Get Your Last Minute Tickets, at Stubhub.com

Entertainment is very important to me and several times per year, I try to find a babysitter so that the wife and I can attend a concert, sporting event, movie, or otherwise have some type of adult fun. Living in a large metropolitan area makes it easy to find entertainment, but it also means that tickets sell out quickly. When this happens, there is often only one choice left: Use the internet to find someone willing to sell his/her tickets. And one site I have used for this purpose is Stubhub.com, a web site for purchasing tickets for concerts, sporting events, and more.

What Does This Site Have to Offer?:

Stubhub.com offers tickets for sale to events like:

Sports
Concerts
Theater
Exclusives
Art

Stubhub.com even offers gift certificates for sale, from $25 up to $500, and they make a good gift for someone who loves to be entertained.

Other Services:

Besides acting as a resource to buy tickets, Stubhub.com is also a place for ticket holders to sell their tickets. The ticket holder sets the price, and Stubhub.com then places the tickets on the site for sale. Stubhub also sends the seller a prepaid Fex Ex sticker to use for the mailing package and it transfers funds to the account of the seller either by check or via Paypal, when a buyer has paid.

Final Thoughts:

Stubhub.com bills itself as a “Marketplace for Tickets” and it is one of several online venues for purchasing tickets to events. I have known about Stubhub.com for a long time, but I didn’t take the plunge and use the services of Stubhub.com until recently when I was searching for tickets to a Houston Rockets game. I went to the Toyota Center (home of the Rockets) Box Office thinking there were seats available, only to learn that the moderately priced seats were gone. The only tickets available cost $80 or more each, and that was beyond what I was willing to pay for an evening of basketball.

This left me with only one choice: Search the internet or the local newspaper for someone willing to sell his/her tickets. I tried a few other ticket sites first (ones that I was already familiar with) like Ticketmaster.com, Ticketsnow.com, and a few others. But in each instance, the prices were too high for the quality level of seats. It is then that I decided the time was right to give Stubhub.com a try.

My reluctance to use Stubhub.com boils down to the questionable service that other Stubhub.com buyers have received and I admit, I was a little wary to use this service. All the way to the point when I clicked the button to confirm my order, I was afraid that Stubhub.com perhaps wasn’t such a good idea. “What if some of these people are right”, I wondered. “What if I pay for tickets and they don’t arrive on time? What if I pay and the tickets never show up at all?” These and other questions kept running through my head and I knew there was only one way to find out the truth: Click the button, finish my order, and hope for the best.

Before I finish the story about my order, let’s talk about Stubhub.com and some of its features. As stated before, Stubhub.com is a place to buy and sell tickets and tickets for many different events are offered here. I came here looking for sports tickets, which I did purchase. But I got sidetracked for a while and started to browse concerts and other events, just to see what was available. I found tickets to several events that were not available through the venue itself because the tickets were sold out. Stubhub.com had these hard- to- find tickets, and I began to look at possible concerts to attend in the near future.

Stubhub.com offers a customization feature that makes it quick to find events in your area. By entering city preferences, venue preference, team preference, etc., Stubhub.com creates a customized page for its customers. When you logon, it will show you the events coming to your city, venue, etc. This is nice, because it provides a means to discover what events are coming up soon so that you don’t miss out.

Stubhub.com offers “FanProtect” to ease the worries of ticket buyers and sellers. If you’re a buyer, Stubhub.com promises to get your tickets to your address on time and it promises the tickets will be valid for entry. If the event is cancelled and doesn’t get rescheduled, Stubhub.com will refund the price paid. For sellers, Stubhub.com promises that the seller will never be contacted by the buyer. Sellers can adjust ticket prices at any time and payment is sent either by Paypal or by check as soon as the order is confirmed. This barrier placed between the buyer and seller is a little different from other sites I commonly use, like Ebay.com. With Ebay.com and other sites, buyers know the contact information of the person they buy from; can send them messages; can rate them; etc. But Stubhub.com acts as the exclusive middleman, never allowing buyer and seller to know each other.

Now, let’s get back to my Stubhub.com order. Stubhub.com makes it fairly simple to place and order and I like the fact that the site lists many different buying options (different price levels to suit your needs). In many instances, the sporting venue or concert venue also includes an interactive map that customers can use to quickly search and find available tickets. By holding the mouse over a section of the venue, it will display if any tickets are available in that particular area.

Stubhub.com asks many questions about your ticket choice, shipping address, etc., before the order is complete. Don’t worry that you are going to click forward and get charged without knowing it. The site continuously states “Your Credit Card is Not Going to be Charged Yet” until the final order confirmation screen appears. At this point, the buyer will see the total ticket price, the shipping cost, and the grand total cost to be charged to a credit card (American Express, Visa, MasterCard, or Discover). A confirmation e-mail will be immediately sent. When the tickets are ready to deliver, another e-mail will be sent. Since the seller has to be contacted first, there is always a certain amount of lag time between when the order is placed and when the tickets are mailed. Stubhub.com keeps the communication channels open, letting you know what is happening each step of the way. They even provide an e-mail that they recommend taking to the event with you. It contains a phone number to call just in case the tickets are invalid and you are unable to enter.

So, how did my order turn out? Well, I was starting to get a little worried after a few days had passed. I still had about ten days before the event, but I started to wonder if the seller would come through. I didn’t worry so much about the money, because I felt pretty confident that Stubhub.com would refund the cash if the order didn’t go through. What I wanted was the security of having the tickets in my hand, and I finally received my Fed Ex package about five days before the event. I could finally rest peacefully at night.

If there is anything negative to say about Stubhub.com, it would have to be the shipping charges. Buyers really don’t have a choice when it comes to shipping. You have to accept the shipping method and price that is offered. Since there is no direct contact between buyer and seller, there is no “pickup” option, which could potentially save the buyer some money. You have to accept the high shipping price and while they are greater than the shipping prices quoted by Ticketmaster.com, the overall cost is still lower. The reason is because the base cost at Stubhub.com for the tickets themselves is less expensive than Ticketmaster.com or any of the other common ticket outlets, resulting in a lower bottom- line price.

Overall, I am happy with my Stubhub.com experience and I will likely use this service again in the future. It can get a little nerve- wracking waiting for that Fed Ex package to arrive in the mail. But Stubhub.com is still a good service for those who want to attend a specific event and either have no way to buy the tickets from the venue itself (due to sellout or some other reason) or who want to shop around for a better deal.

Recommended:
Yes

Article by: epinions.com