The summer of 2015 is upon us and the almost every city has something amazing for you to checkout.
ONE PROBLEM: Tickets are through the roof.
Todays Deal is more of a strategic meeting amongst us borderline broke summer fun loving ladies. I love going to music festival, plays, concerts, football and baseball games but I can’t justify spending $300 to see a few DJ’s press play in a big field. I love the experience but bills exist and this gal has to remain frugal.
So HOW do I see all the festivals and shows that come around every year without going broke. I use a trick my University boyfriend taught me. He called it the “Ticket Pain Relief” method.
It’s pretty simple, in psychology, studies prove that relieving pain is much more desired and acted upon then approaching desire. People will do almost anything to avoid pain, but will only occasionally approach pleasure. I’m sure you’ve come across this in your lifetime in many different examples. It’s the reason why problem solvers are alway in high demand.
So what does this have to do with getting cheap tickets to a music festival?
Imagine you bought two tickets to a festival like Bonnaroo. You would be looking at around $600 up to $2500 is you went for VIP tickets. Now you get a call from your friend and something has come up, a wedding a funeral…something.
The pain begins to strike.
Damn, ok that’s understandable you can’t, “I’ll try to find someone else.”
The ticket holder realizes that the day approaches and perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea. Perhaps they don’t have anyone else to go with. Perhaps they to were invited to the wedding and there is only one pain greater than missing Bonnaroo itself, the pain of throwing away both money and perfectly good tickets.
This is where you come in.
I know what you’re thinking…”Great, I read this whole post and you are just going to tell me to go buy a ticket from a scalper.”
Nuh-huh madame, there is in FACT an art to purchasing second hand tickets.
The strategy:
Go to all the classified sites and figure out the words you’ll need to be searching. Artist names, dates, potential misspellings. And make this one key realization. The further away form the event the ticket holder is, the less likely anyone will contact them and the more likely they will give you their ticket for next to nothing.
For example, Bonnaroo is located in Manchester, Tennessee. Most people will think ok let’s search major cities near Tennessee on craigslist for tickets. Here you will find people saying “they just want their money back” or “save the fees”
These people have been contacted a few dozen times and will in fact get close to their asking price.
What you need to do. Look for tickets to your event all over North America. Search for Bonnaroo tickets for sales on craigslist in Seattle. I guarantee anyone who has a ticket listed their has been contacted no more than ten times.
Start planting seeds, find 20-30 out of town ticket sellers a throw low balls like it’s going out of style. I’m talking $60 for a $300 face value ticket. Go crazy, these tickets will go to waste without you stepping in and RELIEVING THE PAIN of being stuck with a perfectly good ticket and no money to show for it.
Send out these 30 emails for maybe two or three days and wait as long as you can stand it before the event. The longer you wait the better deal you’ll get. Eventually someone will respond, realizing that you are the only person that will ever contact them about their tickets.
SUCCESS. You’ve recieved a response and they are cool with sending you to a $300 3 day festival for $40-$60 SWEET! now what?
The ole switcharoo. Secure your deal, have the seller excited to receive money, then and ONLY THEN, do you reveal you are in fact 400 miles away and will need to receive the tix in the mail. Send your seller exact instructions:
Choose First Class International Shipping With Tracking.
Send By (insert day)
The Money Exchange. I have used this strategy for dozens of events and always get a great deal on concerts and plays every summer. The big advantage I have. I am willing to take a slight risk as the reward saves me so much money that losing even 50% of the time would still be a win.
BUT let me be clear, I have NEVER, i mean NEVER, lost any money doing this for one key reason. I have a verified paypal account with buyer protection.
You send the funds via paypal, paypal keeps the fund until tracking shows that your item has been delivered a voila cheap tickets from anywhere in the world potentially overnight.
If this is too big of a risk for you there is another option.
Simply explain to the seller that you will happily pay the funds via e-transfer, however you need to make sure they are real and will only buy the ticket want they have arrived and you have entered the concert.
If they have expensive tickets and you’re the only one that contacted them. You’ll undoubtedly find someone who is willing to take all the risk and send you tickets. Simply go to the concert, pop open your phone, send the funds and enjoy.
Read More