How To Always Get The Event Tickets You Want

How to ensure you won’t lose out on tickets to the concerts and events you most want to see.

WORK THE SYSTEM | Has this ever happened to you? Your favourite performer or sporting event is coming to town and you want to make sure you get great seats the second they’re up for grabs. You know that buying tickets in person at a Ticketmaster location or over the telephone will not be faster than purchasing them online, so on the day they become available, you access your Ticketmaster account and begin refreshing your computer screen repeatedly in the minutes leading up to their release, pouncing like a tiger on its prey when the Find Tickets button goes live. Even with your lightening quick reflexes, every ticket is gone in a matter of minutes, and not one of them sold to you.

What can you do to ensure this will never happen again? One thing would be to try to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public. For that you will most likely need a presale password or code.

How To Catch A Code

Join The Club—If you are the fan of a particular artist or sport, join the fan club or association. Depending on the group, you may have to pay to become a member, but if seeing an event live is that important to you, then the membership fee will be worth it. Join sooner rather than later. Some artists prefer to reward loyal, long-time fans with presale codes and not faux fans who join their club in the days leading up to their appearance.

Affiliate With Sponsors—Best Buy, American Express, Virgin Mobile, Vancity, specific venues (River Rock Casino, for example), whoever—all have affiliation programs. Sign up to receive their newsletter, or become a privileged member and receive perks and bonuses, among them presale codes.

Google It—Presale codes for particular events can often be found online just by googling them. Be mindful that when ticket sellers get wind of a leak, they may change the code or disallow it altogether.

Refresh It—This tactic has nothing to do with presale codes, but it can result in tickets.  On the day tickets for a particular event go on sale, there will be an initial rush that often results in what appears to be a sell-out. But here’s the thing, as the ticket seller begins to process these sales, some of the credit cards will be declined. I have a friend who almost always gets the tickets she wants by hitting the refresh button repeatedly in the half hour after all of the tickets are supposedly gone.—Ruth Rainey