 10AM? How can you tell if the seats are good enough?
Yeah, you got it. It's not just presales, there isn't a big difference between buying in a presale and a regular sale. Presale just gives you two shots at it.
The tickets are first come first served so whoever completes the CAPTCHA fastest gets the best tickets. However, some will always be released when people don't actually complete the transaction. So you can keep trying again and again for 15 minutes or so. Whatever you do, do not try to buy different tickets at the same time on the same computer. You cannot buy tickets for two cities at once, you will lose all your tickets. You need a VPN or your cell phone internet if you want to start playing that game.
The best way to decide on a show is to look at the listings on Stubhub for a show by that artist that is already on sale. Assume that to sell a ticket you need to beat the lowest price on Stubhub. This isn't always possible and that's where your intuition comes into play. If you're in doubt about whether or not to purchase, feel free to email me and ask. For now, Leonard Cohen is a really good one to start with. The presale passwords are easy to find on google. Phish will also be announcing more shows soon and they are just about the hottest ticket this summer.
In a small theater, any seat is good enough. In a pavillion, only the front sections or the front of the rear sections are ok. The back of the rear sections in pavilions are a trap. Lawn tickets usually don't have very good margins. In an arena, anything that isn't behind the stage is usually ok. This is because in a pavilion the rear seats are usually the same price as the front seats, but in an arena the upper seats are significantly cheaper.
I haven't had a show yet where I have lost money, but I make my picks carefully. 200% profit isn't very common though. 50% profit is probably a realistic average. I may end up getting rid of Billy Joel/Elton John tickets soon at just a little over cost.
Most of the tickets are on sale 3-4 months ahead of time. You can turn them around very quickly if you're willing to go for the lowest price on Stubhub which may or may not be the optimal strategy. My fastest turnaround was 4 Jimmy Buffett lawn tickets in California that I got for $40 each and sold on Stubhub for $80 each an hour late.
Generally I buy a pair at a time because you are more likely to get 2 good seats together than 4 seats together. Then go back and immediately buy two more. Sometimes I buy 4. It mostly depends on available funds and mood, it's not something I have mathematically optimized.
How do you get around the restrictions that will be placed on Cohen tickets, will call only and must have id and credit card that tickets were reserved with?
Ah, good for him. It's really a great thing for the fans when the shows are will call only. Tom Waits does the same thing; it cuts scalpers out. I didn't investigate it that closely because I wasn't planning on buying tickets for it.
So at best you can make $100 profit per day? Doesn't sound like a winning combination to me.
I don't think that's what the original poster had in mind. He may have been looking for a high-paying consulting gig, you know, the kind that pays $1,000/day.
For the person who has a little more money, but not enough patience or planning to login to the ticket website at 10am, actors like the commenter are creating wealth for this person.
But if the ticket scalper hadn't been scraping the ticket website at 10am in the first place, the ticket would still be on sale.
(Okay, it likely would've gone to someone else who got there after 10 but before the customer. But now you're cheating that person out of the ticket they otherwise would've had. Still zero-sum.)
There are certainly any number of ticket brokers out there that are making six figure incomes.
Right now I'm limited by capital. Volume could scale higher once you start automating the processes as much as possible and using VPNs to get multiple shots, but I'm not quite there yet. One advantage of doing it at low volume is that you can cherry pick only the best shows, like the upcoming Leonard Cohen show. Unfortunately all my free capital is tied up in tickets already so I miss out on Leonard Cohen.
I know it's unlikely, but if anyone wants to loan me money I can comfortably offer you interest rates higher that beat anything you can get on the market right now.
I can vouch for Kevin. Nobody I know works so hard to invest small amounts of money to make moderately larger amounts of money simply to avoid work explicitly labeled as "work."
Yeah, definitely when it doubt big cities are better. But it's also harder to get good tickets for big cities -- I've never been able to get good seats for a show at the amphitheater in the Boston metro area. My biggest success recently has been for Bruce Springsteen tickets in Austin. It was a college stadium that had their own ticketing system instead of Ticketmaster and took a lot longer to sell out than his other shows. I think a lot of the brokers miss non-Ticketmaster shows.
Similarly, I've had success with Seinfeld shows, which are usually at non-Ticketmaster theaters.
That's not my rationalization though it's certainly true. I'm part of a system that allows artists and venues to have nice clean financials by guaranteeing sell-outs. It is certainly not good for fans. As someone who goes to a lot of shows, I would be happy to see the system change.
The higher the risk the higher the payout. As long as it is not gambling. Hell try the stock market, oversell and wait for the stocks to drop then buy.
To make quick cash you must be willing to risk. Risk means that you have a chance to not win, in fact lose. So weigh your options wisely.
It is really, really easy. All you do is check http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/ for upcoming sales and refresh ticketmaster at 10AM when they're on sale. I don't use a script, though a simple one to get you direct to the CAPTCHA would save 2 seconds which definitely makes a difference in quality of seats.
Some intuition about what will be instant sellouts is needed. This is the best one going on soon: a legendary performer known for rarely touring and he is playing tiny venues. http://www.ticketmaster.com/Leonard-Cohen-tickets/artist/733...
Don't buy seats at the back of large amphitheaters unless it is for Phish.
It's easiest to sell on Stubhub but using Craiglist can add 8-10% to your margins. It's annoying to have to email/call back and forth with the people though.