How do secondary ticket sellers have concert tickets before presale even begins?

[Andtototoo]

I still think it is a messed up industry that values insider deals over their customers. I don't understand why your free tickets get to take precedence over a paying customer.

It is messed up. Radio, for example, has little to do with what listeners want to hear ... which is one reason, of course, why stats on listeners show a long-term downward trend -- people aren't hearing what they want. They're hearing what is profitable for radio stations to play. Radio stations play what they are paid by record labels to play. That's why you heard Madonna and Nicki Minaj's new song every hour on the hour when they were released -- bec their labels paid for it in some shady but legal way and one of those legal ways is free concert tickets. The radio stations then often use those free tickets in contests which drum up callers and clicks on websites, which then drives up ad rates.

The paying customer is just a cog in the wheel.

I've never understood paying to go to a concert when the music is so much better on a CD or Itunes. We went to one concert together once. It was ok but I had to get pretty rough with two people who kept trying to take my seat - while I was in it!!!! They were both really drunk and kept doing that to everyone in our row.
I have no interest in going to another concert. Ever.

I think it really depends upon the performer and you have to pick and choose, especially today when so many "live" performers are lipsynching. For example, I've been to a few Adam Lambert concerts and recorded music does not begin to do his voice justice. Hearing him live was worth every penny and then some. On the other hand, many years ago I went to a Chicago concert and I might have well have been listening to it at home because they just stood there and played and while it was impressive that they could sound the same as their recorded music, there was nothing special about it and certainly not worth the price of a ticket. Sometimes the experience is bad -- as you found. And sometimes the experience is amazing and wonderful and worth the price of a ticket. So, for me, there are some concerts I'm willing to pay prices that are reasonable to me and there are some I wouldn't go to if the ticket was free because my time isn't.

 

[Micca]

I still think it is a messed up industry that values insider deals over their customers. I don't understand why your free tickets get to take precedence over a paying customer.

Regardless of this screwed up way handling tickets, I just want the concert acts and the venues to tell us ahead of the on-sale date how many tickets at which levels they have already given out. I think the paying public deserves to know how many tickets they actually have a shot at buying. It would also tell you which acts actually value and respect their fans.

Asta I empathize with your point of view (see post #5). The "insider" people help get these artists to where they are, just like other fans. If you were a performer and spent years going from crummy gigs at clubs to arenas or stadiums, wouldn't you want to give some tickets to the people who helped along the way? There's also the issue of industry folks who count on each other not just for one show, but every show that comes along. The promoter presenting Madonna at the Enormodome one week may be the same people bringing Kenny Chesney there next week. You're also assuming these people aren't fans of an artist just as much as you are. In fact, what if they are such huge fans of an artist that they got into a business such that they'd have access to concert tickets? It happens.

As far as revealing the number of seats available for a show, I can't think of any business that reveals the exact amount of inventory it has to the buying public. Closest thing I can think of is when Amazon says "Order soon, only 5 left" but they never tell you how many there are to begin with. Besides, in a !5,000 seat arena, how would you know how much more an artist is devoted to their fans if they had 14,000 seats for sale or 14, 250?

The music business has an unpleasant underside to it. Actually, the music business mostly is unpleasant with a smattering of good, talented people in it.
Just so you know, very few of these procedures go on without the knowledge of the artist or their management.