A Guide to Reselling Tickets as a Side Hustle

Make Money Online - Janice Friedman - May 29, 2019

Are you looking for a side hustle?

Reselling tickets is a lucrative venture. How can you profit from tickets reselling? We will highlight everything you need to know.

A Guide to Reselling Tickets as a Side Hustle

If you have ever attended an event without a ticket beforehand, then you know how difficult it is to get the tickets in the last minute. At such times, mostly you’ll end up paying more money for the ticket. However, is you start reselling tickets you might have tickets to ever show and never miss your favorite concert.

I’m more income-oriented than anything. If you can increase your income, your options are endless to try to achieve financial freedom.

Becoming a ticket broker as a side hustle can be viewed as a questionable affair. Many music lovers frown upon ticket brokers and absolutely dislike them. At the same time, reselling tickets are also the core of a free market economy.

It’s like the stock market. Where there are willing buyers, there are willing sellers albeit at higher prices than purchased yesterday.

It is what it is. Tickets are just one product of many things that you can resell like reselling phones.

Here are a few other guides to reselling products:

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When I earn money from side hustles like flipping tickets for profit, I invest it into my passive dividend income portfolio. This helps me earn additional income and take advantage of compound interest.

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Let’s get into more detail about ticket brokering and reselling to earn side hustle income.

Definition of Ticket Reselling

Tickets reselling, otherwise known as Tickets brokering or ticket touting involves buying many tickets from a licensed seller then reselling them at your predetermined price which is usually an inflated one.

The point is reselling tickets for admission to a concert or an event at a higher price than you had purchased them for to make a profit which happens just a few days to or on the day of the event.

While some tickets have a “no reselling” or “non-transferable” tag on them, there are some countries like Canada and some states in the United States of America that have illegalized the practice.

If you want to make a few quick bucks, then tickets reselling can be an ideal side hustle. The events and concerts ticket industry have many loopholes that you can take advantage of. But you need to be sure that it is allowed in your state and the event holders allow it too.

Why Reselling Tickets is Lucrative

Last minute rush scenarios to events are a common thing. Most people make a drastic decision just a few days to the event. Sometimes schedules change, other commitments arise, and sometimes the schedule is just unpredictable.

You could be longing to get to a specific concert of your favorite artist, but unfortunately, on contacting the event manager, you discover that the tickets are already sold out. Other times you could be scheduled to attend a concert and then something else arises that you can’t miss attending.

So, reselling concert tickets comes in handy in such circumstances. Before we look at the strategies for reselling tickets online, let’s first look at the difference between ticket reselling and street scalping.

How Different is Ticket Reselling and Street Ticket Scalping?

You may wonder how different is online ticket brokering is from the street corner tickets scalping business. Street ticket scalping usually involves shady-looking characters hanging around the corners near the venue of the concert on the day the event is happening who attempt selling tickets to anyone who didn’t get theirs before they were sold out.

They do so at a premium to make some quick cash.

But, with the advent of the Internet, the entire concept of ticket reselling has evolved. If you want a ticket to attend a sold-out event, you can simply get it online within a few minutes. Also, if you have a ticket and something has come up, and you cannot attend the event, you can sell them online too.

Isn’t that cool?

Now, here is the good part. You don’t have to be in a fix to do this. You can as well make it a business as a reputable ticket reseller. Well, you will need to go through a broker or an online medium for reselling tickets. We will get to those later on.

A broker follows all the local laws, and this can help ensure that you are complying with the laws and practices of your state or country.

So, how much money can you make reselling tickets? To answer this question, let’s look at how to make a profit as a ticket reseller.

The Ticket Broker Mentality for Maximum Profitability

When starting off as a ticket broker you have to keep in mind one key factor. This will make a huge difference when it comes to how much money you can make a certain amount of time. What you have to remember is that a ticket is just a temporary vehicle for cash. This may seem simple, but it can be easily overlooked.

One example that makes this easier to understand is in the case of holding tickets for longer or selling them faster. Let’s say you have a pair of tickets selling for about 20% over the purchase price.

You could hold the tickets for longer and sell it for 30% in a few weeks, but this is a bad decision. You could use that money on a quick sale to buy other tickets to resell. This is how compound interest works. You are better off compounding your profit and gains faster.

Keeping time in mind is highly important. The longer you are holding a ticket, the longer that cash is locked up and no longer making you more potential money. What you want to be doing optimally is always be buying and selling tickets.

Of course, some tickets you will be holding onto longer, such as season tickets, but always calculate whether waiting to sell for a higher amount is worth it or if you can make two separate flips in that time.

What are some of the main hiccups that ticket brokers run into?

When it comes to buying and reselling tickets there are a few major problems which you may run into. Of course, some of these may same obvious and others you may not have thought of yourself.

Common problems of ticket brokers and resellers include:

Selecting Profitable Events to buy and resell with low risk
Selling your tickets fast to prevent a bottleneck in cash flow
Preventing double sales or selling the same ticket twice

Selecting Profitable events: Selecting good event without risk is something all brokers would love to know. One key factor to keep in mind that can help mitigate some risk is checking the event dates for a current artist. For example, if an artist has a show in NY on the 23^rd and then his next show on the 26^th, this means that there is a potential for him to add a second show. Nothing kills a resale market faster than a second event added in the following day.
Selling Tickets fast: As I mentioned earlier you want to be able to sell you tickets quickly to avoid losing money on potentially selling a second event. Furthermore, you want to be able to sell tickets quickly so that if you are purchasing on credit cards you can payback your card without raking up interest. So how can sell tickets faster? You want to list your tickets on as many resale sites as possible. Sites including Stubhub, Vividseats, SeatGeek, and Tickpick.
Preventing Double Sales: To follow up on the section above, you can list on all of those marketplaces and more by using a broker Point of Sale system or POS. A pos works by allowing you to upload and price your tickets in one place and then broadcast those tickets to many different sites at once. Also, whenever one of your tickets sells on one site such as StubHub, it is automatically removed from the other sites, so you do not accidentally sell the same ticket twice (Double sale).

Some Point of sale systems you can use include Skybox.com, dtimanagement.com, or POSNEXT.com. These are all various POS systems that brokers use regularly to broadcast their inventory.

A POS system does not have a monthly cost, but they take a small percentage of your sales from 1%-3% depending on your volume of sales.

Making a Profit as a Ticket Reseller

If you want to be successful as a ticket reseller, you need to have an ideal strategy. You need to research tickets that you can buy early and resell later at a higher price when the date of the event draws closer.

Do online research and identify the events around your area and check if the tickets have a tendency of getting sold out. If you find out that an event had sold out at some point in time, it has a higher likelihood of selling out again. So, you can bet on such an event.

When buying tickets earlier, you are likely to buy them at a discounted price which is usually lower than the face value. So, buy several tickets, hold them for a while and then sell them at a higher price when the event date draws near.

You will need to calculate all the expenses that you will incur in the process to know how much to resell the tickets for. The profit that you’ll make will depend on the price that you’ll sell the tickets for minus the total costs of the tickets.

You can use the money that you earn from your business for investments to create more wealth and to help you achieve financial independence. In this blog, we teach people how to grow their wealth with dividend investments and how to benefit from compound interests from such investments.

But here, we will explore some of the best online brokers later but first let’s look at how ticket reselling works and some few strategies for reselling tickets online.

How To Get Started Reselling Tickets

Ticket reselling is a very rewarding venture that you can try it if you are looking for a side hustle and how to make quick cash. But just like any other business, you need to have certain tools to get started. First, you’ll need a computer.

Then, you will need to have a good internet connection. After that, open a three column spreadsheet. It will help you monitor the tickets that you have bought and the ones that you have sold and the profits that you’ve made from each.

How to Start Buying Tickets

Buying is the core of making a profit from becoming a ticket reseller. You can start buying tickets for resale using these three methods:

1. Credit card presale tickets

If you use a credit card, you can get presale tickets for some big events. Citi and American Express cards are the most eligible credit cards for such deals. These credit cards sometimes offer valuable discounts or even better ticket experiences to the event.

2. Buy the general public tickets

Another option is to open several ticket websites on your computer. Check the time when the tickets will go on sale. Buy the tickets earlier and sell them at a higher price later.

The downside of using this method is that it’s a bit risky since you are not sure if you will manage to sell your overpriced tickets.

3. Fan club tickets

Fun club tickets also offer an ideal way to get cheaper tickets. You can receive some exclusive deals and discounted tickets as well as free early bird tickets from a fan club. Read the terms and conditions of the clubs to know if they allow ticket reselling of such tickets.

You can receive multiple tickets at an offer and sell them later at the face value or higher. Thus, you will pocket the difference which is the profit.

Be sure that you know all the fan club requirements. Some fan clubs may ask you to pay a membership fee or ask you to become a member for a certain period before they offer you access to presale tickets. Do your research well to know the best fan club to join before you join it.

4. Online Platforms

Believe it or not. You can scalp tickets completely online. There’s a strategy of buying tickets for unwanted events. Or, you can buy tickets to events that are close to selling out but have rock-bottom pricing on some of your favorite marketplaces (outlined below).

What you want to do is act like you are trading and use an online platform to ‘trade’ the tickets. There’s a number of different sports games, concerts or theatres that will have extra tickets or you can find a great opportunity to buy tickets on the low.

The Kind of Events to Target

You need to be very strategic about the type of events to buy tickets for. Do not just buy the tickets because they are on sale. Some tickets have more demand than others, and it all depends on several factors. These factors may include:

Artists popularity level
The location and the size of the venue the event will take place
The availability of the tickets for the general or for VIP and the VVIPs
Place where you’re buying the tickets
The day the concert/event will occur. Is the event on a weekend or a weekday?
The loyalty of the artist’s fan base (some artists have a cult following)
Disposable income of the target audience, the group’s characteristics and more

See Related: Best Books on Passive Income

How To Sell the Tickets

Reselling tickers has become easier over the years thanks to the new technological advancements. The internet offers you the ability to sell tickets fast.

Several websites offer a suitable platform for ticket resellers to do their business and they comply with the laws of the country and states. The best way to sell tickets online is to sign up or have an account in these websites which include StubHub and Ticketmaster among others.

Today, it’s possible to deliver tickets electronically. You can enter the ticket’s barcode, and then the ticket is delivered to the buyer instantly who then can print them. The buyer then pays for the ticket immediately.

You can also use printed labels to send physical tickets. Different websites offer a straightforward step by step process on how to go about ticket reselling. You also have a chance to choose your preferred method of payment for example; you can choose PayPal or check deposit.

Here are some of the websites to use when reselling tickets and the step-by-step process of each.

The Best Four Websites To Help in Reselling Tickets

There are plenty of platforms to resell tickets across the country. I’m sure you are already very familiar with all of them. Here are the best four websites to help you get into ticket brokering.

1. StubHub

StubHub is one of the most popular ticket resale websites. Listing your tickets for sale on StubHub is free. However, it charges a higher fee compared to other websites for ticket resale. This is because it is one of the biggest sites and has higher traffic and visibility compared to other websites.

Here is the process of reselling tickets on StubHub:

Search for the specific event on the StubHub
Once you identify the event that you have tickets for, click the “sell” button.
Sign in or create an account if you haven’t registered yet.
Answer a few questions that you will be asked including whether the tickets are in your possession, how you plan to deliver them and their quantity etc.
Then you will be asked to set your price for the tickets which can either be fixed or a declining price. StubHub may reduce the tickets price to a competitive price for example from $100 to $99 to appeal more to customers.
Then select your preferred method of payment which can either be PayPal or via paper check.

2. Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster is another reliable tickets broker website. With Ticketmaster, you can resell the tickets that allow reselling and if there is a”sell” button in the order details.

Here’s is the step by step process:

Select the tickets you want to sell.
Set your custom price amount.
Provide your payment account information.
Confirm your account information and click “next”
Confirm the details you gave and click on “List Ticket” button.
Then, you will be redirected to a confirmation page and will also receive a confirmation email.

See Related: Earn Passive Income with Fundrise

3. SeatGeek

SeatGeek is yet another excellent ticket broker website that you should consider using.

Here’s how to sell tickets with SeatGeek:

First, you need to sign up or create an account on their homepage.
Check the “my tickets” section.
Upload the e-ticket PDF files to your account using the link at the top of the page.
Check the details of the event for which you are selling the tickets.
Then click the “sell” button.

4. Vivid Seats

Vivid Seats is another well-established ticket reselling website with high traffic close range of StubHub. Vivid Seats charges very high fees compared to most other ticket reselling websites.

Here’s the Vivid Seats’ step by step process:

Open the homepage.
Click the “sell your tickets” button.
Look up the event you are selling a ticket for, then next to the event title scroll down and click on “continue”
Login or create an account if you don’t have one.
Fill in the necessary ticket details.
Set the price that you want to sell the tickets for and how they will be delivered.
Provide your payment details such as a Paypal address.

Drawbacks of Reselling Tickets

Just like any other business, ticket resellers also encounter some challenges. Here are some of the downsides of reselling tickets business:

It’s illegal in some countries and some states in the United States do not allow such a business. You must do thorough research before you start doing it to establish if it’s allowed in your country or state or not.
Buyer fraud is another major downside. Some people may try to defraud you and claim that you didn’t send them the tickets or the tickets you sent to them were different from what you advertised. Some broker websites such as StubHub offer mediation in such circumstances. Always read the fine print to be on the safe side.
Some scenarios may also occur that could drastically reduce the demand for the tickets such as market changes, changes in the weather conditions and even bad PR. When such things happen, you may not sell all your tickets as you expected. So, it’s a good idea to risk only the money that you can afford to lose.
Also, ticket reselling is frowned upon as strategy by music lovers and fans. As a music lover, ticket resellers can be annoying. At the end of the day, it’s capitalism.

Conclusion on Reselling Tickets

Reselling tickets is a very profitable side hustle. But you need to understand that it’s a business with both risks and rewards. Be persistent and comply with your state or country laws when doing this business. If you work hard and remain savvy, you can become a successful ticket broker.

If you are looking to become a ticket broker. A great resource to check out is ticketflipping.com.

At Ticketflipping.com you can find a bunch of training guides in their blog posts along with free training videos on getting started on their Youtube Channel. They also have a paid course you can sign up for if you want to learn quickly and start making right away.

Advanced ticket reselling training: Learn how to get presale codes to highly demanded tickets, how to broadcast your tickets to 100’s of marketplaces at once so you can resell your tickets faster, and much more.
Get weekly market predictions: Event recommendations to purchase from Sunday-Thursday about what events you should buy and resell.
Ticket Analytics tools which display how many tickets are left for any show so you can buy tickets right before they sell out.
Access to a private members group chat where you can talk to other resellers and experienced ticket brokers

If you’re ready to get started Click Here to find out more.

Has the practice of reselling tickets ever benefited you in one way or the other? Share with us your experience in the comments section.

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A Guide to Reselling Tickets as a Side Hustle

A Guide to Reselling Tickets as a Side Hustle