Cowboy, take these away. But pay a price as high as you can.

August 10, 2006 2:17 PM

What's the best way to sell my extra pair of tickets? Some quite specific questions inside.

I am aware of this prior thread but the advice there isn't entirely what I need.

Here's the background:

I "won" two very good floor seats to a Dixie Chicks concert in Toronto in one of Ticketmaster's online auctions. But see, I didn't think I was going to win that one. So I also bid on two tickets to the concert the next night, and won those, too. So now I have two sets of tickets to two different Dixie Chicks shows (both in Toronto in October). I would like to sell one of the two sets.

Here are my questions:

1. Given that I, the tickets and the concert are in all Ontario, am I legally permitted to sell these tickets for more than face value? More than face value plus ticketmaster fees? Whatever the hell I can get for them?

2. If I sell them on eBay is there a time that makes the most sense to sell them assuming I can sell them at a profit? The concert is basically sold out now, but isn't until late October. Should I hold onto them until early October?

3. I'm considering offering them to TicketsNow.com, which shows many other pairs of tickets for the same show at highly inflated prices. Anyone heard of these people? Are they actually legit? How much should I ask for per ticket if I try to sell them to them? (I paid $130 plus fees and they are in the 8th row on the floor.)

4. Is there anything else that I should know about this whole process before I get myself scammed, fined, or both?

I usually just freecycle my extra concert tickets so I haven't done this before, but they're usually $20 tickets to club shows. $260 plus fees is rather more than I can afford to just eat, ya know?

posted by jacquilynne to Work & Money (5 answers total)

I don't know what what's legal, but here's what I'd do: Take both sets down to the venue early on the first night and make a deal with a scalper, either selling the inferior set of tickets outright or trading all four for two really good seats (and maybe some money). You won't make as much money as you would scalping them yourself, but it'll be less hassle.
posted by timeistight at 3:10 PM on August 10, 2006

FYI - if you don't need to make a profit - it is legal to sell tickets at face value in Ontario.

That's what I've been told and I'm sticking to it...
posted by typewriter at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2006

Response by poster: Oh, they're already really good seats. The Saturday night ones are 8th row floor seats. The Sunday night ones (which I'm keeping) are 3rd row floor seats. I'd really like to recoup the money for them before the show, if for no other reason than Mastercard would, you know, like that money now.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:21 PM on August 10, 2006

It is illegal to sell tickets for more than face-value in Ontario, and illegal to re-sell event tickets outside an event no matter what the cost (to the tune of a $500 fine), but this bylaw is almost never enforced.

Ebay or craigslist the tickets for face value.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 8:29 PM on August 10, 2006

if you're going to use ebay, you can't sell for more than face value... but you CAN auction some kind of memorabilia (e.g. poster, cards etc) and offer the tickets as a "free" gift. This is quite common for sporting events anyway..
posted by ThinkNut at 1:09 AM on August 11, 2006