PreferredSeat.com Blog

Cheap concert tickets appear to be getting more common in the secondary market making it tough for Ticketmaster to sell full priced seats at the last minute. Ticket brokers have been dropping prices on a variety of concerts throughout the country including the Bruce Springsteen concerts at Giants Stadium.

It didn’t help that Bruce has a five day run there, but ticket brokers have already cut prices in the upper level to $25 a seat and lower level seats for $50 each for tonight’s Springsteen concert. Concert ticket prices across the country are way down this year and many artists are feeling the pinch including Barry Manilow, Jamie Foxx, Ron White and Rascal Flatts.

In the secondary ticket market, many of these artists are barely selling for face value for the premium seats that used to go for double that. Ticketmaster is having a tough time because customers are turning to ticket brokers to buy these last minute cheap tickets at a discount, usually face value or less for a poor selling artist.

It’s no wonder Ticketmaster is pushing the paperless tickets so they can have a monopoly on the resell of concert tickets. Then there wouldn’t be any competition for last minute tickets because nobody but Ticketmaster would be able to resell the tickets. How often do you get a good deal from a company that has a stranglehold on the market?

There’s intense debate on the internet regarding the reselling of tickets brought on by the recent news of a possible merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster and the problems with Ticketmaster and Ticketsnow. As one of the owners of Preferred Seating Inc and a ticket broker for over 21 years, I have heard it all. In the late 80′s we were called every name in the book and I see a lot of that on the internet now, just not to my face.

Since we started in this business we have seen prices rise for everything we buy on a daily basis; food, gas, housing, cell phones, cars etc. All of these commodities are bought and sold on the open market and very seldom is anything ever said about how much profit is made off of our daily purchases.

But since tickets generally have a price printed on the ticket, many people don’t believe it should be legal to resell tickets. And they forget the Bennie Babies, Cabbage Patch dolls, and anything they may have sold themselves for a profit including the home they live in. Now they declare that tickets are “sacred cows” that should not be resold for a profit.

I found this quote while on one of our frequent excursions to one of the most magical of places, one that has brought some of the most fun families can have together, yet is also known for high prices. That place would be the Lincoln Theater in Disneyland.

When shallow critics denounce the profit motive inherent in our system of private enterprise, they ignore the fact that it is an economic support of every human right we possess and without it, all rights would disappear. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Maybe Walt took some flak for his prices also. We’re in a big world with limited resources and commodities; we all need to decide which ones we want and need and how much we are willing to pay for them. We can’t have everything, and everything has a price.

And I would like to point out, although I fully support the resell of tickets, I believe there is not enough done to keep the tickets out of the hands of brokers and individuals using software to grab seats, and I would assume since Ticketmaster and Live Nation had so many problems selling tickets last year, they don’t want to disrupt the flow right now.

Close to 350,000 Tickets for Michael Jackson’s concerts at the O2 in London were sold in a presale yesterday for up to 30 shows planned there. Demand for Michael Jackson’s tickets was so high that Ticketmaster again had problems completing the transactions.

Fans will get another chance on Friday when the remainder of the tickets go on sale. Ticket prices went through the roof on Ebay and ticket broker sites proving the King of Pop can still sell tickets.