Q: What is a "Broker"?
A: A Broker is defined as "One hired for a fee to negotiate purchases, contracts, or sales". A ticket broker does just that. There are people that want to sell their tickets and there are people that want to buy those same tickets. There are 2 ways that a broker can do this. The broker can buy the tickets outright from the seller and hope that they can sell them. If the market drops or the tickets don't get sold the broker incurs the loss. The second way is the broker could take the tickets from the seller on consignment and keep a reasonable fee if they are sold. Either way a ticket broker puts the buyers and the sellers together for a fee.
Q: Why are the tickets above face value?
A: Tickets are being sold at "Market Price". This means that the ticket brokers are also buying them at well above face value. Basically if someone is selling their tickets to a major event, they generally want to sell them for what they are worth. The majority of the price of the ticket is usually the cost for obtaining them. Then there are general business expenses added to the cost of the tickets. Many brokers acquire tickets on speculation. When the event is not as hot as anticipated, they are either unable to sell all or part of their ticket inventory, or they are forced to sell them bellow the cost of obtaining them. Consequently, they incur substantial losses, which become part of their business expense.
Q: How do we know that the tickets are genuine tickets?
A: By purchasing from a licensed ticket broker you can be assured that we have taken the necessary precautions to guarantee that they are genuine. We verify all of our sources for tickets and only buy from those that are reliable.
Q: Isn't it true that if it was not for all the ticket brokers that buy the tickets that there would be plenty of seats for the fans?
A: Unlike the common belief, ticket brokers generally have a very small percentage of seats to any event and it does not affect availability at all. Most shows that are sold out would not even come close to having enough seats for all the fans wanting to attend.
Q: Don't ticket brokers purchase large blocks of tickets that are never offered to the public?
A: Most performers and sports teams assure that this does not happen. Promoters make sure that the tickets are not sold in advance and impose limits when they go on sale so that one person can not buy a large block. The tickets that brokers have available are usually purchased at the general public on sale a couple of seats at a time.
