OT: Will There Be a Ticket Watch Post from Seth?
January 4th, 2024 at 12:33 AM ^
BTW I did a quick sample of 600 level seats and found the following service fee percentages added to the list prices at checkout:
TicketMaster: 20%
StubHub: 29%
SeatGeek: 33%
I added in the supply info from the sites others have suggested. WILL CONTINUE TO UPDATE!
1/4/2024 - 9:00am: Supply - 6,996, Get-In Price - $1,200.00; Average Price - $2,700.00
1/4/2024 - 12:30pm: Supply - 6,633, Get-In Price - $1,048.00; Average Price - $3,060.00
1/4/2024 - 4:25pm: Supply - 7,625, Get-In Price - $1,172.00; Average Price - $2,912.00
Cheapest Seattle - Houston Airline Ticket (1/7-1/9) = $1,285
January 4th, 2024 at 1:14 AM ^
StubHub: 29%
I wonder if they fluctuate some? I had been seeing more like 35-36% for StubHub when I was looking. I will say though, I don't understand the "dynamic" pricing they seem to use now. When I sold an extra ticket during the regular season, I set the amount I wanted to net from the sale (which then stayed the same unless I changed it), but the sale price (which IIRC used to be static in past years) fluctuated wildly over time, with the list price (obviously without fees, but still) sometimes lower than the price that they'd pay me.
And this may be a dumb question, but how did you calculate the fee %?
January 4th, 2024 at 1:26 AM ^
Very straight forward calc. If ticket listed for $1000 and fee is $200 (total price of $1,200) the fee is 20%
January 4th, 2024 at 1:47 AM ^
I figured that's what you did, with the list price in the denominator (it was the same way I did), but wanted to check given that I was seeing significantly higher fees (~36% to your 29%) on Stubhub. The fees must be dynamic then...
January 4th, 2024 at 8:53 AM ^
I found that VividSeats was the cheapest after fees compared to those three. I didn't calculate the percentage.
January 4th, 2024 at 10:28 AM ^
Thanks. Good to know!
January 4th, 2024 at 10:34 AM ^
Seattle to Houston tickets: I have excess inventory I can’t sell. Let me jack up the price!
January 4th, 2024 at 4:52 PM ^
As an FYI - TickPick does not show you the actual cheapest get in price, it shows you the cheapest price if you use TickPick to purchase. The cheapest get in price is somewhere between 5-15% less but you’ll have to find the original listing for the tickets in question.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:10 PM ^
That makes sense. Isn’t it an all-in price whereas almost anywhere else has fees at checkout?
January 4th, 2024 at 9:43 PM ^
As far as I can suss out TickPick turns around and uses your money to buy from wherever the ticket was originally listed. The way they make money is that they charge you a hidden markup.
If you can find the ticket listing on the original site you can likely buy it cheaper. The "No Fees" is an illusion, you're paying the fees + a unmarked fee to tickpick for the convenience factor. It's up to you if you want to reward their service in this way.
January 4th, 2024 at 12:35 AM ^
I bit the bullet and bought 2 nosebleeds for about $1750 each tonight. Tough pill to swallow but this is a bucket list game for me. Go Blue!
January 4th, 2024 at 12:39 AM ^
A friend purchased nosebleeds for $3k each. I feel for him as prices have dropped but you are right - this is a bucket list game indeed
January 4th, 2024 at 10:34 AM ^
Got section 519, row B for $1400. There are some better deals mixed in...
January 4th, 2024 at 11:09 AM ^
Do you mind sharing if that was all-in price? If not, how much were service fees?
January 4th, 2024 at 12:30 PM ^
That is the end price including all fees/taxes.
January 5th, 2024 at 2:10 AM ^
Bluesong, I may have to sell my tickets. If interested let me know.
January 4th, 2024 at 12:46 AM ^
Most ticket prices behave predictably. As of right now there are still somewhere around 6K tickets on the secondary market. It looks like about 1K tickets changed hands today but the supply actually slightly increased.
Friday will probably be when sellers start to get a little nervous, i'm waiting until then.
Get in price has hovered around 1200-1300 but if the market moves like i think it will you can probably get in for about 1-1.1K with taxes/fees included.
January 4th, 2024 at 12:48 AM ^
This is great. Curious where you are getting the stats from. Would love to check myself.
January 4th, 2024 at 7:11 AM ^
TickPick provides the tracking info referenced.
January 4th, 2024 at 7:34 AM ^
Thanks!
January 4th, 2024 at 8:50 AM ^
Tickpick is where I go see directional price info. Ticketmaster is also useful as it has by far the most listings and you can see the wide swathes of seats available.
As I mentioned before I expect this game to decline further and behave in a similar manner to the B1G championship game
assumptions:
- Both fanbases while relatively large and affluent don’t have a huge Texas contingent
- Longhorn fans speculatively drove the absurd prices up and created an artificially high perception for the floor
- Lots of people already scared off or priced out of the game
- tickets on the reseller market will be priced to move at some point - each ticket was a minimum of $475 face, not an enjoyable hit even if you’re a deep pocketed scalping operation
Right now both sides seem to be eying each other like they’re at a middle school dance. Supply is increasing as school allocation tickets are starting to show up from alumni trying to make a buck. I think it creates conditions for tickets to become steadily cheaper over the next 24-36 hours. After that… I personally believe they will probably tank further as sellers start to get desperate but there’s a good chance lots of people are waiting to buy given the price and will maintain a price floor with a shrinking supply.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:29 AM ^
Excellent analysis - One more assumption
Airline tickets from Seattle are super expensive which may also price people out.
Seattle - Houston (1/7-1/9) = $1,285
January 4th, 2024 at 10:36 AM ^
I am flying from Seattle to Austin and driving 2 1/2 hours. It was $700.
January 4th, 2024 at 10:29 AM ^
Also out of curiousity. Where did you find how much tickets changed hands? I dont see that stat on TickPick - unless I'm looking in the wrong place.
January 4th, 2024 at 11:46 AM ^
You can scroll over the graph with your finger in the app (doesn't work on laptop) and it tells you which day the price/qty are from.
January 4th, 2024 at 7:47 AM ^
Where do you see how many tickets on the secondary market? Stubhub shows 2180 now, and some sites don't seem to have that number. I definitely see the value in tracking that number even as the ticket resellers may manipulate it.
January 4th, 2024 at 10:14 AM ^
Tickpick shows there are 6,158 tickets available on their platform as of 10am ET 1/4.
January 4th, 2024 at 7:58 AM ^
Yesterday made no sense and it makes me wonder just how many people actually control the tickets listed. Somehow a surge of ticket availability resulted in a 30-50% spike in pricing across the board. How on earth did all 1773 (as of yesterday) listed ticket packages ALL decide "hey, lots more tickets available, lets all raise our pricing"
January 4th, 2024 at 8:58 AM ^
Brokers are smart, they know there is a large percentage of people unwilling to commit to traveling without tickets secured. They are trying to take advantage of that group before dropping.
January 4th, 2024 at 8:08 PM ^
I always do the opposite, secure my travel plan before the tickets.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:59 AM ^
Putting on my tinfoil hat: public perception/average price/price anchoring is driven by large reseller operations.
it’s easy to see on Ticketmaster, the 2 unaffiliated corners have just rows and rows of seats on the secondary market, the school allocation sections are way more expensive and tighter.
these operations essentially control the pricing, they’re happy to keep the price high on most of their seats while monitoring inventory.
the other problem is that there are a large amount of unrealistic individual sellers listing ok tickets for absurd prices, some over 5k a pop.
January 4th, 2024 at 7:06 PM ^
Exactly, I think there's a good chance prices decline significantly from here and little risk that supply will decline to the point where prices rise.
January 4th, 2024 at 1:00 AM ^
Am I safe with any tickets behind Michigan sideline being mostly Michigan fans? Seems like the Michigan allotted tickets are the priciest section by a massive margin
also; prices definitely shot up today around 10% in my estimation compared to this morning
January 4th, 2024 at 1:38 AM ^
Yeah I nearly pulled the trigger on some 100 and Club seats this afternoon…by the time I got home from work, the same rows had spiked 40-60%.
Was still able to grab some good seats tho…now I just have to preserve my marriage.
January 4th, 2024 at 2:17 AM ^
Behind the Michigan sideline, you're probably going to get 80% Michigan fans, 10% UW fans, and 10% unaffiliated fans / locals / VIPs / etc.
Behind the UW sideline, you're going to get 50% UW fans, 40% Michigan fans, and 10% unaffiliated fans. :)
I lived in Seattle for eight years. Seattle is not a sports town. They're Los Angeles but with fewer people.
January 4th, 2024 at 2:20 AM ^
From what I heard, season ticket holders got notified today whether they got tickets but not where they are located. So you have three groups that matter:
1. The ones that got tickets and were planning on going (no effect on secondary market)
2. The ones that got tickets and were planning on selling (no effect on secondary market - until the location in revealed which I believe is Thursday, after which supply should increase)
3. The ones that didn't get tickets and were planning on going (increases the demand on the secondary market)
So we had an increase in demand with no increase in supply today which might explain your observed price action. Hopefully tomorrow more tickets will flow in on the supply side.
January 4th, 2024 at 7:14 AM ^
Season ticket holders who requested tickets will not impact demand as much as you think since the timing is not what you think. We knew back around December 15 whether or not our request was filled as well as the price point and general location. Our credit cards were charged on January 2 for those of us lucky enough to receive tickets. The digital tickets were made available for download yesterday.
There might be an increase in supply from those who received tickets through the Athletic Department and are choosing not to attend.
Go Blue! Beat the huskies.
January 4th, 2024 at 8:12 AM ^
3PG, this is incorrect.
We were sent a notification a few weeks ago. This indicated whether we received tickets and, if so, the price level and general location of the tickets.
Yesterday, we received the actual tickets...with the exact location.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:01 AM ^
It would be more interesting to see one analyzing flights. Easier to get to Nepal from DTW or ORD on Monday than to get a direct to Houston.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:06 AM ^
Yeah, once I saw the flight situation I was out. There's an article in the Detroit News about it today. It said there were some cheaper Spirit tickets that became available yesterday afternoon. Airlines need to find a way to add flights when there are big events like this.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Delta flights leaving Sunday for Houston and returning Tuesday were around $2,500 a ticket. Some tickets to IAH were more than $3,500 apiece.
Drake Castañeda, spokesperson for Delta, said in a statement that starting Monday the airline saw "some significant excitement from folks looking to purchase seats to Houston for the game, so (we) would encourage those planning on purchasing tickets to do so sooner rather than later."
United Airlines Inc. also is planning to add more Detroit-Houston flights on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday. Flights on United were starting around $2,000, with some hitting close to $4,000.
A limited number of seats on Spirit were available for as little as $575 Wednesday afternoon.
A sampling of hotel availability immediately near NRG Stadium Wednesday afternoon showed many were sold out. Room rates for hotels within five miles of the stadium ranged from $384 a night at the Holiday Inn Houston Downtown to $594 at the Westin Galleria Houston.
Laura West, a UM alumna from Dexter, is traveling to Houston to attend the game with her husband, Brady, a research professor for the UM Institute for Social Research. They were able to buy tickets for about $500 each through a UM program that allows alumni to purchase tickets based on support of the athletic program.
They also bought refundable plane tickets two weeks ago because they knew prices would skyrocket. Even then, a direct flight to Houston cost more than $2,000 per person so West and her husband opted to buy refundable tickets on United Airlines, with a layover in Chicago, for $700 each.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:17 AM ^
*fills out subscription agreement for Laura West’s hedge fund*
January 4th, 2024 at 10:38 AM ^
Some airlines do. Extra flights have been added in AL when Bama made the championship game. pre Covid, but still.
January 4th, 2024 at 1:16 PM ^
But they did add flights. I’m on delta to HOU Sunday which was 2/3 EMPTY when I booked but STILL charging $2,400 for seats. I booked into HOU and out of Dallas to save $1k since I could catch a ride with friends to Dallas after the game.
Everyone getting a cut off the fans’ backs.
January 4th, 2024 at 3:42 PM ^
Delta is definitely gouging but not as much as you’d think, you’re effectively paying for double the flights as the plane is effectively flying completely empty back to DTW on the outbound days and then flying completely empty to Houston to return people home
January 4th, 2024 at 5:31 PM ^
this is highly unlikely. Networking is undoubtedly utilizing the airframes in the interim.
January 4th, 2024 at 11:03 PM ^
Except yes, that's how it works. Even if the plane repositions somewhere else Delta needed to add another short notice repositioning flight in.
As it is you can do see this info publicly in any number of places. DL8804 for example makes the return flight to DTW on Saturday and another A319 operating as DL8804 takes off from Detroit on Tuesday morning to operate the return leg of 8804.
You can even book travel on those legs, possibly the easiest FC upgrade you'll ever get.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:19 AM ^
Probably this is the best option at this point
January 4th, 2024 at 9:20 AM ^
People are better off flying to Austin and driving.
January 4th, 2024 at 9:29 AM ^
Delta has a non stop to Austin for 1,100 but you have to come back on Wednesday.
January 4th, 2024 at 10:13 AM ^
If you can fly to Dallas Love Field, you can take the Vonlane 1st class bus (from a hotel by the airport) to downtown Houston for $120. The WiFi is good enough to stream. It adds hours.
The bus also runs to/from San Antonio and Austin. Conceivably you can fly into those cities for the weekend, bus into Houston Monday and check into a hotel for 1 night, then bus back to fly out in the mid to late afternoon.