10 Things Your Ticket Broker Won't Tell You

In recent years you might’ve noticed that the options for buying tickets to concerts, sporting events, and theater have been expanding. First there are the venue box offices and event promoters, which sell seats directly to the public. Next comes what’s called the primary market, including giants like Ticketmaster that contract with venues and promoters to sell seats at their events. Finally—and this is where things get really confusing—there’s a growing secondary market for reselling tickets, including sites like StubHub (a Craigsliststyle marketplace where people can sell tickets they’ve bought) and Onlineseats .com (which buys tickets for resale to the public).

The primary market is still the most common way to get tickets; it brought in $21 billion in 2007, versus $5 billion for the secondary market. But by 2012 the latter is expected to double its sales, according to Forrester Research. The problem is, the resellers’ market is the Wild West of ticket sales, rife with opportunity as well as scam. And most folks don’t even know there’s a difference between primary and secondary sellers, says TicketNews.com publisher Crystal Astrachan. The upshot: When buying tickets, what you don’t know can hurt you.