My experience reselling Kanye West tickets 

Introduction

I had no intention of buying Kanye West concert tickets, but a reader mentioned she had just bought floor seats for his Miami concert.  I then looked to see when I could buy the Seattle tickets and they were ready the next day.  This was one of those AMEX concert tickets where you only needed to know the 800 number on the back of the card vs a specific code like those Hamilton tickets.  This was back in mid June for his Seattle concert in October.

Say what you want to say about Kanye, but I knew his tickets would still be in high demand, so I took the risk, even after getting burnt on Beyonce.  The Key Arena is a much smaller venue than Century Link Field, so I capacity on my side.

AMEX Presale tickets were worse than normal Presale

Right when the tickets went on sale, I entered in the AMEX presale code and got section 114, which clearly isn’t FLOOR.  I paid just about $300 for the pair of tickets.  I wasn’t sure if the FLOOR sold out already, so I was a bit puzzled after my purchase.  I then decided to just buy the normal presale tickets instead of the “Exclusive AMEX tickets” and when I did that option, I was able to buy FLOOR tickets for the same $300!

I had considered buying more tickets, but I was gunshy due to the Beyonce fiasco.  I had considered buying other locations too, but once again, I was worried I’d lose money so just left it at 4 total tickets.  That and the section 114 tickets pissed me off.  I knew those wouldn’t sell as well as FLOOR.

Stubhub

A week later, I posted all 4 tickets on Stubhub.  Within 2 weeks, the floor tickets sold for $538 ($484 net fees).  Those section 114 tickets only just sold a few days ago (nearly 2.5 months since I posted them and about a month out from the concert.)  Those tickets sold for $288 ($259 net fees) and I took a loss on them after lowering my price.  I just wanted to move them and not be stuck with them for too long, knowing I had locked in a profit already on the floor seats.

Math

2 Floor tickets = $484 sale – $297 cost = $187 profit (63% ROI)

2 section 114 tickets = $259 sale – $297 cost = $38 loss

Total = $743 sale – $594 cost = $149 profit (25% ROI)

Lessons Learned

Trust your instincts.  Just because I got burnt from Beyonce doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have trusted my instinct and bought more Kanye tickets.  Just because the dealer hits a 5 on 16 and beats you once doesn’t mean you start hitting on the dealer’s 16 going forward.

The other more important lesson – don’t assume the AMEX exclusive presale is giving you best seats in the house.