Let’s say that Bill Gates (or Mick Jagger, or whoever), on the spur of the moment, decides to attend the Super Bowl. We’ll say he decided to go on the Saturday morning before the game.
Now, all that money will help him, of course. The question is: who does he have to pay? Who does he have to call … on a Saturday, no less? I assume that every major event has seats and/or suites reserved for VIPs … but can these also be “sold out”? And if so, what happens? Does someone have to call suites to find someplace for Gates or Jagger to hang out?
Last year all Gates would have to do is call up Paul Allen
Gates: Hey Paul mind if I watch the big game with you in your Team Owners Suite?
Allen: Sure thing Bill I won’t be able to entertain much as I will be preoccupied with my Team Owner duties and will being between the Suite the Field and the Locker Room
Gates: Great, would you mind if Melinda and the Kids came along
Allen: Not at all we have plenty of room for you
Usually, the organizers of such events will set aside a certain quota of tickets to their sponsors. The number varies wildly - in the 2006 soccer world cup, only about a third of all tickets was sold to the general public, the remainder had been distributed in advance to FIFA’s numerous sponsors. What they do with these quota is their business - McDonald’s and MasterCard, for example, held all kind of sweepstakes where clients could win tickets, which, I guess, is not unusual, and if a rich guy has the correct credit card on which he spends a lot, they’re likely not to decline his wish if he calls them and aks if there’s something in it for him. Many companies will distribute their tickets among the management as some kind of gratuity.
I work (occassionally) for a ticket broker, so I get to claim a little expertise here.
Basically: If you want a ticket to anything and have enough money, you can get it. Day of the game, months before, doesn’t matter. Most brokers are hooked up into various networks so, if they got a call from a client who wanted 10th row, 50 yd. line seats to the Super Bowl, they could immediately check ticket boards & find out if anyone had any seats left. If not, many brokers have “ins” with the NFL and can pull astonishingly good tickets at any time via friends with the league or the teams; you just have to know who to call for what events.
As Birdmonster says, it’s not so much that Bill Gates knows who to call to get tickets to the superbowl. He turns to his assistant and says, “Get me tickets to the Superbowl.” And his assistant, being used to such requests, calls up a broker and tells them that Bill Gates wants such and such, money no object, and the broker tracks down the tickets, and their only limit is how much pull/money the client has. Or a big org like Microsoft might have such a person on staff, and their only job is getting particular tickets for VIPs.
I used to work for AmEx and we had programs specifically for this type of thing. For example the company would cut deals with most major venues for a set amount of seats for the high profile events. If one of out BIG spenders called up to get seats we’d often comp them (we’re talking about people who charged more than a million a month on their cards – you’d be surprised how many there are).
If Amex didn’t use the seats the venue resold them and AmEx still paid for them.
For concerts, there is always a block of very good seats reserved for the band’s use, known as “production seats”. If a VIP wanted to see the show, his people could contact the band’s people and get those seats. If the band isn’t going to need the seats, they will often be released back to the box office, which is why you can sometimes luck out and buy fantastic seats on the day of the show. (At least, that used to be the case.)
That still is the case. Moreover, in the NBA, David Stern (the head of the whole shebang) has center court seats to every game in the NBA every night. When he’s decided which game he’s going to, the other sets for every other arena are released. This usually occurs day of as well.
Does it ever happen that, say, 100 A-list celebrities are jockeying for the same 50 tickets? Does supply-and-demand ever come into play? Theoretically, even the number of VIP seats are limited … does it ever happen that VIP demand outstrips VIP seat supply?
I attended the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano as the guest of a family member of a [del]very high[/del] shall we say, top level Visa executive. Visa was one of the Olympic sponsors, of course, so they get blocks of sponsor seats.
Absolutely fantastic seats – center line for hockey, for example. We saw several world records fall in women’s skating from our vantage point.
There were a few extra seats, and I could very well imagine that the Olympic people could contact Visa or other sponsors, to see if there were a few open for Bill.
It’s doubtful. There are probably over a thousand seats floating around in various corporate seats, media seats, and set-aside seats for players, coaches, owners, league officials, etc. And it’s not like every celebrity is going to wait until the night before the game to try and hook up tickets. As long as the celebrity allows a few hours for various assistants to network, the seats will be found - providing, of course, the money or the fame is sufficient.
Another thing I can tell you (former box office manager, here): people like Bill Gates and A list celebrities almost never pay for their tickets, no matter how much money they have. They go as someone’s guest or are comped by the venue. Once you reach a certain level of fame, everyone wants you to be seen at their house.
If you have to buy tickets, you aren’t really a celebrity.
For championship event like the Super Bowl the players, every NFL team and the sponsors are allocated tickets. Therefore there are always some tickets floating around that someone is willing to scalp. The assistant kicking coach of the Detroit Lions will have a couple of tickets to the Super Bowl that he is more than willing to unload in order to pay the rent.
For the NCAA Final Four, only a small percentage of the tickets are available to the public in the lottery. Again, that means that there are always tickets floating around. Its easier to get tickets for the final game than the semi-final games because the losers of the semi’s are looking to unload their finals tickets and go home.
The promoter of an event always holds back some prime tickets just in case [the President wants to attend].
Broadway theaters always hold back some prime tickets and then will release them the day of the play if they are not going to be used.
Pro leagues have to hold tickets for the players. If they are not going to be used they will get released just before a game. I have gotten prime seats at major league sporting events at the box office just before a game. They were players seats that were released.
The prime boxing tickets are held by the casinos that promote the events. They dole the ticket out to their best customers so they always have some available.
Airlines hold back seats.
So I have heard:
The guys that run the Masters Golf Tournament have been accused of being arrogant and elitist. Well, they are arrogant and elitist. Supposedly, you can be Bill Gates and call the Master and they will tell you that they are sorry but they have no tickets. If the President calls they will tell him that they can’t accommodate the necessary security requirements. They don’t care about accommodating anybody. Good for them! At least they are consistent.