How to Buy Cheap Concert Tickets.

When your favorite artist or band announce that they will be going on tour, probably the first thing you think of is how you are going to get tickets to see them. You could just go and stand in line at the ticket office, the way people always did in the past, but nowadays you are probably more likely to buy your tickets on the web.

The first thing to do is to get definite information about when and where the gig will be taking place. All too often you only hear about a gig once it has happened, when you read the rave reviews of how good it was! So one of the first things that the ardent concert goer should do, is to keep their eye on what the upcoming performances are going to be. This is where the internet comes into its own, with some really great sites around that will keep you well-informed. Try taking a look at pollstar.com, livedaily.com and citysearch.com. Also most bands, artists, theaters and venues have a website, with a mailing list that you can subscribe to that should keep you up to date with all the latest tours, gigs, performances and so on. The major box office websites such as Ticketmaster and tickets.com also have mailing lists that you can join. Another way to keep informed is to listen to your favorite radio stations, and your local radio station for announcements of who is playing where. The radio stations also have websites which are valuable sources of information, and signing up to their mailing lists will keep you up-to-date with what is going on.

It can be quite challenging to get hold of tickets for the more popular concerts done by big name bands and artists, with these tickets selling out in just a couple of days, or even a couple of minutes! So how do you get hold of them? This is where fan clubs come in handy. Make sure that you are a member of the official fan club of your favorite bands, because these tend to hold presales, where tickets are first of all made available to members. Most fan clubs will have a set number of tickets for any show, and this might be less than 10% of the total tickets for sale, making it still a challenge to get hold of them. Some radio stations also have a limited number of tickets, so make sure you sign up with the radio stations too.

Quite a number of theaters and venues have their own clubs, and if you join these you often have the chance to buy tickets before they officially go on sale. This is usually only a small number of tickets, so being a member is not actually a guarantee that you will be able to get the tickets you want. An additional problem is that these memberships can actually be quite expensive.

If you want to be sure of not missing a good concert, then you might think about getting a season ticket, as many venues have these available, but at quite a cost, due to the fact that the season ticket can get you into any show at that venue.

So, if the ways just described don't bring you any luck in getting hold of the tickets you want, then that leaves the usual public sale. To stand a good chance of getting hold of tickets by this method make sure of the date of the gig from the artist's website, the fan club website, the venue website, the newspaper, or sites such as pollstar.com. You can get hold of tickets in three different ways: by buying tickets online, by phoning the box office, or by going to the box office in person.

However, the real problem comes when the show is sold out and you didn't manage to get hold of tickets. So is there anything you can do now? There are still a number of ways in which you might get hold of a ticket after the concert has sold out, but generally this means paying higher prices, but the price will depend on the number of people who want to get to the event, and the number of tickets actually available. It's basically a case of supply and demand.

One good site to visit in this situation is StubHub, where fans and season ticket holders sell their tickets. StubHub do however add on a fee of 10% of the ticket price. Another good site to try is the ubiquitous eBay which has large numbers of tickets for sale by auction. Yet a further possibility is to try out the online classifieds, and the classifieds of your local and national newspapers.

Another good bet is to try the various ticket brokers, such as www.ticketmaster.com, www.ticketsnow.com and www.bluefishtickets.com, which all tend to have a good selection of tickets for top events. Ticket brokers tend to be fairly professional, and though expensive, you can be sure that you are getting the genuine article. Their staff are fairly expert at ticketing, and helpful too.

Probably the most desperate way to try to get hold of tickets is through a ticket scalper, also known as a ticket tout, on the street outside the event. You can run into a number of problems by buying tickets this way, as there tend to be problems with tickets being counterfeit or even stolen. If the ticket is counterfeit, then you won't be able to get into the venue, and the money that you paid the tout will be lost. In a lot of cities ticket touting is illegal, and the person selling you the tickets might even be a police officer working undercover. In this case, trying to buy a ticket off a tout or scalper could land you in a whole lot of trouble. You also have to watch out when buying tickets through eBay, any of the other auction sites, or the newspaper classifieds, as there have been sales of counterfeit tickets by this method also.

So, by getting yourself armed with advance information, you should be able to be the first in line to get the tickets you want.