Best website for searching tickets

This is honestly the best website for searching tickets - nothing out there is better and gives you as much of a selection as this:
http://www.bigbosstickets.com

Tickets you shouln't buy

Don't buy rap tickets, it's by far the dumbest thing that you can do. Why are rap events bad for ticket broking? Because it's nearly impossible to have a rap concert! All the rappers are in the clubs, and that's only for one reason - they can't sing live. Almost every rap song has several layers of voice, meaning that it's impossible for one person to be doing 5 voices at once. So if you are going to buy rap tickets then buy for somebody that doesn't use that many layers - like 50 cent (and nobody likes him so you'll lose money anyways).

Find out upcoming tours

Learn what's going to sell. Then find out when the tickets are going on sale. Preferably use websites such as billboard.biz and pollstar.com in order to find out when hot events are going on sale. Visit those websites on a daily basis because they talk about the hottest events going on and they will give you the best info about upcoming tours. Once you know when the tour is coming, go on Ticketmaster and look up the artist. After that just play the waiting game and go find yourself some presale codes.

Control the Market

Did you ever watch the movie Battle Royale? Well if you haven't, then you probably should learn that you can't trust anybody in the business because everybody is looking to make money. So where am I going with this? I'm trying to say that you need to get other ticket sellers to trust you. With trust you'll be able to make a lot more money.
The tickets are only worth what the market values them at. That's why you have to control the market value. When you get your tickets, make sure that you go on your ticket retail website and post the price that you want. Make sure that it's a good price of at least 200%! If you have any less then you'll just be losing money in the longrun. So let's say that you bought a pair of tickets for $150, and you put them up on the market for $300.
Within time, a lot of competition is going to go and post tickets in the same section as yours and probably even the same row as yours. That's why when they put up a lower price of let's say $280, then match that price! If you go any lower then you'll just be ruining both yourself and your opponent. With the price matched, you have a high probability that your opponent will not lower his price and that you'll sell your tickets before he does if your ticket description is catchy enough.

How do I sell my tickets?

There are several portals where you would expect to sell your tickets: StubHub, RazorGator, eBay, and several other portals of lesser importance. All of these websites are great for making profit, but in order to minimize risk it is important to choose wisely. The most outstanding thing about eBay and StubHub is that eBay has bought StubHub a few months back for $300 million. This purchase of StubHub reinsured many experts’ theory that StubHub is expanding at such a quick rate that other competitors are afraid to compete with them. So when it comes to choosing between eBay and StubHub, StubHub is obviously the better choice in the ticket industry. Other than StubHub, RazorGator is the second largest ticket portal. RazorGator has been in the industry for quite some time, though it was never able to achieve that of StubHub. On the other hand, it receives 30% of the ticket industry as compared to StubHub’s 45%. This shows that RazorGator is possibly a good risk if the seller is looking forward to paying lower prices for ticket sales. So if you want a cheaper yet less certain sale, then go along with RazorGator.

After deciding on the company to post your tickets with, check your email to make sure that you’ve received your tickets from TicketFast. Then once you’re certain that you have the tickets, post the tickets on your portal of choice. As always, timing is key. That is why it is best to post the tickets the day after tickets they were offered for the general public. By this time, most of the general public is angered that they didn’t get tickets, so they desperately go out to buy before the premium tickets sell out. This is a very important marketing tactic – and it works for almost every event, and even the PS3 which went for $3,000 in the first day after the release and then $1,500 in the days afterwards. So when you decide to put up the tickets onto the internet, you have to be careful. NEVER give your seat number, just give the section and row. If it’s necessary then offer interested customers to email you in order to find out the seat number. This rule is essential because it’s not rare that the stadium venue takes away tickets from the reseller. As stated earlier, ticket broking is not illegal but it does violate venue policies. If you’re selling seats that you’ve got from a season ticket plan, then you might as well just give away the seats for the rest of the season if you choose to show the seat number. So without giving the exact seat information, the section and row is sufficient enough for the buyer. This alone allows for 99% certainty about what is being bought.

Other than that, pricing is also very important. If you’re looking to make a quick sale then post the tickets for 130% of the original price if you’re sure that they’ll sell. If you want to risk it then you can feel free to put the price up to 400%, though the probability of those tickets selling is low. In my own experience, 97% of tickets listed for 130% sell. That means that if you’re making a 126% profit in the longrun. So once you’ve finally sold the tickets, only arrange to send them through TicketFast: NEVER meet a person in order to give them their tickets (there have been many incidents in which people have gotten robbed). After getting the sale, only accept PayPal or any other secured payment source. Lastly, after getting the money, remember to keep investing wisely, and within a year you might be able to start a successful business.

What are the risks related to ticket broking and how do I avoid them?

The main risks related to ticket broking are the breaching of laws and the loss of money on an event. Losing money is by far the worst blow to a starting business. In order not to lose money, you must do your homework. Just like stock brokers need to research the companies, you must do the same with the event. If you follow the following steps then you will almost never lose money:

1. Find out the date of the event – If the event is on a weekend, then the probability that it’ll be sold out is much greater than if the event were on a weekday. Most events that take place on a Friday or Saturday exhibit a better fan base than events that choose a different day.
2. Learn where the event is taking place – The venue is very important. If the stadium is Madison Square Garden, then the event will most likely be sold out. Venues which are well known should always bring in more fans than those that are less known.
3. Look up where the group is touring – If you are looking for concert tickets, then it’s best to buy tickets if the artist/group is not performing in too close proximity. If a group is performing at NYC on Friday and at the Hampton’s the next day then it’s most likely that there will be a large ticket disparity. It is best to buy tickets if the group is only touring in main cities such as LA, Chicago, Houston, NYC, Miami.
4. Calculate the Population to Venue Seat Ratio – Find out the population of the metropolitan area of the city where the event is occurring. Once you get that, find out what the seating is in the venue. If the population to seating ration is absurdly high, then you have a good probability that the ticket resale price will be high. This does not in anyway guarantee that the event will be in high demand, but if you follow the other steps and find out that the event will be sold out then you are almost guaranteed huge profit!
5. Find out the current popularity of the artist – Go to http://www.billboards.com and look up all of the charts in which your artist is competing. Look up the standing of the artist overall, in the specific genre, amount of recent album sales, and the popularity of the hit single. If the artist is successfully making the charts then the artist’s tickets will probably be sold out for the following event.

Back to the following topic, ticket broking can also be illegal. Though ticket broking is illegal in some states, it is only effective in certain circumstances. Ticket broking is only illegal in Illinois, Maryland, and Florida. If you’ve looked at my profile, you can see that I reside in Chicago, IL. So how do I get around the regulation? I don’t get around it I just do it the LEGAL way. Though it is illegal to resell in those three states, it is only illegal to resell to people residing in the same state. This means that I can resell tickets to everyone living outside of Illinois, and all I have to do is mention in my auction that Illinois citizens cannot participate. So if you live in any of those three states, you’ll still be able to market your tickets to 280 million United States citizens! And if you live in another state such as New York, it is legal for you to resell tickets as long as they’re not more than two times the face value excluding tax. That means that you can sell a $300 ticket for $600 giving you $300 profit! For more information on your local laws contact your local congressman.

So how does ticket broking work and how do ticket brokers get their tickets?

Ticket broking revolves around buying and reselling. In order to buy tickets, brokers go through many different sources in order to be guaranteed good seats for a good price. Most successful ticket brokers purchase season tickets for sports teams and join fan clubs for concert tickets. Though that is the most successful way to attain the tickets that you want, it is not always worth the risk, money, and time. For beginning ticket brokers, the best way to get tickets is through Ticketmaster presales. Ticketmaster presales are the sale of tickets to specific people before the tickets go onsale to the general public. In this context ‘specific people’ refers to season ticket holders, fan club members, promoters, and any other person that is closely related to the performer/team.

So how do you get these presale tickets? As stated earlier, it is not necessary to get season ticket and neither is it to join fan clubs. All that is needed is the time to look around the internet in order to find the tickets that you want. To get presale codes, you can pay high dollar value on websites such as http://www.presalecodes.com, or you can get codes from free websites such as FatWallet or SlickDeals. Websites like these usually offer an information exchange about upcoming presale information, in which case the average person can take advantage of the generosity and use it to his/her advantage.

Once you find an event that you’re interested, look it up on Ticketmaster. If the event is listed, then you will be able to find the date of the presale after clicking on the event link. If the event date is not listed, then you need to look through Google and try to find out if the tickets are being sold through Ticketmaster. If the tickets are not showing up on Ticketmaster within two months until the day of the event then the most likely portal of sale is either the fan club website or a ticker distributor that is lesser known (but usually this only happens in the worst of cases, most commonly the tickets are sold on Ticketmaster). Once you know the presale date, usually wait until the day of the presale to go onto the presale section of this site in order to see the code for your event.

After you finally have the code, make sure you plan out the actual purchase of the ticket. Before doing anything, make sure that you have a Ticketmaster account! If you do not have an account, then you will most likely suffer grave consequences if you are not able to provide all your personal information within 3 minutes. This being stated, usually make sure that you have an account at least 15 minutes before the presale begins. After establishing your account, get ready for the presale and go onto the Ticketmaster website and type in the event that you’re looking for. Be sure that you’re on the page with the event at least 2 minutes before the presale starts. Then once the presale time hits (ex: 10:00pm), refresh your browser. You should now see a new webpage in which it tells you to enter your presale code, so copy and paste the code that you received from this website.

Once you type in your code, choose the most expensive seats that you possibly can, or just pick Best Available (this is not important if the event is guaranteed to sell out, for example the NFL playoffs) and afterwards choose anywhere from 2 seats to the maximum (though I suggest not choosing more than 4 seats because the probability of getting good seats is very low at such high quantity). So once you’ve done that, hit enter and wait for the page to load. When it’s done loading get ready to type in a security code. After you’ve done that you’ll almost definitely have a screen available with the tickets that you can buy. If they are offering the best seats available, then you should almost always buy. On the screen just type in your screen name, password and hit buy. Don’t forget that you’re going to have to submit a credit card security code! Once you’ve done that, choose Ticketfast because it’ll be the best form of receiving your tickets. After you get the tickets emailed to you, just sit back, smile and get ready to sell the tickets. More information on ticket-selling portals is provided in the article that discusses how sell your tickets.