PreferredSeat.com Blog

Super Bowl ticket prices have dropped over the last few days, from a high of about $2000 per ticket this past weekend, down to just under $1500 per ticket as of Tuesday morning. The economy is taking it’s toll on the Indianpolis Colts and New Orleans Saints Super Bowl game this Sunday with Super Bowl ticket brokers adapting with lower prices as it gets closer to game time.

As inventory diminishes the price of Super Bowl tickets should stabilize and maybe even start rising again, so this may be a great time to buy Super Bowl tickets. Super Bowl ticket brokers have better prices for Super Bowl tickets than even the NFL, since the NFL website is reselling tickets provided by ticket brokers. So you can cut out the middleman by buying your Super Bowl tickets directly from a ticket broker.

If your looking for Land Shark Stadium, it’s already been replaced just in time for the added exposure of the Super Bowl. The new name for the South Florida stadium is Sun Life Stadium. And almost as popular as the Super Bowl is the  NFL Super Bowl Tailgate Party at Sun Life Stadium before the big game. Lots of food and drinks and plenty to do, but at a price of course.

The Eagles have landed at Arco Arena and they can pack up and leave before they open their bags. With ticket prices that scare off even ticket brokers from buying Eagles tickets at the Arco, the fans are surely being screwed.

Though the face value of the seats are listed in the range of $32 to $275 per ticket, the Eagles are scalping their own tickets through their Eagles Fan Packages for $995 per seat, with parking and dinner.  Rather outrageous prices for a band most fans have seen a half a dozen times. And who wants to pay that kind of money to eat at Arco Arena or any arena food for that matter. At that price you can get a comparable ticket from a ticket broker,  a limo and a gourmet dinner at the best restaurant in town. And still save hundreds of $$!

This is what you will get from now on with the Live Nation and Ticketmaster merger. A few years back you could count on two different prices for a concert ticket. The lower level and floor price and the upper level price. For the Eagles there are at least 11 different priced tickets. And they’ll bump it up even higher as Ticketmaster and Live Nation fine tune their new model to squeeze every dollar from the “fans”.

They say they will be modeling their new system after the airline industry. But that is an entirely different world. We use the airlines because we have to in most cases, for work or pleasure. With tickets it’s different. For a few die hard fans, they want to see the artist each time he comes to town. For the rest of us, price will be a factor. No matter how much money we make. We have choices, and a weekend out of town beats 2 1/2 hours with a bunch of old fools any day.

So the Eagles, Ticketmaster and Live Nation should think long and hard as to how long they can keep the acts touring year after year, trying to jack the fans for every dollar, every tour.  Average “fans” can only afford so much, and at your prices only the well-to-do can actually see you from their seats, the rest might as well stay home and listen to old records.

Now that Ticketmaster and Live Nation have priced the best seats so high, they’ve made the cheapest $32 seats paperless, so they cannot be resold. This is the new model, overprice the best seats and block the resell of the cheap seats, even for “fans” that find after waiting 6 months for the concert, they cannot make it.  Then their stuck, just as Ticketmaster and Live Nation would have them. And do you really believe the Eagles demanded that only the $32 seats be sold as paperless as Ticketmaster would have you believe?

And that’s where the dynamic pricing will come in. Just like Bon Jovi and dozens of other acts recently, Ticketmaster will be sending out those 2 for 1 offers, and the fans that bought first will be screwed again. Then there’s the free ticket offers and you just have to pay the service charges. What will Ticketmaster and Live Nation do if everyone holds out and waits for the 2 for 1 special?

They killed the revenue stream by overpricing cd’s, now they’re going to kill the concert business with overpriced seats and packages that cannot be sustained over years of touring. And the next generation will not stand for these prices, they have too many other choices. Ticket brokers were blamed for years for their high prices and now the artist, promoter and Ticketmaster are selling tickets for even higher prices. Now who’s the ticket scalper?