So. One of the kids is going to be in the big Canadian city for science-y stuff for a while, you know, the typical thing, making giant killer robots, radiating up some kaiju, designing a volcano base - good times.
The Best Band Ever - the favorite - or maybe sliiiightly former favorite - band is going to be touring. It would be nice to get tickets.
TicketMaster is sold out of first run tickets. Their second run service doesn’t seem to work/exist/be online for this concert, or at least I canna find it. There are several other options though, it seems.
Since I’m of the older generation, my thought regarding tickets is that you buy them from a skeevy scalper outside the concert for a massive markup, or, if you’ve got balls of steel, after the concert starts and the scalper is willing to deal. Apparently in this brave new world there are other options.
Scalper the day of the show - pass. Don’t want the kid having to negotiate with some dude outside the stadium. It would add more stress than the event is worth.
Kijiji / ebay / online marketplace - on the plus side, actual physical tickets. On the minus side, who is this person?
Online resellers like stubhub.com. Again, how do I know these are the real deal?
Help me negotiate my way through the maze of online ticket resale, please.
Stubhub pretty much guarantees the validity of the ticket. They usually have a stand/hotel room next to the venue where they physically hold the ticket, so it’s generally your best bet. That’s why there is a hefty fee involved.
They have a customer service number. At best, they will try to get you another ticket. At worst, you get your money back. We’ve always had luck with them. They make the sellers give a valid credit card number, so it doesn’t pay for someone to try and scam you.
I’ve also bought tickets from Craigslist. That’s taking much more of a chance, but using common sense, I’ve never gotten burned.
I’ve bought tickets for music & sporting events from eBay and Craigslist and have never been burned.
A buddy who is a cop traveled to NYC with a group of 3 other cop friends. They pooled their $$ and approached a scalper near Madison Square Gardens and purchased basketball tickets. They were counterfeit.
That’s great, and I think most buyers on Craogslist and eBay have not been burned also. However, I think the chances of being burned on Craigslist or on eBay are higher than they are on StubHub. This is GQ, and I don’t have any facts to back up that assertion, so that is my opinion on the matter.
Since you say you’re old-school, you can also try one you left off:
Broker - AKA scalper with a license, office and phone number. You get a physical ticket that’s less likely to be counterfeit. Drawback is you’re coming from another city, so it may be a pain to work out the logistics.
Surprising that TicketsNow (Ticketmaster’s own reselling site) doesn’t have any. It seems like they always get first crack at the secondary market (sometimes even before the first run tickets if you remember the Springsteen “glitch” where buyers logging into the initial on-sale were immediately rerouted to the marked up Tickets Now site).
Hang on, you’re in Canada. For some bizarre reason TicketsNow thinks Calgary is the only city in Canada. When I went to Vancouver last summer, I wanted to browse events, and had to select Calagry, AB to get a list of events in Vancouver (or Winnipeg or Edmonton or anywhere else). See if that helps.
I’ve never dealt with stubhub, but when Paul McCartney was playing here, there was an article about them on CBC radio afterwards. A woman bought tickets on stubhub; they turned out to be counterfeit; she called stubhub as the concert was starting, standing outside the stadium; within 10 minutes stubhub had got them new tickets and they were inside, enjoying the show.
I suspect that’s exactly what they do. They likely buy a few within their own site for just such occasions and call it an investment in customer satisfaction.