I'll trade my soul for a ticket...

So, I have two extra Bon Iver tickets, and I was browsing craigslist to try to sell them. People are offering upwards of $100 for them, which I found ridiculous, but very exciting (in the sense that I will be rich!).

It made me wonder…what is the most you'd offer for concert tickets, and to what concert would you offer it?

Face value.


To any concert I'd like to go to but get shut out of.


And if I can't find such a deal, life goes on.


No beef here with scalpers though; if you can find someone willing to pay absurd amounts of money for your tickets, more power to ya.

I believe I was on record as offering $250 for a Smashing Pumpkins @ 9:30 ticket last July before more tickets got released.

I'd pay probably $1000 to see a band i love get back together (Floyd or NMH probably)

For a 'common' concert of a band that tours…no more than double face.

I bet that if an NMH show were to ever happen again, it'd be an on-the-spot spur-of-the-moment kinda thing probably taking place in some random town after one of the members' many bands' sets partially in order to avoid people paying $1k to see them.


Holy run-on sentence! :)

i don't usually pay more than face… but these days for big concerts you're talking close to $140 for the good seats…

so i'll pay that.

i can remember a time i wouldn't pay $50….

but basically i won't pay more than face.. but to get really good tickets for example- to see acdc- i bet its going to cost me…

i don't think i've ever paid more than double of face for a ticket. even for high-demand shows, if you look around hard enough you can find something reasonable. i always have.

however, i'd paid a whole lot to get myself to a show - airfare, hotel, etc. same difference in the end.

I don't think I've paid more than face value for anything in about 20 years.

It would have to be a huge band in a tiny venue. Something like The Stones at 9:30. Even then I'd probably only pay a few hundred $$$. I don't even pay the top-tier face-value price for some of the larger shows I go to.

I'd pay a few hundred to see R.E.M. at the club, but I imagine I know enough people that I could find a way to get a ticket much cheaper.

swapping tickets with other fans is another way of keeping ticket costs under control. would have cost me an arm and a leg to see all the radiohead shows i'm seeing this tour if it wasn't for trading.

speaking of that….if you hear of someone with one extra camden pavilion ticket……

I paid about $250 for a Redskins/Cowboys ticket (lower level) then found out, just like with concerts, people are trying to give them away the day of the game.

Somewhat related, I was trying to sell an extra ticket at the club because my friend bailed at the last minute and I was asking way below face value. The 930 security guard said he was going to have me arrested for scalping. Haven't been back since.

Originally posted by very sonick:
speaking of that….if you hear of someone with one extra camden pavilion ticket……

will keep my ears open and let you know.

i have not and would not ever pay more than face value for a ticket.

…and there's never been anything that i wasn't able to see that i wanted to see. i might not have gone to the closest show, but travel is fun anywya.

I doubt I would ever pay over face value for a ticket, but what face value would I pay for a Smiths reunion? I honestly can't put a number on it. $500, $600, $1,000????

I had two $150(ea) box tickets up for grabs at The Cure show down here recently. I was selling them for whatever someone wanted to pay within reason, as I had been given 4 tickets by a vendor so just wanted some beer money out of the deal. Some chump came over and I showed him the tickets and I said $50 for the two…he offered me $20 so I tore them up in front of his face…..the look on his face was worth the $20 I didn't make.

Originally posted by Ever Circling Skeletal Family:
he offered me $20 so I tore them up in front of his face…..the look on his face was worth the $20 I didn't make.

Ha! A guy once started berating me because I wanted face-value (about $25, I think) for my extra ticket to a sold-out show. He offered me $10 and when I said no, he started calling me a dick, yelling at me, etc. I turned around and gave to ticket to the next person I saw, absolutely free. The guy just about lost it when I did that.

Originally posted by 6949:
Somewhat related, I was trying to sell an extra ticket at the club because my friend bailed at the last minute and I was asking way below face value. The 930 security guard said he was going to have me arrested for scalping. Haven't been back since.

That's really odd because I've seen several security guys at 9:30 tell people they could sell their tickets in front of the club as long as it was for no more than face value. Maybe the show wasn't sold out and they didn't want you competing with the box office??

As for me, I will never pay or charge more than face value for a ticket on principle. If this means I miss shows, so be it. I've also been in bad financial shape but still refused to sell my extra tickets for more than face value. If I got the ticket for free, you get the ticket for free, but it'd be nice if you'd buy me a drink at the show.

awesome stories. any more out there like that? i love it when people acting like dicks have their attitudes handed right back at them like that.

I went with a group of people to a show in Richmond that wasn't sold out so we were going to buy tickets at the box office. As we're coming out of the parking garage, there's this kid selling two extras for $10 each. They were $15 each as face.

One of my friends buys one but my other friend starts going "Five? Will you take five? I'll give you five!" in a really excited voice. The seller goes, "Ten dollars is the price." Again, my friend goes, "Five? Come on: five? Better then nothing." Again, the seller goes, "I said ten. I'm already losing five dollars. You can buy at the box office for fifteen if you want."

My friend starts laughing and goes, "Ha ha, sorry man, I guess it's just the jew in me. Here's your ten." As he's pulling out his wallet, the kid goes, "That's racist. I'd rather eat it then sell it to you. You can go pay 15." and walks away, refusing to sell any of us the ticket.

Not money, but I once camped out overnight to get Bob Dylan tickets at a smaller venue in Cincinnati, OH. He played Bogarts (about 1,000 capacity) when a tour with Paul Simon was cancelled. This was around 94. Had to wait in line all night to get tickets. There were probably a couple hundred people there at 1am. No internet or phone sales you had to physically go get them. The concert was a few weeks later and was one of my best live music experiences.

BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL!!!

People can be complete jerks. If I can, I'll give a ticket away it there's little demand, but sometimes I'm selling it for a friend who is hoping to just make his money back. Oy. I love those moves, Bombay and Skeletal!

I haven't paid over face in ages, but I've paid some high end prices.

Last time I paid more than face was for Social D. It was my bad I didn't get tickets in time, and a friend was super excited (and he doesn't go to many shows, so I had to make him happy). I think I paid $60 each for $25 tickets.

The most annoyed I've been about ticket prices is that g*damn Police tour bullshit where they charge you to join the fan club to get presale tickets. I can't believe I did it. I almost didn't, but a really fun group of folks wanted to go, and if I'm going then I refuse to sit in the back or way up top.

This is how the 9:30 spoils me. I can't bear to be all the way in the back of an arena…

I only ever charge face when I'm selling a ticket. Usually I do it here or at the band's website, so it's a good deed for music fans. I charged more than face once – mostly because so many people wanted these tickets, it was a way to decide. I can't remember what show, but I felt so creepy handing the tickets over that I won't do it again. It was something at DAR….

Originally posted by Bombay Chutney:

Originally posted by Ever Circling Skeletal Family:
he offered me $20 so I tore them up in front of his face…..the look on his face was worth the $20 I didn't make.

Ha! A guy once started berating me because I wanted face-value (about $25, I think) for my extra ticket to a sold-out show. He offered me $10 and when I said no, he started calling me a dick, yelling at me, etc. I turned around and gave to ticket to the next person I saw, absolutely free. The guy just about lost it when I did that.