How I did on those Justin Timberlake tickets

Introduction

I love Justin Timberlake.  I saw him in concert during the “Sexyback” tour.  I didn’t go to the last one because I didn’t like that album.  I was indifferent on this tour, but my Viet gambling blood decided at the last minute to try to get good seats in NYC anyway.  I was trying to buy the AMEX presale tickets, which was a shithole.  First off, the presale didn’t start exactly on time.  You had to wait a few minutes for TM to give you the code popup.  And TM changed their UI where now it lists ticket options and when you wanted to buy, it’d tell you, “Ooops, already sold out.”  In the old UI, it would hold the tickets for 2 minutes for you.  I saw floor seats priced at ~$100 a few times but could never check out.  After 30 minutes, I gave up.

More seats popped up

A few hours later, a reader let us know that he saw some 100 level seats available albeit behind the stage.  It seems TM slowly trickled out new seats.  I was able to get 2 pairs (the limit) for $402 all in per pair.  I then immediately relisted them on TM for about $550 per pair or so.  Sure enough, the next morning, one of the pairs had sold for a take home price of $481, a profit of about $80 (20% ROI.)  Not too shabby for some pajama profits.  Now I’ll just wait for the second pair to sell.

Lessons Learned

What I didn’t mention before was that the prices for the tickets were pretty high.  About $350 or so in the lower 100’s per ticket.  I think it was like $250 in the nosebleeds.  Those prices would have left little margin.  I took a risk of buying the behind stage 100 level seats for $200 and it worked out.  Does that mean you should always buy behind stage seats if they are priced lower than good 100 level seats?  I can’t tell you.  Each artist in each city in every year is different.  You just sorta have to trial and error these things yourself.