How to Get the Best Deals on Event Tickets

After the COVID-19 lockdowns, ticket revenue went way up and it got so hard to get tickets that the government is trying to step in and break up the Ticketmaster monopoly. Getting a ticket to a concert, sporting event, or other live show has never been more fraught, but you do have options. Most ticket sites sell roughly the same seats, but they do so at different prices. Here’s how to find a good deal.

Here’s what frequent ticket buyers say

Your best bet, according to Redditors in the know, is to go to the box office at the arena or event space for a ticket, as fees are usually pretty low when you buy them in-person. Of course, for events with waitlists or ones that you’re planning to travel for, that’s not always an option, although I had great luck last December when I called a box office, told the receptionist I was traveling for the show, and bought my tickets over the phone. She upgraded them out of pure niceness, saying she rarely gets to talk to patrons anymore since most ticket-buying takes place online. Still, buying your tickets online—hell, on your phone—is so convenient, it might be worth a few extra bucks to you. Let’s just make sure you’re not spending too many extra bucks.

While Ticketmaster has earned a rough reputation for tacking on fees and being a platform on which scalpers resell tickets at jacked-up prices, it is regarded as one of the most secure in the game. Other buyers like TickPick for its transparent pricing. But which is best in a specific situation?

Putting ticket platforms to the test

Let’s do a real-world test of the major sites: Ticketmaster, StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and TickPick. There’s also a service called GameTime we’ll look at, but that one is more for last-minute gets. For our purposes here, let’s say we want to go to the Sept. 14 baseball game at Chase Field. I’m actually going to that game, where the Arizona Diamondbacks will play the Milwaukee Brewers, and have been investigating and tracking ticket prices across a handful of apps ahead of my flight, so I know what I’m talking about on this one. Let’s look at tickets in section 114, generally around row 27.

Ticketmaster: Ticketmaster told me that seats 11 and 12 were $94 each “plus fees,” so I braced myself, but when I went to the checkout I learned that the two tickets would be just $200. I was expecting the fees to be higher, given Ticketmaster’s reputation for sneaking all kinds of extra charges in there, so this was a pleasant surprise.

StubHub: StubHub disappointed me this time. The last time I did this test for Lifehacker, StubHub was a lot more transparent with its pricing. This time, I found that two seats in section 114, row 28 (just one row behind what I was looking for) would be $150 each plus fees, but I could not get the site to tell me the total cost until I put in my credit card information and hit continue. Ultimately, I wasn’t doing that for a test, risking getting charged without knowing how much I was even being charged, but it was somewhere over $300.

Vivid Seats: For seats in the same area, Vivid Seats is charging $90 each, so on par with the Ticketmaster price. However, each of those came with a $29.99 service fee and a $2.50 mobile delivery fee, so I’d end up paying $244.98. Not good. I used to love Vivid Seats, for what it’s worth, because after every 10 tickets purchased, you get a reward credit that can be applied to future ticket purchases. During baseball season, this has always been a lifesaver for me. In July, however, I found out on the morning of a game that my ticket purchase had been revoked, but Vivid Seats didn’t notify me; I only made the discovery when I went to send each of my friends their tickets, which I purchased on my account so I could get those sweet, sweet rewards points. When I contacted customer service, they told me—a person whose account has been active for years—that they couldn’t verify my identity and I couldn’t buy more tickets. I ended up buying last-minute tickets elsewhere, despite having gotten great ones from Vivid Seats days earlier. Something to consider.

SeatGeek: SeatGeek pulled the same trick as StubHub, not revealing my total price until I entered in card information. Still, the tickets I found were $92 each and that is lower than Ticketmaster and StubHub in general.

TickPick: I am biased toward TickPick because this is the platform that saved the day when I had the Vivid Seats meltdown in July, but they disappointed me a little in this test. Their whole deal is that the price they list is the price all-in, including fees, so you don’t get a surprise at the checkout. Typically, I’ve noticed there are fewer open seats and options on TickPick, but I find that less bothersome because the prices are so transparent. To sit in section 114 on Saturday, TickPick only gave me one option—row 33—but seemed clear that I’d pay $126 for both tickets. I had selected “two” from the drop-down menu asking how many tickets I wanted and was told the price was “all-in.” But that wasn’t quite true: Each ticket was $126, so the total came out to $252. A little miscommunication, fine, but this time, TickPick was not the cheapest option for me.

Now, about GameTime. The tickets on this platform are more limited, and the site is designed for “last-minute” buys. Unlike the last time I ran this test, though, there are plenty of seats available all around the stadium now, so it seems their selection is improving. I can’t say the same about the prices, though. To sit in row 25 of section 114, I was told I could get a “deal” of two tickets for $87 each, saving $12 on each, which GameTime told me was discounted from the regular price. That would equal $174. However, both had $35 in fees attached, so the total was actually $234. Credit where it’s due: GameTime did reveal this total to me before I entered in my card information, which is more than some of its competitors can claim to do. Still, that’s steep.

For most of these options, then, you’d pay over $200 for two people to sit in section 114. I’ve been enjoying TickPick for two months, since making the switch in July, but I recommend using your phone and not a computer if you’re using it, because that’s where I saw the full price of my purchase more clearly. Surprisingly, for all its bad PR lately, Ticketmaster had the best price in my test, and, since it’s the big dog in the game, I do feel a little more secure making my purchase there. Security, the availability of instantly-downloadable tickets, prices and fees, and transparency are all important factors to consider when buying a ticket, and each of these platforms addresses and meets (or doesn’t meet) those standards in its own way. For Saturday’s game, I’m going with Ticketmaster.