Get Concert Tickets Cheap or Free

There’s nothing like seeing your favorite band perform live on stage. But concert tickets and the associated fees are just getting more and more expensive. Wouldn't it be great to see more live music for less? There are a few ways you can get cheap or even free tickets for concerts and music festivals.

Steps

Performing a Service for Tickets

  1. Earn a ticket by helping to spread the word about the show. Check the website for a band you know is coming to your city or town and search to see if they have a street team. Join a street team to promote the concert by putting up posters, telling your friends, and sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. You’ll be “paid” with free tickets to the show, and sometimes the chance to win VIP passes or merchandise.
  2. Subscribe to a "seat filler" membership. Search the internet for a seat filler company in your city. Join for a reasonable monthly fee to get free tickets to a wide variety of concerts, local theater, comedy, sports, expos, etc. as a way of helping venues fill their unsold seats.[1]
    • Seat filler memberships give you access to a large variety of events, not just concerts, and you won’t know too far ahead of time what’s available. It might not be the service for you if you’re looking only for specific events, venues, or seating.[2]
  3. Become a volunteer for the event. Check a band or music festival’s website several months in advance of the event date to see if they are asking for volunteers. Apply to volunteer if you have a flexible schedule, and you’ll get to attend the concert for free.
    • If you have experience with music equipment, sound, or lighting, you may also be able to get a gig helping out the band or venue with setup or cleanup. Check the band’s website or give the venue a call.

Winning Free Tickets

  1. Call in to your local radio stations. Listen often to your favorite radio stations for when they offer ticket giveaways to callers. Call in as many times as you can in the time period for your best chance to be the lucky winner. You may also enter by texting a word or number to the radio station; listen closely to their instructions.
    • Do a few test runs to see how you can call the radio station’s number the fastest. Test your phone to see if it’s faster to manually input the phone number or call it from a saved contact. If you have more than one phone available to you, test which one dials and redials the fastest.
    • Try calling in on multiple phones at once, and listen to multiple radio stations for more giveaways.[3]
  2. Find social media contests. Look out for contests or giveaways on social media sites of radio stations, music venues, or bands themselves. Share the post about the giveaway, make your own post about it, or whatever is required to be entered to win.
  3. Enter sweepstakes online. Check out sweepstakes sites or just pay attention to talk shows, promotional materials, or announcements from big corporations for when they have a sweepstakes to win concert tickets. You can always enter for free and often more than once.
    • Enter as often as you can during the eligibility period. Save time by using the autofill feature on your browser or another program that fills out forms for you.[4]
    • Share the sweepstakes on social media sites if the sweepstakes offers you extra entries for doing so.

Buying Discounted Tickets

  1. Use your contacts. Get to know people in the music industry, whether they work at a venue, in marketing and advertising, or in band promotion. Hint that you’d love to get to see a show sometime, or outright ask if they have access to freebies and are willing to sell them or give them away.
    • Get well known among your friends and co-workers as the person who will take extra tickets off their hands at the last minute. If you send them a thank-you note or email afterwards and say how much you enjoyed the concert, they will likely think of you the next time they have spare tickets.
  2. Take advantage of presale events. Check far in advance of a show for when tickets go on presale and may have a reduced price. Join a band’s fan club or mailing list to hear right away when tickets are on sale. Check music festival sites for very discounted “early bird” tickets. Look into credit card companies that offer discounts and advance tickets to cardholders before they go on sale to the public.
  3. Check Craigslist. Get on Craigslist or another site where individuals can post items for sale. Look a day or two in advance of the show or on the day-of to find sellers who can’t make it and try to sell their tickets at the last minute. Avoid scams by always meeting with a local seller in person and never giving out any of your bank information.[5]
  4. Check a ticket broker on the day of the show. Check out ticket resellers or brokers to see what they’re offering tickets day-of. Many times the broker will be willing to sell at a loss to recoup some of their investment if the show didn't sell out.
    • Always find a broker that accepts credit card payment, and choose this option to pay for tickets. If the tickets turn out to be fake, you have proof of your payment to get reimbursed. Also make sure they have an 800 number to be reached by.[6]
  5. Try a seller at the music venue. Head to the venue about an hour before the concert starts, and look for anyone openly calling out, holding a sign, or obviously holding tickets to their chest to advertise that they have extra tickets. Feel free to haggle a little with them to get a cheaper price. Sometimes a desperate or just kind concert-goer will simply give an extra ticket away right before the show.
    • Before you arrive at the venue, put the amount of cash you’d like to pay for a ticket into your pocket, with a little extra cash in another pocket in case you need to sweeten the deal. Make sure you have small bills so you can make exact change.
    • When a seller tells you their price, tell them you’re on a budget. You can even say, "Oh, I can only pay (x-amount); you should sell your tickets to somebody who can pay what they're worth." They might end up offering the tickets to you for your price, or you can use your extra money for an offer that’s close.
    • If you’re not finding tickets at your budget right away, sellers are apt to come back to you when the lights flash and they realize the show's going to start without them. This time they might accept your budgeted price.

Tips

  • If a concert-goer gives or sells you his or her extra tickets, it’s nice to offer to buy him or her a drink inside, but don't feel like you have to be best friends and stick with him or her all night.
  • Split up. Deal with being apart from your friends. If you are trying to get four tickets, you might have a hard time. Be willing to split it up into two pairs of two to save money when buying on the secondary market.

Warnings

  • Check your state and local ordinances to see if it is legal to resell tickets. Call one of the major venues in advance and ask.
  • Don't get burned by scams or illegal scalpers. Trust your instincts on people you buy from in person, and check out the reputation of online brokers before you buy from them.
  • Don’t call in to radio stations for cheap prizes like CDs if you want to win concert tickets, because sometimes radio stations limit how often you can win (e.g., every 30 days).

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://wwseats.com/otl-seat-fillers/
  2. ↑ http://seatstir.com/about.php
  3. ↑ http://blog.buzzbishop.com/music/how-to-win-radio-contests/
  4. ↑ http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/04/24/how-to-win-sweepstakes/
  5. ↑ https://www.craigslist.org/about/scams
  6. ↑ http://www.angieslist.com/articles/how-use-ticket-brokers-tips-get-good-seats.htm
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