Buying concert tickets: how to read sellers and prices

Anyone hunting for two tickets to a sold-out show ends up moving between official pre-sales, resale platforms, and search results that look legitimate but aren't. Three practical distinctions are enough to avoid standing in front of the venue with an invalid QR code.

What separates an official seller from a reseller?

The primary market is where a ticket is sold for the first time. In Europe that means Eventim, Reservix, Ticketmaster, See Tickets, AXS, Eventbrite, and the event organiser's own website. The service fee shown is typically 8 to 15 percent of the ticket price, plus a fixed processing fee unless an e-ticket is selected.

The secondary market — StubHub, viagogo, Ticombo, Vivid Seats — works differently. Private individuals and commercial resellers list tickets they bought earlier. For sold-out concerts, prices reach three to five times the original. The platforms earn through buyer and seller fees combined, usually 20 to 30 percent.

The distinction is practical, not moral. On a cancellation or postponement, the primary market refunds directly. On the secondary market it depends on whether the reseller has been paid out yet and whether the platform's buyer guarantee applies.

How do I spot an unreliable shop?

An SSL certificate — the padlock in the address bar — is no longer a trust signal. Fake shops use them too. The useful checks are less visible.

• Read the imprint, don't just check it exists. It should include a full postal address, a responsible person, a phone number, and either a commercial register entry or a VAT ID. A missing VAT ID suggests the operator isn't a regularly registered company.
• Check prices that look too good. A ticket officially priced at 120 euros, offered for 60 by an unknown shop, has been stolen, forged, or doesn't exist.
• Look at payment methods. If only wire transfer, Western Union, or cryptocurrency are accepted, it is almost always fraud. Stripe, PayPal, Klarna and credit cards offer buyer protection; bank transfer does not.
• Check the domain age. Free whois services show when a domain was registered. Shops with a three-week-old domain and twenty "limited" concert listings are suspect.

Before Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in 2024, European domain registrars suspended hundreds of such shops; the same is happening around the major 2026 stadium tours.

Is it worth comparing prices at all?

On the primary market, comparison rarely helps because ticket prices are set by the organiser and all authorised sellers list the same price. What varies is the service fee — you can see it by clicking through the purchase flow to the payment screen. Eventim and Ticketmaster will differ by 5 to 10 percent on the same show.

On the secondary market, comparison is essential. For a constrained event, the price difference between StubHub and viagogo can range from 30 to 70 percent because their seller pools differ. A search across platforms for the event name gives a realistic picture.

The pragmatic order: start on the organiser's website. If tickets are gone, try the three primary-market sellers for the region. Only then move to the secondary market — and expect official tickets to be more expensive there but to come with a platform guarantee.

One additional point about the secondary market: personalised tickets, where the name on the QR code is matched against an ID at entry, often cannot be legally resold. Paying 250 euros for a ticket in someone else's name risks losing both the money and entry on the door.