My auction just closed. Selling two U2 tickets with a face value of $229.90 a piece the day before the sold out concert. How much did I make reselling my tickets? Good question.
To answer this question I think we should start back when the concert was announced… there was a fair amount of hype and both acts (Jay-Z and U2) could probably sell out a show by themselves. So my gambling instincts kicked in and I realized that there was a potential to make some cash by signed up for presales and buying 4 tickets and reselling 2 of them.
Signing up for presales costs $50. Which is no problem considering I will be making big money reselling my tickets right?
Signed up for presales on a Thursday they opened the next Monday. As soon as they open I snatch up four tickets for $229.90 a piece plus a $19.00 transaction fee. So for those of you that are not so good at math that brings my total costs up to $988.60 or $247.15 per ticket. Now at this point I am very pleased with myself and go to sleep that night with dreams of selling the two extra tickets for enough to cover the tickets Sheila and I will be using.
I wake up the next day to find out that U2 has sold the first show (Thursday night) this is really good news and is exactly what I expected. It is nice when a plan works out!
A few days latter I find out that U2 has announced a second concert on Friday. Disaster!!!
This is really bad news because:
a) Who would want to go to a Thursday night show when there is a Friday night show?
b) There are not enough people in New Zealand to sell out two shows in Auckland. So I will be lucky to sell them for face value
So I put them on trademe.co.nz (the New Zealand equivalent to eBay) and they sold for $161 for the pair or $80.50 a ticket. So I lost $166.65 per ticket and gained a hatred for U2. I kind of feel like they greased me out of $383.30 (amount for the tickets + the presale) because I would never have bought 4 tickets knowing what I know now.
Hope the concert is worth it!