Three Tips for Getting the Best Deal for the Best Event Tickets Online
Do you find yourself Googling “How to buy concert tickets without fees”? When you’re looking for cheap baseball tickets or fee free tickets to a concert, you’d think it would be easy enough to figure out how to buy concert tickets without fees on your own, right? You can book a vacation across the world without doing anything but typing on your computer, how hard can it be to buy tickets online, right? Don’t be fooled, my friend.
What’s going to happen is that you’re going to punch “how to buy concert tickets without fees” into the ol Google machine, and then you’re going to get like a hundred results. Many will claim to be no fee ticket brokers, but you really pay the same amount in the long run. Sometimes, the ones that seem like the cheapest deal really aren’t a good deal at all. To help you on your quest to learn how to buy concert tickets without fees, we’ve put together a guide, below:
- There is no free lunch.
The event ticket brokers who claim to charge you nothing for the best prices on event tickets are hiding something. The fact is, they aren’t running a charity. If they really didn’t make any money off selling you tickets, they’d go out of business.
In reality, all ticket brokers have some way to make money off your transaction. You want to find the ticket broker who is honest about how they are making money. Sometime brokers make a commission from the vendor who is selling the tickets. Some brokers disclose that they charge a nominal fee for their service. What you want to avoid is the brokers who claim they are no fee ticket vendors, but really bake in the cost of doing business with them into the cost of the ticket. These guys are not only the same overall cost (or more) than their competitors, they’re not trustworthy.
Let’s say you’re trying to buy tickets that seem to cost $85. Most ticket brokers might be trying to charge you a $5 service fee, making the overall ticket price about $90. The ticket brokers that claim to be no charge to you will instead charge you $95 for the ticket. You aren’t really saving any money. In fact, they’re the guys who will probably charge you a $20 fee for shipping on top of it all, just to rub salt in your wounds. - You want a middle man.
Some people think that the cheapest way to get tickets is directly from the vendor hosting the event. Some vendors don’t even offer this, but if they do, you should avoid it. Let’s say you have a problem with the ticket your purchased. Let’s say you have a problem with the customer service you received. Let’s say something comes up and you need to return your ticket. Whatever the issue, if you go through a middle man, you have a non-biased mediator to ensure you are treated fairly. If you buy your tickets directly from the vendor, the vendor is going to do whatever is their own best interest. You have no leverage.
The real take away here is that some online ticket sales actually just drop you off at the vendors doorstep, and then disappear into the night. You might not even realize that you aren’t working with a vendor, unless a problem arises. You should be cautious of ticket brokers like this. - You get what you pay for.
Another thing people don’t think about is the ticket brokers who are making the least off your ticket sales are generating the least off your business. They either have to sell a whole lot more tickets to make up for the cost, or they have to reduce the customer assistance (or cutback overhead in some other way) to stay profitable. This might seem okay for you, but then when it’s the night of the event, and you’re standing at the entrance with a ticket that isn’t working and realize that your ticket broker is only available Monday through Friday until 5:00PM, you’re going to shake your fist at the sky in despair.
Before you buy, understand what you’re paying the broker and what you get for your money.
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