How I did on those U2 Los Angeles and San Jose tickets

Introduction

I had bought these tickets last November and December.  I believe they were verified fan sales.  I had never flipped U2 before, but I remember my coworker going to their Seattle concert a few years before, who paid ~$100 per ticket and they were going for ~$300 on the aftermarket.  She decided to still attend.  With that one data point (and the fact they are pretty well known,) I decided to buy them to flip.

Los Angeles

For LA, I only bought the first night (I forgot why) and wound up with seats in section 136 for $200 all in for the pair.  I sold these for $531 (164% ROI) within 5 days.  Some friends got GA seats and those yielded between 70-127% ROI.  One friend bought in section 123 and I’m not sure why, but those seats cost $776 and I sold those for $342, yes a loss of $433 and a -56% ROI.  I had some in section 122 that went for about ~20% ROI.  One friend had section 102 for $200 all in and sold them for $630 (214%.)  The only other money loser was section 116 that went for -20%, but that was because the tickets were sold last week.  All in all, LA was a money winner except for that section 123, which I want to say were “premium” seats (row 9) because I don’t know why those behind stage tickets would cost that much.

 

 

 

San Jose 1st night

I was able to score GA seats.  These were great because each ticket was $100 all in (super cheap), so $200 for the pair and I sold them for $538 (170% ROI) within 2 weeks.  However, there were a lot of stinkers in here.  I chose to go with the lowest priced seats and thus they were behind the stage.  I also sold them way too late (a lot within the last week.)  Most of those I lost between 50-70%.  One pair even went to waste.  If I had estimated the time better, I would have given those away on Twitter; I had priced them for $25 buyer price each and they still didn’t move in the last few hours.

 

San Jose 2nd night

My memory is a bit hazy, but I don’t think they had the 2nd show planned in advance since I bought these tickets on 12/7.  Usually 2nd shows aren’t great and my point was proven – these GA seats took about 3-4 months to sell and only yielded a ~40% ROI.

 

Lessons Learned

The main lesson learned here is #1 – don’t get cute and buy BEHIND STAGE tickets.  Secondly, the first show (esp when the 2nd show hasn’t been announced yet) seem to always do better.  Third, don’t buy premium tickets.

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