Best strategy for buying Red Sox tickets mid-April

March 30, 2008 2:04 PM

Wife, kid and I are going to Boston in mid-April for the Marathon, and we'd like to take in a Red Sox game since kid is a huge fan. We are not regular MLB ticket purchasers though. Should we buy tickets now at 2X list price from a broker, or wait until closer to game day and hope the price drops? Are weekdays less likely to sell out? (teams on the schedule are Rangers and Angels, and it's Marathon weekend).
posted by ldenneau to travel & transportation (15 answers total)

Take it from a Bostonian...the price won't drop. Especially over Patriots' Day/Marathon weekend. The sooner you buy them, the better.

Another much less expensive option is to take a tour of Fenway Park. I've done this with visiting friends several times, and it's a lot of fun, for about $12 per person.
posted by emd3737 at 2:15 PM on March 30, 2008

The price won't drop... if you can afford to buy them now just do it. 2x the list price is about the best your going to get. Marathon weekend? Forget about it, maybe your not familiar with how obsessed we are with baseball. Fenways been sold out every game for years at this point.
posted by pwally at 2:17 PM on March 30, 2008

I don't know if the price ever drops, to be honest.

Every game sells out at Fenway, and generally in advance save for a couple single seats here and there maybe.

A guaranteed seat would be getting them from a broker. I know, I am not a fan of them either. But if you wanted to camp out on Marathon Day, early (pre-dawn? I don't know) you could try the box office to see if anything frees up.

Weekday games, during the day, not on a holiday... yes, you'd have a better chance. Night games... iffy.
posted by jerseygirl at 2:18 PM on March 30, 2008

My sister the Sox fan says "if it's Marathon weekend you're much better getting tickets now. Craigslist sometimes has them but prices are going to just keep going up." She recommends Ace Tickets & says "Buy them now" (and adds "some people have moral objections to Ace, fwiw") Otherwise if you don't have a specific date in mind or you're willing to go without you can wait in line for last minute tickets or wander around day of, but for that weekend and considering it's coming up, and you don't want to miss out, now is better.
posted by jessamyn at 2:18 PM on March 30, 2008

In case you're the skeptical type, everyone here is absolutely correct, the prices will not drop, and may even go up as people get more desperate, like an auction. Get them now. A great day to attend the game.
posted by Melismata at 2:27 PM on March 30, 2008

The only other option, and I'm not sure how viable it is in Boston, is to wait around Fenway and take a scalper up. *Their* prices drop dramatically after the first pitch. But then, nothing's a guarantee.
posted by disillusioned at 2:31 PM on March 30, 2008

Do go, though. A game at Fenway is a beautiful thing.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:32 PM on March 30, 2008

Ace Tickets is fabulous.
posted by 1 at 2:32 PM on March 30, 2008

If you have bargaining skills, you can get a much better deal from the scumbags on the street outside the park after the first pitch than you can from the scumbags with internet connections before the game. But the marathon/Sox game is probably the biggest holiday in Boston and there may not be many tickets left from the street scalpers at the start of the game.

If you're going to help the bastards who wreck the game experience (and I'm not faulting you because I might very well do it in another city on a trip where I want to see a game and there's no way around it in this case), you should buy from Ace to make sure you're going to get in. And do it soon.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:30 PM on March 30, 2008

As other people have said prices will not drop and will actually go up. However there are some select tickets that they hold for Day of Game sales. They sell these at Gate C and are usually standing room tickets or season ticket holders who couldn't make it to the game. Its kinda hit or miss what tickets are available though.

I would strongly caution you against trying to get tickets from a scalper. When I worked at Fenway last year they had at least 10 undercover cops walking around ticket scalpers and people buying, so just a warning.
posted by lilkeith07 at 4:18 PM on March 30, 2008

I agree with everything everyone said...

however, if you can get them now for 2x list, snap them up.. seems like anytime I need tix to Fenway, I pay way more than 2x list.

I've actually had good transactions with stubhub fwiw.
posted by niteHawk at 5:58 PM on March 30, 2008

In my opinion, the Fenway Park tour is a lot more fun and interesting than attending an actual game at Fenway. Even if you do manage to get to a game, try to go on the tour.
posted by thomas144 at 7:02 PM on March 30, 2008

have you actually tried to buy tickets at redsox.com? There are Loge Box seats available for all 4 games that weekend. $90.00 a pop.
posted by Gungho at 8:08 PM on March 30, 2008

We scored some tickets in the outfield grandstands (Section 8) today from StubHub. Thanks for the help everyone!
posted by ldenneau at 10:17 PM on March 30, 2008

Glad to see you got good tickets from StubHub. The one thing you can rely on from that place is that the tickets are usually legit--they aren't in the scamming business.
posted by Todd Lokken at 7:51 PM on April 9, 2008