Scalping Tickets

 

 

Ticket Broker - Work from Home

Welcome to the digital age. If you’ve ever wanted to make money as a ticket broker (politically correct term for ticket scalper), the days of standing in line at a box office or calling for tickets and waiting on hold for a ticket agent have long been over. All you need now is a little bit of time, common sense and enough money to cover the initial cost of the tickets.

In order to be a ticket broker you must have the ability to purchase concert tickets, sports tickets and event tickets at the moment that they go on sale. While tickets can easily be purchased online from sites such as Ticketmaster, don’t wait too late to start buying. Other scalpers and fans will start buying tickets at the first opportunity. Ticket venders often post the date and specific time that tickets will go on sale. The following information is a step by step guide to buying and selling tickets for a profit.

1. Before you begin scalping tickets, do some research. Find out who’s (what’s) hot. Does a musician have a large following? Is the play extremely popular? What are the dates of the event? What cities will the tour go through? What is the seating arrangement at the venue? Specifically, where are the best seats located and what are their prices?

Tip: You don’t want to buy tickets for an entertainer or show that doesn’t have a relatively large following. Often, but not always, the size of the venue will indicate the popularity of the performer. Sometimes an entertainer will give a performance in an ‘intimate’ setting that is located in a small (but pricey) venue. However, this does not necessarily mean that the entertainer is not popular.

Tip: The bigger the city, the more potential buyers there are. Don’t limit your ticket purchases to where you live. Look at concert dates in places like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc. Your best returns on your investments may come from bigger markets.

2. Buy tickets during presale. Many tickets are sold to two groups; first to those with presale codes and then to the general public. Often, presale tickets can be bought hours before the general public can make ticket purchases. Presale codes are usually given to fan club members or members of some group. For example, certain credit cards may give card holders presale codes for events. However, with a little research, you’ll find that there are a number of websites that are dedicated to obtaining presale codes and distributing them for free.

3. Buy ‘premium seats.’ This is very important. This is where you make or lose money. What’s a premium seat? It depends on the popularity of the artist or event. An entertainer may be so popular that any seat in the venue can be resold for a profit, but don’t count on it. That won’t happen often. Consider seats within the first 5 rows to be premium, but concentrate on obtaining seats in the first 3 rows if possible. Remember, the better the seats, the better the resale value will be.

Tip: Even if you try to purchase tickets immediately after they go on sale, the tickets that the database offers you may not be the best available tickets at that moment. If they are not what you consider premium tickets, cancel the transaction and try again. You’ll often find that the ticket database will offer you better seats on subsequent attempts. If, however, after a number of tries you cannot get what you consider premium tickets, simply walk away and wait for another event.

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4. Decide how you will resell the tickets. Will you use StubHub, eBay, or another online ticket exchange service? Your answer may depend on how you want to sell the tickets. For example, you can use eBay to sell paper tickets, but you can also use StubHub to sell paper tickets and electronic tickets.

Tip: If you choose to sell electronic tickets, at the time this article was written, services such as StubHub may not let you split the tickets and sell them separately. So if you by 6 electronic tickets, in order to sell them on StubHub, you will have to sell all 6 tickets together. Be sure to read the policies of the ticket exchange service that you choose to use before you begin scalping tickets.

Things to Consider: Familiarize yourself with any laws that may be governing ticket scalping in your state and city. Some states or cities may require you to purchase a special ticket broker license or a vendor’s license. Other states or cities may cap the resell price of specific events. A number of states and municipalities have very little in the way of laws regulating ticket brokering.

Remember, the final price of the seats that you purchase will include taxes and fees (such as a convenience fee). Have these additional costs in mind when you’re contemplating the resell price.

Consider buying insurance for the tickets. The insurance costs just a few dollars more, but the purpose of it is to give you an opportunity to receive a full refund if you happen to “miss the event.” As the event date gets closer, you’ll have more piece of mind and less stress about recouping your investment if you’re still haven’t sold the tickets.

Sometimes you will sell your tickets weeks or months ahead of time. But, expect that often you will still have your tickets relatively close to the event date. As promotion and marking picks up and fan desire to be there increases, ticket sales will speed up down the stretch.

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You may have to adjust your resell price based on your competition. You can also “sit on the sidelines” and wait for tickets in the same section as yours to sell out, and then put yours up for sale at your desired price. This strategy tends to work well when your tickets are in a better location than the other remaining tickets.

Scalping tickets is very easy to do. Do a little reading, research who’s hot and who’s not, buy “premium” tickets, don’t panic, and you may find that you can make hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars by being one of the “first in line” to buy tickets.