How to beat ticket scalpers and get awesome seats cheap

Method to find tickets for the best seats and how to get tickets at the lowest possible price.

This tactic is not in any book I've seen --but it will help you get awesome seats at incredibly low prices. I have done this personally and documented the whole thing on video, which I'll be posting soon.

The key is to recognize a factor that is obvious if you think about it: Sellers holding tickets on the day of the concert know that the value will soon go to zero - so they are usually eager to sell.

Here's how it works.

FIRST you should:

1- live fairly close to the concert (within an hour, say)

2-Know where you will park near the concert. Also find out what the opening act is, and decide if you will die if you miss their first song :-)

3- Optionally: have a laptop and a way to print things when not at home (e.g. Kinkos - only if you want to cut the timing really close).

4-Have a backup plan to do something fun in case you dont get the tickets in time. (If you follow these steps, your odds are pretty good though)
Plus, TicketsNow will refund 100% if they dont get you the tickets.

NEXT:

Use the direct brokerage links below or use tickets.gruvr.com to monitor the ticket marketplace. As the day of the concert approaches, you will see prices falling as sellers (and especially scalpers) start to panic about unsold tickets they are holding. The more unsold tickets are still listed, the lower the prices go. Caveat: if the tickets are almost gone in the days before the show, the prices are less likely to drop.

Skeptical?
Take a close look at the screen shot posted above.
Here's the link to it:
Jonas Brothers Tickets for sale 1 hour before concert

And the top half of the same page:
Jonas Brothers Tickets prices just before show time

The screenshot was taken about an hour before show time for a Jonas Brothers concert. Look at all the seats for sale in rows 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - for under $30!!

By the day of the concert, you will often see tickets selling for LESS than face value - and sometimes even front-row seats!!

IMPORTANT: Make sure to buy only tickets that can be sent to you online or picked up at the box office! Look for 'emailable' or 'e-tickets' or 'ticketfast' or 'will call' in the descriptions.
DO NOT BUY 'HARD' TICKETS THAT MUST BE MAILED or GOT IN PERSON!

IMPORTANT: Once you purchase the tickets on gruvr, take a minute to call TicketMaster/TicketsNow at the number listed on the checkout page. You should get an
initial confirmation email, and then etickets email within an hour. However, if there are only hours before the show, it's always a good idea to follow up and call to ask how long before the tickets are emailed, after you pay.

ACTUAL REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE

I went to see Jonas Brothers in the sold-out Boston show on March 20 2008, aganis arena.

3 days before the show, there were ZERO tickets listed on most exchanges. The few that I did see were selling for well over $300 each!

I monitored http://tickets.gruvr.com/band/Jonas-Brothers/ on March 20, and saw dozens nice seats left for $49, below face value!

I purchased two FLOOR tickets for $65- this was a wicked good deal, seats were nice and close.

I bought these on gruvr at around 4PM, called TicketsNow and spoke to a very helpful rep, got them emailed by about 5PM, printed and drove in to the concert.

I decided to do this to put my $$ behind my tips here,
and also because Jonas Brothers use gruvr on their myspace. When I got there, I found parents standing outside who couldn't go inside but who had paid $350 per ticket to let their daughters go! So, I gave away one of my cheap Floor seats and made one mom very happy.

EXTREME TACTIC
If you want, you may be able to get even lower prices by waiting a bit longer... but it's riskier!
After the concert starts - usually around 7PM - you will sometimes see a further drop in prices - this is when they start basically giving away tickets that didn't sell.

BUT REMEMBER - the band you want to see usually comes on after an OPENING ACT!

SO, you can drive in to town, park, and set up your laptop in Kinkos at around say 6PM. In the last hour, we buy some awesome tickets dirt cheap, get them online, Print them at kinko's and mosey over to the arena. Even better, everyone else is already inside, and maybe the opening act is playing their first song... no biggie. Just stroll in and take your killer seats, which the folks sitting next to you might have paid $800 for!

NOTE: This tactic only recommended if you can deal with some uncertainty, and you have plans if things fall through!

However, if for some (unlikely) reason the tickets don't work out - TicketsNow will refund your money no questions asked!