How to Resell Concert Tickets?

Sometimes, life gets in your way. You were looking forward to that show on the weekend, but now you can’t go. Maybe you’ve run into some scheduling conflicts, maybe your friend you were planning to go with has and you couldn’t find anyone else for that night. Or, God forbid, you’ve had a health emergency and now you’re unable to go anywhere.

So, you’re stuck with a ticket that you may have spent hundreds of dollars on. What should you do?

We know that you can’t really rely on refund policies either by the venue or a third-party ticket vendor site. Most of these sites only issue refunds if the event is canceled. Some have insurance in case of special emergencies, such as the death of a family member or serious injury. However, having to deal with proving that may not be the most pleasant experience.

Also, your friend canceling on you and you not wanting to go alone is usually not covered.

Therefore you’re probably better off trying to sell your tickets. Some ticket vendor sites, like Ticketmaster, do offer “fan-to-fan” ticket sales on their platform. However, this doesn’t apply to every ticket, and they also charge a fee when someone makes a purchase. Buyers are charged with a 10% fee, while the sellers have to pony up 15%.

There are websites dedicated to reselling tickets to concerts, sporting events, or theater shows. The most popular of them is Stubhub.

Their front page features prominently a search bar where you can search for the event you have tickets for to sell. You can search by location, performer or event name. Once you’ve found your event, you have to type in how many spare tickets you have up for sale. Then you can set your price and you’re good to go.

For certain high-demand shows, however, you need to email Stubhub first a copy of your ticket. If you don’t like something about this site, an alternative to Stubhub is Ticketswap.com.

All of these are all good solutions if you have to get rid of a ticket to an event you can’t go to. However, at last, we need to talk about more nefarious motives for resells - ticket touting, aka scalping.

Some people have the habit of buying up passes in bulk for super high-demand concerts or matches, then reselling it at a higher price when the seats are sold out as the date of the event is approaching.

In the United States, for example, ticket resales is a $5 billion industry. That is somewhat unfortunate, since the people profiting from this market contribute literally nothing to their customers. Some US states have laws against this kind of profiteering, but not all.