I had never even heard of Governor’s Ball, but Eminem said he was playing there on Sunday night, and so I figured this was a 4 on the risk/reward scale since he doesn’t tour often and had new music out. In hindsight, it’s probably closer to a 3.5 now that I know better. I bought 6 Sunday tickets back in mid January for $825 total ($137.50 each.) YES, I NOW KNOW NOT TO GO SO HARD ON EVENTS I’M NOT FAMILIAR WITH. I think the prices were “Early Bird” prices.
Selling them
I listed them immediately on SH, pricing them at the 3rd lowest price, which I think was $180 at the time. And every month, I’d check back in and had to lower my price AGAIN AND AGAIN AGAIN. By April, I had enough of the race to the bottom and lowered my price to the lowest price. Within a week, all 6 tickets sold. Total profit – $.80. YES, EIGHTY CENTS! Hey, at least it wasn’t a loss.
Lessons Learned
So what happened? Well it appears that the tickets DIDN’T SELL OUT UNTIL SOMETHING LIKE THE WEEK BEFORE. The only way I broke even was because I got in on the Early Bird price, so customers buying off SH were paying lower prices than the venue price. My mistake though was never checking if the show was sold out or not. I just assumed it was. So the lesson learned is – check if the event you’re reselling is actually sold out. If it’s NOT sold out, your profits will be sort of capped. At that point, you want to be a bit lower than retail price and just get out ASAP. Lick your wounds and live to fight another day. I got lucky here. I actually lost track on my cost and thought I was losing ~$20 a ticket when I did sell them.
Lastly, be careful with outdoor festivals since you know, the venue is HUGE and so it may have capacity to meet demand. I didn’t really consider it that much since Coachella does pretty well. I think most outdoor festivals are probably a 3. Eminem is a 4 and hence this was a 3.5 risk/reward at best.