The Truth Behind No-Fee Concert, Sports and Theater Tickets
If you’re looking to get a good deal on concert, sports and theater tickets, it pays to know how the system works. The first tickets that you find, no matter how attractive the price looks, may not be the best deal. When you keep digging, you’ll find that tickets without fees can actually create real savings.
How Most People Search for Tickets
The key is to remember how most people search for tickets, which is simply by punching the related terms into a search engine. They often start by looking for the tickets themselves, with a term like “concert tickets.” The prices look great initially, but then the service fees begin to pile up.
Next, some customers search for “no fee concert tickets.” They see these and the advertised prices are more expensive than the ones they just found, that came with fees. However, what customers must know is that these no fee tickets can actually end up providing lower prices. The fees are often so high that the “low-priced” tickets are artificially low, with the fees bringing them up over the total value of the no fee tickets.
Part of the problem, for customers, is that not enough people look for no fee tickets, which are actually cheaper. For example, according to Google Keyword tool, an average of 49,500 people look for “concert tickets” every month using Google. However, just 110 search for “no fee concert tickets.” Similarly, 6,600 people look for “sports tickets,” while 1,000 people look for “theater tickets,” but just 30 people look for “no fee sports tickets” and the results for “no fee theater tickets” are so low that no data is recorded.
As you can see, if people would search for “tickets without fees” or “no service fee tickets”—both of which get only 170 searches per month—they could save money. That’s how they’d find sites like Headline Tickets, and, ultimately, lower-priced tickets at checkout.
How a Ticket Exchange Works
At the most basic level, a ticket exchange is a marketplace for tickets. They can be bought and sold through this marketplace. Some are common tickets, but others are rare or hard to find.
Behind the scenes, it essentially works like this:
A ticket broker—or an individual seller—uses a Point of Sale to list the tickets that they have. This Point of Sale device can be software or a website. The asking price is then entered and the tickets are put out in thousands of secondary market websites—like Headline Tickets.
The prices on the site vary depending on the asking price and the fees. For example, a person may list a ticket for an even $100. On one website, the cost could be $110, while the cost on another will come in at $90. All will hover around $100, but there can be differences.
However, what buyers have to remember is that the seller asked for $100 and will be given $100. Since a website is not going to take a loss, listing the ticket for $90 is rather deceptive. It means that the fees are going to be high enough for the site to profit. For example, there could be $30 in fees, meaning the $90 ticket really costs $120, with $100 for the seller and $20 for the site. A no-fee ticket site listing the ticket for $110 would actually be cheaper, despite looking more expensive from the beginning.
So, What Are Service Fees?
As noted above, service fees can be used to change the “real” price of a ticket. However, they’re also used when a service is being provided. For example, many ATMs use service fees if not in a bank’s network. Ticket websites will tack these fees on, as well, supposedly for the work that is done to sell the ticket online. However, as you can see from the above structure, that work is actually done by the seller with the Point of Sale system, so the fees are to make sure that the site still turns a profit—even when listing tickets for less than the asking price. Those who run the site know that people gravitate toward the lowest prices that they see initially, even if those prices are not really what will be paid.
Real-World Examples
Here’s a real-world example using tickets to see Kenny Chesney on March 13 in Connecticut. As the pictures show, the tickets in the example are for the same show, on the exact same date. They’re also for the same section and row. These are identical tickets—but the prices are far from the same.
First, these are the listed prices that the competitor site posts for the Kenny Chesney show. The least expensive, based on the criteria, is $124, with prices on other tickets escalating from there.
Next, here are the no fee concert tickets listed by Headline Tickets. Again, the performer, date, section and row are the same, but the prices range from $151 to $161. By looking at those base prices, it looks like Headline Tickets is much more expensive.
Here is the checkout page for Headline Tickets. These tickets without fees come in for exactly what you’d expect to pay, based on the pricing. The total amount due would be $309.50 for two tickets to see the show.
Finally, here is the checkout page for the competition. While the tickets started out at a much lower base price, there is an incredible $69.50 due in fees. This increases the price to a total of $317.50, which is higher than He
adline Tickets.
Sometimes, customers will leave when they see these high fees. However, if they search for no service fee tickets, they’ll find that they can get a better deal, even from a site that advertises higher prices. The difference is that the higher prices were lower all along, as nothing was hidden from the buyer. This transparency lets buyers know exactly what they’ll have to pay and makes it easy to find a good deal on no fee concert tickets, no fee sports tickets or no fee theater tickets.
The “Out the Door” Price
Ultimately, the best way for customers to know where to find the best deal is to make sure that they go through far enough to get the “out the door” price. What is the real amount of money that has to change hands? Don’t worry about whether it is composed of a base price or a price and service fees. Just click all the way through to the end—without buying—and you’ll see that no service fee tickets are the better deal. They may not look like it at first, but a bit of dedication and research reveals how tickets without fees often times trump low-priced tickets with high hidden costs.
About Us
Headline Tickets is a veteran-owned business that has proudly joined the Pittsburgh Buy Veteran campaign, which is put on by the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA). We have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and we make buying tickets safe, simple, and affordable—for local events in Pittsburgh and national events. We’re also a member of the National Association of Ticket Brokers, or NATB.
With each transaction, our mission is to offer a safe, secure website to give fans access to the best. Please let us know what you think.
