The Broker Buds Q&A Series for Ticket Brokers: Edition #1 - Your Questions, Expert Answers
Dear Readers,
We're back with our very first edition of the Broker Buds Q&A Series, where we address the burning questions that will help drive your business forward. As your partners in success, we're dedicated to providing you with the knowledge and strategies you need to thrive in the dynamic world of ticket brokering.
In this edition, we're diving into four inquiries that have landed in our inbox. Your questions reflect the pulse of the ticket brokering industry, and our mission is to equip you with actionable insights and valuable perspectives. Let's jump right into it:
Question #1: Would you recommend pricing tickets on your own manually, or by using auto pricing software?
A common decision that needs to be made by all brokers is pricing inventory manually vs. using an automated tool. We feel it's EXTREMELY important, especially as a newer broker, to be pricing manually because that is by far the best way to learn pricing and market dynamics, understand fluctuations in show prices over time, and only then can you really get a deep and nuanced understanding of pricing dynamics. The learning acquired through manual pricing is invaluable. Even experienced and larger brokers can greatly benefit from this approach, as it fosters a deeper understanding that is crucial for their business success.
Question #2: How do you know what time various shows for a tour are going onsale?
You could sign-up for a service like ours or others to help. We scan various websites to make sure we have the correct presales times. A good starting point and source is the artist's website + Ticketmaster.
But separately, it's important to learn the various time zones for each market so you have a general understanding of the cadence. For example, many tours go on sale at 10am local time. So assuming an EST time zone, this is what the typical schedule would look like: East coast cities at 10am, central at 11am, mountain at 12pm, and pacific at 1pm. Obviously this is a generalization but it's important to learn which time zones various cities are in.
Question #3: How do you research shows/tours in advance? What is your approach?
When a new tour or show is announced our process is usually like this: First look at the tour dates, see the types of venues being played, and check how they are pricing the tour. If it's an artist we've sold before or are familiar with, usually we will have immediate thoughts about the tour right off the bat when we see the announcement. We'll also review our historical sales to see how we did, which markets were best, which types of seats were best, etc and then formulate a strategy for how we are going to approach it.
If it's a new artist, an artist we've never sold before or are not familiar with, then it's more speculative. We look at social media following, Spotify stats, past tour itineraries, we read up on the artist and the tour to gather all the information we can. A lot of Googling, a lot of researching around to see venue capacities (by now we know almost all of them by memory), checking past tour dates on Wikipedia or via Googling.
Then there's a whole bunch of publications out there where you can track new tour/show announcements, for example: Pitchfork, Pollstar, Rolling Stone, Billboard. Those are just a few. There is no exact science. You try and gather as much information as possible that will help you determine whether something is going to be good or not. A lot of the time the information isn't obvious or available and one additional method is to compare to other similar artists and how their tours went in similar venues/markets.
Ultimately it comes down to what I said at the beginning, which is that it comes down to experience. The more you buy and sell, the more you'll learn and know. The more you'll be able to spot winners and losers by intuition and based off your experience.
When someone like Bruce Springsteen announces a tour, we already have a fairly good idea of which markets we want to target, what kind of seats, what the prices should be, etc and that's because we've sold his shows for decades, 100's of his shows. So that knowledge and experience lives on forever and you use it with every subsequent tour.
Question #4: Which exchanges pay on sale vs. delivery?
Most exchanges will still only pay you once you deliver the tickets. Only Tickpick, TEVO, Go Tickets, and TM+ pay instantly on sale.
That's all for now,
Broker Buds
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