Ticketmaster allocation methodology 3 Arena???

Mango Joe

Just wondering how this works as I'm sure there are posters on here that are well used to booking decent seats for gigs here and have worked out whats happening behind the scenes.

In my recent experience I was very surprised when a Presale event seemed to be a cynical and misleading opportunity to sell tickets for 'nosebleed' seats about 1km away from the stage?

Basically you logged in a day early with a presale code and then only had access to the rear blocks of seats - Which were priced the same as the ones with a good view of the stage front and centre? I ended up buying far better tickets on the second day and there was no shortage of them???

Checking tickets today and when you select 'best available' they seem to have some sort of algorithm in place to sell the seats across the whole pool of availability rather than actually showing you the best available seats that have not been booked yet?

Surely when seats are €80+ they've no right to be describing certain seats as "best available" when they're simply choosing to sell off the ones miles away from the stage first? There's definitely something a bit off about encouraging someone to spend a fortune on crap seats by making out they're the best and then selling someone else great ones hours later through sheer chance and whimsy?

Anyway, this is not life or death I know and honestly I'm more curious than up in arms about this one!

- Also I do want to know how it works to give myself the best chance at decent tickets.

Thanks!

fafy

3 Presales:
My understanding is that all 3 Presales get an allocation of approximately 10% of tickets. Thats an agreement in place when the naming contract was signed with 3.


If the floor is standing, the capacity varies, but the max is about 14,500, so that means about 1,400 tickets is he max available on the 3 presale, so it only takes 350 people approx, to buy 4 tickets each and that presale is sold out.

If its an all seated gig, that overall capacity drops significantly, so even less people are going to be able to get tickets on this presale.

In my own experience, the seats on the 3 Presale are some of the worst, so i only ever use the 3 presale to get standing tickets.

Artist Presale:
In my experience these tend to have better seats available, however, sometimes the act have a paid subscription/membership to avail of this.But sometimes they do not. Have no idea how much allocation is given on these, it possibly varies from act to act.


Buying Seats on General Sale:
First up is quantity, if you select 4 or above, you are dramtically reducing your chances, so try and keep to 2 seats, and you will get more choices.The reason is there is always going to be much more 2 seat gaps than 4 seat gaps still available to purchase.

Best available, is usually the seats closest to the stage and going back from there, or is no seats available it defaults to standing if they are available