Broker Tools 101 - How to use them like the pros

These days, broker tools have become more important than ever for ticket brokers to grow their business and help make the most informed buying decisions. Are you getting the most out of your tools? In today’s blog we are going to dive into 3 specific tools that aid ticket brokers in their business: stock checkers, price checkers, and drop checkers and we will preview the various use cases for each.

STOCK CHECKERS

What is a stock checker? In short, it’s a tool that allows you to get a “point-in-time” snapshot of the remaining primary market tickets for any event, including seat locations and price points. Here is an example output using the Broker Buds stock checker tool. To get a more in-depth look at this tool, you can check out this video demo.

Use Case #1: Checking how much inventory was released on a presale or public sale.

Why is this important? By knowing the exact release count for the presale or public sale, you’ll be able to make informed decisions that will impact your buying and selling approach and will give you insights into secondary market price movement.

Let’s break it down. If you see that a venue has released almost all of its capacity on the first presale, you know that i) subsequent sales are going to be way tougher and brokers are going to be fighting over scraps, ii) it’s unlikely that additional inventory is going to hit the secondary market to reduce prices, iii) perhaps the likelihood of a show add has increased if all or most tickets are sold out on the first presale, and iv) you can make an educated guess as to how prices will move after the public sale.
Here is an example - say an event released all tickets on the first presale and sold out right away and you are noticing solid demand. When the public sale hits, nothing will be released and pricing on the secondary may very well rise because of the strong demand and lack of additional supply. On the other hand, if not much was released on the initial presale, a lot more inventory will end up being released during future sales (and thus hitting the secondary market), so without strong demand, you can be sure that prices will decline.

Summary: The more information you have with ticket supply/release numbers, the better accuracy you’ll have when making predictions on how an event will perform on the secondary market. As brokers ourselves, we are monitoring the release counts for every single show we buy, on every presale and public sale.

Pro Tip #1 / Another Use Case: Going into an initial presale you have the price range but that’s it. By running a stock check right away, you will learn the exact price breakdown and where the price breaks are before you get into the event, while still in the waiting room. This will give you an advantage as you’ll know exactly what seats to target when you get in.

Use Case #2: Monitoring the performances of shows for sellouts over time

Many events don’t sell out on the public sale, but do over time and end up performing well on the secondary market. In these situations you want to be aware of a show’s trend and buy some tickets before it’s too late. You can use a stock checker tool to see how a show is selling over time and predict when you can expect a sellout to occur. This can be especially useful for GA shows or GA sections like lawn seating.

Say you’ve been watching a show and it didn’t sell out, but over time you are noticing that tickets are dwindling. This happens often and especially with lawn seats as they continue to sell down over several months. If the show ends up selling out, or the specific zone you are targeting does, then it’s possible the event could heat up and prices start to climb on the secondary. Tracking shows over time with a stock checker tool will help you find these events and capitalize on them.
By having frequent checkpoints using a stock checker, you will be able to monitor how shows are tracking. Here is a simple example. Let’s say you’ve been monitoring a specific country amphitheater show that has about ~5,000 lawns remaining and the event is taking place 8 weeks from now. During your regular check-ins, you notice the game is moving about 1,000 lawns each week, meaning the show is going to sell out well before the show begins. This could indicate a potential opportunity to invest in some seats.

Summary: By tracking events over time with a stock checker tool, you will open yourself up to more opportunities for investment in shows that are tracking to sell out or heat up over time.

Use Case #3: Assessing drops to help with decision making

When a drop for a hot show has happened and you think there might be money to be made, it’s always important to know how many tickets have been released.

Let’s say you’ve been monitoring a sold out amphitheater event and lawn tickets just dropped. Were 20 lawns released, or 200, or 500, or over 1,000? Things are fluid and you can’t just be buying blindly. It’s always good to check to be sure. Same idea for a GA show. Even if it’s a hot show, a huge drop is going to negatively affect secondary market pricing. The more tickets that drop, the more negatively affected the secondary market will be.
Keep in mind that drops are overwhelmingly bought by brokers, so they typically end up on the secondary. So if a ton of GA tickets or lawn seats are dropped, brokers will buy them up and this could impact the secondary market prices significantly. Use the tools available to you to help with your decision making. It could end up being a risky buy if too many seats were just released and demand isn’t strong enough.

Summary: Run a stock check on GA/Lawn and other drops to help inform your decision making.

There are many use cases for a stock checker that should be used by every ticket broker. The more information you have the better. This tool is a must have and it’s important to take the time to learn how to use it effectively.

PRIce CHECKERS

As some of you may already know, in the past Ticketmaster used to list the price range for shows in advance of presales starting. This was critical information - the price range is perhaps the most important piece of information you need to know to have an informed buying strategy before presales start. Post-Covid, Ticketmaster removed this feature and that was a big concern because ticket brokers were going into shows blind without having pricing information in advance.

Fortunately, using a price checker you can get a quick overview of presale/onsale dates, ticket limits, and price range. Here is an example of an output from our price checker on Broker Buds. To get a more detailed overview, you can check out this video demo.

Learn what the price range will be for any show before presales start. The minimum price is usually uppers or lawns. So using this Blackpink Chicago example, the cheapest uppers are starting at $79.50. The maximum price is usually Floors, GA front of the stage, or prime lowers, so we know these are likely going to be starting at $325. Do you want to target cheapies for this show? Do you think the top price point is too much and you’d rather target price break lowers instead? Having a focused buying strategy is critical to success and having this information well in advance will help you get an edge and make sure you are not wasting any time.

Learn what the ticket limits are in advance. This is useful information to have and you can plan your buying strategy accordingly. How many tickets will each account be able to secure? Also, this is a broad generalization, but sometimes ticket limits can provide a glimpse of what the promoters are expecting demand to be like. If ticket limits are super high (20+) or unlimited - this might be indicative of weak demand. Conversely if ticket limits are extremely low, say 2 for example - this might be indicative of strong demand.

Stay organized and understand what presales are coming. Keep a calendar of all events and presales that you are interested in. Review the different presale types to see if any are exclusive (e.g. fan club, verified fan, etc.) and decide if you want to sign-up. Stay organized, map out presales, and never miss anything that is on your radar.

Using a price checker for every event is another tool the pros use every single day. Step up your ticket game and start taking advantage of this tool. The more information you have going into a presale the better.

Drop CHECKERS

After public sales have ended, tickets are often released at random points in time up until the event date, in what are called “drops”. This is true of both fully sold out events, or events with tickets still available. How do you know when drops happen? You can subscribe to a drop checker tool that automatically finds when these drops occur, and notify you immediately so you can buy tickets that had previously been sold out. To get a more detailed overview, you can check out this video demo.

Let’s dive into how you should be using a drop checker to unlock huge growth for your business, tips from the pros:

Use Case #1: How do you know what events to add to a drop checker?

The starting point is hot tours or hot shows. Go down the list of strong performing shows and tours you have bought or missed out on lately and throw all of them into your drop checker monitoring list for starters.

Some examples are: Harry Styles, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Lacey, Morgan Wallen, Elton John, etc. If you’ve been a broker for at least a few months, you should know what the latest hot tours and shows are. If not, you can network with other brokers to find out, or do the research and go through a secondary marketplace like Vividseats and check get-in prices for various big acts.
Next you want to go beyond the obvious big names since a lot of brokers will be monitoring these events already. It’s a good habit to add hot one-off shows or small tours that you discover week by week. If you follow a list recommendation service like at Broker Buds, at the end of the week you can take a look at the shows that are performing well and add a bunch for monitoring. You should get into the habit of doing this every single week. Over time, you will build up your pipeline of events and you’ll notice more and more drop alerts which will help build up your revenue and unlock new growth for your business.

Summary: Add events to your monitoring list on a frequent basis. Make this a priority and do it every single week.

Use Case #2: When you get an alert, what should you do?

Time is of the essence. You get a notification and you don’t have much time to think about it.

Don’t review any of the details of the drop, just click the link immediately, filter by standard tickets, and then scan and cart tickets. You have to remember that other brokers are competing with you for drops so you have to be quick on the draw. Once you have tickets secured in your cart, then you can think about whether it’s a good buy or not. You should also run a stock check, especially for GA/lawn seats to help make an educated decision. We broke this down earlier in the article (refer to the stock checker section).

Summary: When you see an alert for a hot event, don’t waste any time. Cart tickets as fast as possible and then decide if it’s a buy or not.

Hitting drops will be an absolute game changer for your business, take the time and learn how to use a drop checker effectively and make sure you’re adding events all the time.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

The stock checker can be used for seeing how much inventory was released on a presale or public sale, monitoring the trajectories for sellouts, and assessing drops - all very helpful pieces of information for decision making. The price checker can be used for gathering insights before presales happen on price ranges, ticket limits, and presale timing. The drop checker can help you make purchases you otherwise would not have been able to as long as you take the time adding events to your monitoring list.

Take the time and learn how to effectively use broker tools to your advantage. The stocker checker, price checker, and drop checker are invaluable tools and once mastered can really help elevate your business.

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