Is it cheaper to buy tickets in advance or last-minute?
When researching concert tickets, one wonders whether it is cheaper to purchase tickets in advance or last minute.
The most important and sometimes challenging stages are when you get to purchase the concert tickets and at the same time try to get them at fairly reasonable prices as well as before they run out of stock. The eternal dilemma for every lover and concert-goer - to buy tickets as soon as they become available in the first minute after their release and spend more money for that or to take a chance and wait for the last few days before the concert and spend less money? It should however be noted that both strategies also hold the potential for benefit and risk when it comes to cost control. Let me analyze both nouns for you.
Buying Tickets in Advance
The most effective method to getting concert tickets is to get them the first time possible - as soon as it is released in the market. This usually occurs several months before the actual sales and after the first presale window for special customer segments like fan club members.
There are a few key benefits to snapping up tickets the moment they hit the market:
Choice – Early buying also enables you to have a variety of options to choose from when it comes to seat location as most of the choicest seats are quickly booked. If you intend to secure yourself a position where you want to be as close to the stage as possible, or if you have your preferences in a specific area, advance buying is the best course of action.
Convenience – By locking down tickets with a wealth of time in advance, the possibility of a show selling out further down the road and running around trying to find the show is avoided. You can relax and look forward to the performance of the concert without any hassle.
Potential Presales – Sometimes, if you have a privileged membership in an artist’s club or a credit card company that gives you prior access to ticket selling, you are allowed to purchase tickets a few days before the rest of the public can. Such privileged presales often include high ticket limits where you can focus on great seats even before regular presales.
The sooner you plan to buy the ticket, you are likely to stumble on one of the most inexpensive ticket group offers. But that comes with some tradeoffs:
Sticker Shock – Most of the Dynamic Pricing models today are adopted by major ticket sellers who tend to set their initial on-sale at a slightly higher mark before the optimal pricing shows itself. This way, the buyer pays out more cash in advance before offers come up for merchandising.
Schedule Uncertainty - A lot may happen in event preparation that may lead to a change in the date of the event. If you are in an industry where there is little margin for moving your work assignments or life events dictate that you must change the date of the event, then being locked into buying very early creates a situation where you cannot attend.
Transfer/Resell inconveniences: In as much as you have hard tickets up to this point, if your plans change and you cannot make it to the event, you are stuck hoping that you can recover costs by selling them through unauthorized ticket sellers.
This is the process through which people wait until the last minute to acquire the necessary resources for a particular task.
At the other end of the spectrum are true deal-seekers who prefer to risk their luck and buy their tickets at the very last minute, perhaps just days or hours before the performance. The rationale is that where there are many unsold tickets within the show’s run closer to the end time, the prices will drop significantly.
While inherently riskier, the possible rewards of last-minute ticket buys are:
Closeout Prices – Towards the end, ticket brokers and resellers aggressively slash ticket prices to dump their inventory. These can mean huge cost reductions – as much as 7o-8o% cheaper than the first cost offered. No more overpriced tickets that are over $100 – let’s aim at selling $20 seats and higher.
Sunk Cost – There is always leftover inventory because no concert is ever a complete sellout, whether it is an arena show or not. Treats appear even a day before events, particularly in middle and rear sections such as stage views with obstructions and the very back rows; these are oddball batches of tickets that event organizers release and heavily discount in a bid to recoup at least some amount.
Low Risk – If the gamble does not work out, and tickets in your price range are sold out, you merely spend a few minutes of your time searching; it does not mean you are months out with expensive tickets you cannot use. Quitting at the final hour is a decision that does not erase a lot more than a chance.
But playing the last-minute game has some distinct disadvantages too:
Availability Roulette – Just like with the stray tickets that are often seen selling on the streets right before the actual event, availability does not come as a certainty. You may be able to get $20 tickets, while at other times you may not be able to get any seat that you can reasonably afford should you not find something that can trigger a release. There’s a complete gamble with the lives of the people of God.
Few plans available - If you manage to nail down something quite close to show time, you will have no say on the quality of the location or the pod facilities. This can be described as something like “take what one can get” in that you simply have to work with whatever is available to you. However, if your party is separated into different purchases or you are only able to come across individual strange tickets, then you are out of luck.
Counterfeit Risks – when you transact through unconventional secondary markets in pursuit of cheap last-minute tickets, then you expose yourself more to conmen and counterfeit tickets. These sites take advantage of people’s vulnerability, and the surest way is always to avoid intermediary or third-party websites and purchase products directly from the originator.
Therefore, is it wiser to purchase tickets early on as children do when they are smarter than waiting till the last minute when doing concert shopping? It is undoubtedly possible to observe a reasonable amount of proof for affordability gains in each of the cases.
It could be said that the best approach is somewhere in between – to look for empty seats and the fluctuations of the prices in one or two months after the initial sales. Bargain-priced products generally appear in the one to three weeks leading up to the event to meet existing demand that you can leverage. This middle road also negates concerns about availability issues or on the other hand HIGH upfront prices. These maps lead users to the availability of sections to target for open seats.
A few common-sense strategies to maximize your chances of finding those gems and getting the best concert tickets are flexibility and constant monitoring for any opportunity window. Going simply with the earliest convenience or the worst risks of the last second may meet the cost objectives but can bring suboptimal outcomes in terms of worry. Finding the optimal ticket price requires some searching yet provides the best value proposition in terms of the golden divide between cost, quality, and assurance.
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