If you are hearing about an event on the radio, chances are that the show has been on sale for some time, and they are trying to sell the remaining ( and worst ) seats in the house.   Obviously, the trick is to learn about events BEFORE They go on sale - this is actually a relatively easy thing and will pay off BIG in terms of quality seats !!


Specific Venues And Cities.


Chances are you are most interested in events in your area - right?   OK - First thing we need to do is to determine what ticketing agency handles the majority of events in your area.  

Since Ticketmaster  handles the vast majority of ticketing, let's start there.  In the TM search box, simply enter your city ( or one close by ) and if TM handles events in your area, they will be displayed.   If you look to the right of the TM window, each event will be designated as either ~ Find Tickets ~ ( sometimes : on partner site )  or ~ More Info ( presale begins... ) ~ .  Cut and Paste the TM link  ( I use a word document as it opens the links in a browser that I specify ) and your search is on!   BTW - Clicking on those that show a presale will give you information as to when the presale starts and ends, but let's finish our initial search first.   No listings on TM?   Scroll down to ~ Now What ~ below.

Take a look at the venues that are displayed by TM - Google each one and see if you can find a link to the venue - also note any venues that you are aware of that are missing, and Google those too.   When viewing a venue's web site, it is likely that any ticketing links will take you back to TM for those that were displayed by TM in our initial search.  For those that were not, look for the ticketing link and be sure to cut and paste that info !   For all venues, we want see if there is an email alert, or club alert, or whatever it is called for the specific venue.  If so, sign up !   Do not sign up for any alerts directly from TM - they are a waste of time as they never alert you to a presale and rarely before a show goes on sale in general.   I suggest cutting and pasting each venue's web site, whether or not they offer an email alert - some venues are better than others in informing you of shows ahead of time - it is always best to visit the web site on a fairly regular basis.

Now that you have all of these links, all you need to do is visit them regularly to see if any new shows have popped up.   You will probably find that there are some venues that do not offer shows that you are interested in - that's fine - just dump them.  If there are any specific venues that you were unable to locate with a Google search, contact me and I'll be glad to hunt them down for you. 

Be sure to visit my ~ Primary Ticketing ~ page for tips and tricks on buying tickets!


Nothing on TM - Now What ?!?!

This isn't a problem, and in fact is good news - non TM ticketing is generally not as saturated by brokers, and you should have a much better chance at quality seats.

Your next step should be to check Tickets.com - while they only handle a fraction of the events that TM does, they are well above the third place source, and really - the only other one worth mentioning.

Nothing there either?  That's fine - keep reading!

Start with the biggest venue in your area ( not college football stadiums as these are usually handled by the university itself ) and Google it.  If you find a web site for the venue, look for a ticketing link - if they handle their own ticketing, or if you were unable to locate the venue, try another one.  You should eventually find one that will link you to some kind of ticketing, and chances are that site will handle events for nearly every venue in the area.

As with Ticketmaster ticketed venues, you want to be sure to sign up for any email alert services offered by the venues, and cut and paste their sites so you can do a quick search for new events on a regular basis.


Specific Artists


If you have done your homework above, you should have plenty of advance notice if your favorite artist or artists are coming to town, but it might not be a bad idea to keep track of them anyway.  Some artists have an authorized fan club - this can be very easy to find using a Google search.    If they have a subscription based fan club that offers presale opportunities and are currently, or about to tour, you might want to consider the fan club.    However - not all fan club presales are only open to members - if the presale code is not specific and unique to your membership ( ie ...  It is a generic code for all members ) you can bet it will be posted on every broker site before you see it.  If the site isn't specific about this, contact me and I'll let you know if the club uses unique or generic codes.

If the artist does not have an authorized fan club, you should still be able to find several sites dedicated to them.  In either case, be sure to cut and paste these sites and visit frequently.

OK - We have our venues and artists hunted down - time to discuss Primary Ticketing tips !!