Buying concert tickets shouldn’t be frustrating — it should be easy, stress-free and exciting. To help calm your nerves, we went straight to the experts at leading ticket marketplace Vivid Seats for their best tips to make sure your coveted concert tickets are good to go. With over 100 million tickets sold and a roster of verified, vetted sellers, Vivid Seats is a trusted way to score tickets to your dream event and rest easy knowing they’re legit.
Shop securely and check their credentials.
The safest way to buy tickets online is through an authorized seller or marketplace, plain and simple. That could be the venue itself, one of the major ticket sellers or a verified third-party marketplace (like Vivid Seats, StubHub or SeatGeek) it may take a little extra legwork to check that where you’re buying from is legit, but that effort is worth it in the end.
If you’re buying from a third-party vendor or reseller, be sure it’s a trusted website that vets their sellers and tickets or app that stands behind its tickets with a money-back buyer guarantee, like Vivid Seats and a secure checkout process for extra peace of mind.
Another simple way to protect your purchase is to check that the seller in question is a member of the National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB), a partner of the Better Business Bureau that works to ensure safe, ethical ticket buying and selling. Check out their handy list of members to get you started.
Don’t pay with cash or send money to a stranger.
We’ve all seen people sharing their Cashapp info and claiming they’ll help you out with their “extra” tickets. This is red flag city. If a ticket seller is asking you to pay with cash, Cashapp or Venmo, the transaction is probably not legit. Instead, buy tickets with a trusted credit card and only from a site that protects your transactions with a secure checkout process. An added bonus: legit ticket sites offer multiple payment options like pay in four, which comes in handy when you want pit seats but have to work within your budget.
Avoid your seats getting stolen before you even get there
Your tickets are added to your phone wallet and you’re ready for the show. Exciting, right? But whatever you do, NEVER share photos of your tickets online. They can be copied instantly and used by others. You don’t want to deal with the bummer of your tickets not scanning at the gate because someone already used them to get in, or getting to your seats only to find someone else is sitting in them. Wait until you get to the stadium to post; it never hurts to be extra cautious when it comes to sharing details online. Don’t underestimate the lengths that people will go to get into a sold out show.
Verify all the little details.
Do you have the correct venue, city, event date and time? With so many tour stops and shows going on, it can be easy to accidentally check out with the wrong tickets, especially if you’re in a rush. You should also double check all your info is correct, especially your email address. Because most tickets are digital these days, it’s crucial to enter your email address correctly so your tickets will arrive in your inbox and not someone else’s.
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Watch out for red flags, like super low prices for highly anticipated shows — know the value of a ticket and pay attention to anything that seems “off” about a potential transaction. If something doesn’t feel right about the sale, go with your gut and look for another opportunity elsewhere.
Buying tickets outside the venue can be a surefire way to waste your money on a fake ticket. Unless the seller is someone you trust and know personally, it’s probably not a good idea,
Vivid Seats is the official ticketing partner of Rolling Stone, a proud member of the NATB and the only ticket company that rewards you for buying. When you buy 10 tickets, you get the 11th free*.
*Earn a Reward Credit equal to the average price of the 10 tickets, excluding taxes, fees, and processing costs.