How many tickets are there for the public on-sale? How many during the presales?

People ask us sometimes these questions like How many tickets are in a presale? or “How many tickets are left for the public to buy after all the presales are finished?” The music industry doesn’t publicly broadcast how many tickets are going to be made available to American Express or CITI cardholders. After the venue gets a few thousand for their email newsletter, facebook and twitter promotions eat up thousands more. The band has a fan club and those members get the really good seats up front – if the band doesn’t sell them directly to brokers for easy cash. After all that – there isn’t much left. As little as 10% of tickets are sold during the public on-sale for a concert.

Why are so few tickets available during the public on sale?

According to research we’ve done there are a number of factors that influence why promoters allocate tickets this way: Maximizing their bottom line is certainly high on the list. People need to make money, and concert promoters are no exception. Bands might cry about “its all about the music” but they aren’t complaining when they hit the road to packed stadiums and million dollar payouts. These articles go into great detail about the shady practices at work in the concert industry. Without using a presale to get tickets you really don’t stand much of a chance.

The moral of the story so far: Presales beat Public Sales

To have the best chance of getting tickets, don’t wait for the public tickets to be sold. Get your tickets early and be glad you have a seat to see the show. If you really want to put a good strategy to work you can buy tickets during the presale, attempt to buy more during the onsale and IF you can list the extras for sale and make a little profit yourself. With demand rising and prices shooting higher and higher you’ll be glad to get in the doors of a concert these days and if you manage to subsidize the cost of your concert tickets by becoming a ticket reseller yourself, why not.

How many tickets are sold during the presales?
Bieber allocated 90% of tickets to presales, insiders, fan club and special credit card holders

According to an article in the New York Post:

Fans who were shut out of One Direction’s sold-out July 2 concert at the Izod Center were very disappointed - crushed even. Even before the tickets went on sale to the public, only a small fraction of the 13,687 seats — just 4,474 tickets (32%) — were made available to average ordinary fans. The vast majority had already been earmarked for insiders, presales, fanclub members and members of the band. While fans are largely left in the dark about ticket distribution (can you see why), the majority of tickets are allocated to the artists, talent agencies, record labels, tour sponsors and fan clubs, according to the Fan Freedom Project, a Washington DC-based coalition backed by secondary market seller StubHub.
No tickets left for the average fan during public on-sale.

In another example from 2011, LCD Sound system went on tour. Now, when a band like LCD Sound system decides to go on tour or stage a residency, a promoter such as Live Nation or Bowery Presents works with them. The promoter will help to determine where they’ll play and more importantly how tickets will be priced and distributed, often through holds (allotments) for industry insiders and presale programs for companies like American Express and CITI Financial. This is where the majority of tickets are sold, and on average, only 46 percent of tickets remain for the general public.

People become angry when they learn how few tickets remain for public on-sales
Where do the rest of the presale tickets go?

The venue itself — Madison Square Garden or Brooklyn Steel or the like — gets a piece of the fees tacked on to ticket sales, while the vendors — Ticketmaster, Ticketfly, AXS — act as the primary market, making their money from service and convenience fees for an annual value of over $25 billion.

These primary ticketing companies often allow, and even encourage, users to resell tickets, sometimes on their own platforms. What this means is that the ticketing company makes money when tickets are sold and a second time: when tickets are re-sold. Is that double-dipping? Maybe, it all depends on who you ask. The real trouble is the industry insiders who gain access to piles of tickets at or below face value and who resell those tickets on marketplace sites like StubHub. Good luck, and remember if you can, buy 'em early. WiseGuys Has Presale Passwords you can use today.

Presale Tickets > Onsale Tickets     I <3 Presales

If you think this is bad - take a look at how Superbowl tickets are distributed.

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