How to get tickets to a sold-out concert

The official seller has no more tickets at the price the organizer set, for now. Behind that word there are usually three pools of tickets still moving: tickets fans bought and can no longer use, seats the organizer, artist, promoter or venue held back (for production, guests or a later release), and tickets professional resellers bought to resell.

The first two can come back through official channels. The third is the resale market.

• Face-value exchange. On Ticketmaster, tours whose artists opt in run a Face Value Exchange: fans resell at the price they paid (face value plus the fees and taxes they were charged), the tickets stay mobile-only, and the event page shows a notice when it applies. Sellers can list until an hour after the event starts, so tickets can appear late.
• Official resale. Venues and promoters that sell through AXS run AXS Official Resale, where fans resell inside the official seller rather than on a separate site. The organizer sets the refund rules (we could not open AXS’s current help pages on our check date, only its purchase agreement).
• Released holds. Organizers and venues sometimes release seats they held back, including in the final days once the stage layout is fixed. There is no schedule and no promise: the official event page and the official seller’s app are where they appear.
• The venue box office. Some venues sell their own released seats in person or by phone. Worth one call for a show you really want.

Tickets from these routes come through the official seller, which removes most doubt about whether a ticket is genuine or transferable; a face-value exchange also keeps the price at what the seller paid.

If the official routes come up empty, the resale marketplaces are where most remaining tickets trade. For a sold-out show, the same rules as any resale purchase matter more:

• Compare totals with every fee included, for the same section and the same number of tickets.
• Read what the marketplace promises if tickets don’t arrive, don’t scan or the event is postponed.
• Expect mobile tickets to arrive by transfer, sometimes close to the date. Many US events use mobile tickets with a moving barcode, which organizers may release only around three days before the show; screenshots don’t scan.

How the big sites differ is in the best ticket resale sites, compared, and what their protection covers is in are resale tickets safe?. To see every partner’s price for your date side by side, search for the event.

Nobody can tell you. Our records follow events that still had tickets listed until showtime, and across those, the lowest price of the final three weeks fell in the last two days for 39% of events. Genuinely scarce shows are the ones least likely to follow that pattern: when demand outruns supply, prices can climb to the end.

• Sellers outside a marketplace. Social media posts, comment replies, DMs and classifieds come with no guarantee and no way to get money back, especially when the seller asks for bank transfer, gift cards or a “friends and family” payment.
• Speculative listings. Some resellers list seats they don’t have yet and try to buy them later. The FTC’s staff report on ticketing describes buyers learning weeks later that such an order was cancelled, with a refund that didn’t cover travel already booked. Maryland and Minnesota ban speculative sales, Washington, D.C. will from January 1, 2027, and there was no federal ban in force in the records we checked. A listing that says the tickets will be “acquired”, or that the seller does not hold them yet, is the tell. (A late delivery date alone is not: many events release mobile tickets only days before the show.)
• Restricted tickets. Some events name the buyer on the ticket, check ID at the door or only allow resale through the official exchange. A ticket bought outside those rules can be cancelled.
• Screenshots and PDFs. Many US venues now use rotating mobile barcodes, so a screenshot of a ticket proves nothing and won’t scan.

1. 1Check the official seller for a face-value exchange or official resale, and the official event page for released seats.
2. 2Set the most you will pay for the section and number of tickets you want.
3. 3Compare totals across protected resale marketplaces for that date.
4. 4Read the transfer rules for the event and the delivery date on the listing.
5. 5Pay by credit card on the marketplace, never by bank transfer or gift card.
6. 6Keep the order confirmation until you are inside.