Introduction
I realize some of you must be tired of this series, so hopefully there won’t be any more posts. But this post has a very good LESSON LEARNED that you should care about. Other posts in the series so far:
These tickets were very stressful for me because I had bought 4 of these premium tickets (meaning $860 a seat cost) for a total cost of about ~$3500. I had to float this for many months. I didn’t sell these tickets until Monday February 3, which was the day before the show. I can’t emphasize how stressful holding these tickets so last minute is.
Selling on both sites
I had these tickets listed on both Ticketmaster and Stubhub for months now. I thought these tickets would be a slam dunk since they’d be a perfect Valentine’s Day date night, but I had overestimated the “ballers” in New York. Anyway, since I had all 4 tickets listed on both sites, I had to frantically keep checking my emails so that I don’t double-sell the same tickets, which would not go over well. On Monday morning, I lowered my price on Stubhub to $750 each list price, which meant I’d only net $675, thus a loss of nearly $200 per ticket. Two of the four sold within 2 hours. At this point, I didn’t care about the loss since I made up for them on the Chicago tickets. I immediately removed all 4 tickets on TM and was going to not relist the last pair on TM until a reader told me to just do it.
I then listed the last pair for about $850 each or so face on TM that would net me $767 at 10AM. The remaining pair sold on TM at 4:30PM. It’s odd because those same seats were cheaper on Stubhub, but people like the guarantee of TM. This meant I lost about $100 per ticket on the last pair. I promptly pulled my Stubhub listing and let out a big sigh of relief.
Thus, all 4 premium VDay NYC tickets cost me $3500 and I only netted $2884, thus a loss of $600 for all 4 tickets.
Lessons Learned
A couple of lessons learned here. ONE, these premium tickets were probably the WORST premium tickets. They were on the orchestra floor but on the side. I knew these were bad because I had bought another pair of $200 tickets in practically the same area, just closer to the sides and those sold pretty quickly. The point is that one guy could have paid $860 for his ticket while the guy RIGHT NEXT TO HIM only paid $200. The guy who is buying the resale tickets have no idea which ticket was $860 and which was $200. So yeah, that was me – the guy in the worst $860 seats in the house.
The second lesson learned here is that it was better to have picked a random FRI or SAT ticket versus Valentine’s Day. I overestimated the “ballers” in New York. I know a lot of people who easily flipped their premium FRI and SAT pickets for $1500+. I think a weekend also has tourist action plus hey it’s a weekend; no work the next day. Or maybe there were just too many resellers who had the same idea as me, which is why you should always try to get out of the peloton.
I bought obstructed vision seats. 2 at $177 Row G at the wall. and 2 in back orchestra behind posts I think for
about $100. So my profit was likely double after fees. I did not buy originally to sell but to use.
But that tells me the demand in Chicago is not that great in first batch. those up till March 18th I think. Therefore,
I think that adds credence to my Point that tickets after March 21st will be difficult to unload.
My advice get what you can now, before news gets out that demand, while still great, is not in the vicinity of $500
and up for Chicago.
I posted on a different thread. But the essence of my comment was that I think Hamilton ticket prices will crash
within the next month or two if not sooner. It will happen in Chicago first which will have some effect in NYC and San Fran especially on resale tickets.
The second batch of Hamilton tickets covering I think March 21st,2017 till Sept ( We will see how many unsold tickets they have at Private Bank Theater. They started selling third batch Sept 2017 till I think Jan 7th 2018
went on sale last week. I think the producers and theaters are Maximizing sold seats, and packaging them with Season Season packages. I have no proof! So I could be 100% wrong.
I would not be surprised that Chicago has 50% unsold tickets from Mar 21st forward. We might see some 2 for 1
or buy two get one free deals, Hotel deals coupled with tickets, ETC.
I wonder if this makes any sense. I bought thru Ticketmaster two sets and unloaded in Chicago. doubled my money, but that was a few months ago.
I sold an Orchestra pair for 2/18 for $1,500 apiece. Mine sold 6 days before the show (also on Ticketmaster with price a notch higher than on Stubhub), and I kept watching prices and saw that I should’ve pushed for more. The day before, the cheapest Orchestra tix were $2k each. Saturday night + weekend after Valentine’s + President’s Day weekend thematic tie-in + 3-day weekend (more tourists) was my play.
But the real money was made on the uppers it seems. $200 each to buy and they were touching $1,000 on TM and SH.
agreed. I got a pair for a Sat in Nov in Chicago and made a quick $800 profit. The pair I got for V-day didn’t sell for a while so I ended up pulling them down and just giving them to a friend. I’ve read that Mother’s Day and V-day are usually the best for broadway show reselling but I’m thinking the random Sat in Nov was a safer bet.
My cheap Mother’s Day NYC sold in 2 days when I dropped the price to $500 net, which means I still made ~$200 per ticket. The premium tickets are still stuck. It could be that the market is only willing to pay so much for Hamilton these days.
I really liked this series as I’m learning reselling myself. I don’t think I’d have the heart to do it on tickets (hate Ticketmaster with a passion), but the concepts apply in other arena. Keep it up 🙂
Eh, ticket reselling is fun. And it’s mostly all digital. Just gotta learn which concerts and which tickets to buy.
Hey Vinh – Sorry you took a loss and incurred the stress but thanks for this series. That’s why I enjoy reading your site – you share the good as well as the bad. It’s a refreshing approach from all the other “hey I’m awesome because I got 7 cents per mile on my redemption” blogs out there.
Keep up the great work and sense of humor!
Win some, lose some. Just gotta keep learning to mitigate the losses in the future. Thanks for the kind words.