Quite a few times I’ve seen tickets to the same event sold by multiple sites (Ticketmaster, AXS, sometimes the venue website, and some others).
Do each of them get some amount of tickets distributed between them, or do they share the same pool and somehow tell each other when it’s sold out? If they do split, do they each get certain sections/seats?
Most of all though, what’s the benefit for the artist/promoter/venue to work with multiple sellers?
In: Economics
With the existence of modern networks, many of them are linked to the same single server/database that houses all ticketing. Thanks to consolidation Ticketmaster is often housing the venue website, whether or not Ticketmaster owns the venue. If it is not a Ticketmaster owned venue, the venue pays a fee and percentage of sales to Ticketmaster for using their system. In turn, Ticketmaster can be connected to other sites so that everyone is using one single central hub to track available tickets.
That said, there will also be specialty vendors (promo companies, ad trades [receive tickets in lieu of cash to advertise], ticketing clubs, etc.) that receive a select number of tickets to use. In that case, when those tickets are offered then box office will place seat holds so that that inventory is not accidentally sold on the open market. If the vendors ultimately don’t use all the tickets, box office can open up those tickets/seats back to public sale again.
Latest Answers