That’s the key here, what you need. There are so many concert ticket sites now, each offering slightly different specialities, so it’s key to know what you’re after before you start hunting with any one option. So what do you need tickets for? Is it the theatre, a music concert, a comedy gig or something else? You’ll want to think about seating or standing, availability, prices and for sell-out gigs there is the resale rate of a website. Some sites let you buy tickets directly as they’re released while others specialize in getting you tickets after they’ve sold out. Then there is reliability, safety and delivery times all to be taken into account. Fortunately we’ve done all the leg work and narrowed down this list of only the very best concert ticket sites so you can find the ideal option for what you need right now. And if you want specific picks then check out the best sports ticket sites (opens in new tab) and best online auction sites (opens in new tab) too.
The best concert ticket sites
StubHub is our top of the lot as it places a clear emphasis on concert tickets, with a variety of genres and options to look at festival tickets greeting you when you first visit the website. Helpfully, you can filter by lowest price, best location and best deal, as well as specific seat types and types of ticket delivery, meaning everyone’s preferences are covered. What’s more, the FanProtect promise is a trustworthy feature which means you can shop with StubHub confidently. The mobile app is also easy to use, and it lets you access tickets on the day of the event – once you purchase the ticket, a bar code on your phone gets you into the venue. You can also follow your favorite artists through the app and receive alerts about shows in your area. Selling tickets with StubHub is almost as easy as buying them. You can use the computer application or mobile app to sell your tickets, and StubHub collects 10% of the sale price. The site’s FanProtect guarantee makes sure you receive valid tickets before the event, and if you don’t, you will either be refunded with comparable or better tickets or receive a full refund. Using a reputable secondary broker like StubHub is a fast and secure way to buy and sell concert tickets, and that’s why we think it is the best service for most people. Ticketmaster is a great place to shop for tickets because of its return policy. The site gives you three days after your purchase to change your mind when you purchase tickets for events at venues participating in the website’s Fan Guarantee program. It’s also the only site we reviewed which lets you return tickets for events that have been rescheduled and not canceled, which is great for peace of mind. Prices were average across the sites we reviewed, and with Ticketmaster you get the added advantage of buying tickets from a primary seller. This means tickets for in-demand concerts may well be cheaper on Ticketmaster than elsewhere, as long as you’re able to buy them in time. VividSeats didn’t have the cheapest tickets of the sites we reviewed, but concert-lovers might be interested in shopping here regardless due to the impressive rewards program. You can get up to 8% credit on tickets depending on how much you spend and if you’re a ‘Hall of Famer’ (meaning you spend over $2000 annually) this credit won’t expire. If you haven’t got the budget to splash $2000 annually on tickets don’t worry, your credit will last a full year. You can buy your tickets through the easy-to-use app or online, and if you have any questions a customer service representative can answer them through the website’s live chat feature. See Tickets started out as a record shop in Nottingham, in the UK. It then grew with the digital age and has since become an internationally respected ticket selling site. It works with those roots of simplicity though, keeping the site super minimal and efficient. All that means a calm and easy to navigate website which is most welcome in the ticket hunting world where it all can become overwhelming at times. Search by music genre or venue location as well as for direct band names. Usefully, this category system lets you browse and even discover gigs you may not have been aware of – a great way to find gifts for others. You can sell tickets to your own event, if you happen to be a music star. And while the site does say it will offer refunds if the event has “significantly changed”, this refund policy is pretty strict compared to a lot of the competition. Viagogo is based in London so it caters for the UK music scene well, but it’s also an international platform, offering tickets for US gigs and covers more than 50 countries. You will find a really wide selection of music types offered on this site making it great for discovery – did you know C Pop was a thing? The tickets may be more expensive than some other websites as sellers can put the prices up above face value if they want. But you are covered well should the event be cancelled and not rescheduled, as you get a massive 125% refund on what you spent. There is also a guarantee from the company that you will receive your ticket before the time of the event. SeatGeek’s transparent fees are a big draw here, making it easy for you to know you’re getting the best deal possible and avoid a nasty surprise when you get to checkout. What’s more, fees were some of the lowest we found - making SeatGeek a great all-rounder if you’re after a good price. Like many of the top concert ticket sites, SeatGeek assigns a deal score to each ticket, marking it with a color and number on a scale of zero to ten. This results in a straightforward and visually compelling arena seating chart. We liked SeatGeek’s shiny website and modern feel. It also has a great app which is available to Apple and Android users alike. Overall, a great choice if you’re after a bargain and a choice you can feel confident about. TickPick (previously Razorgator) is great for its unbeatable prices, reasonable fees and unprecedented number of search filters to help you find the perfect seat for you. The grading system offered by the site is helpful for people willing to compromise on price when it comes to seat value, and we found the claim of an average 15-20% saving to be accurate. The customer guarantee is fairly standard and there are good options for customer service so you can be confident that they’re there to help if anything goes wrong. Sellers can put their tickets open to bidding if they’re looking to make a few bucks, or sell outright for a price you choose. TickPick takes a lean 10% commission, but you can cost your tickets accordingly. This is our pick of best value ticket services as the prices were consistently lowest in our testing. We’re confident that you’ll snap up a good deal with TickPick. TicketCity wasn’t our first choice of ticket sites, but its ticket prices were lower than some competitors and we liked its unique approach to helping you sell tickets fast. Most websites let you post your tickets and set your own price, taking a cut of the money when you do sell. TicketCity buys your tickets directly from you, so there’s no waiting around to see if it will sell. This is made even easier by how easy it is to sell your ticket to TicketCity, which can be done over the phone or on an online form. A great option if you’re looking to sell unwanted concert tickets. Unlike some others on this list, Live Nation is more of a search engine than a dedicated ticket agency. It was bought back in 2010 by Ticketmaster and has been given more of a music focus. As such, this is a fantastically streamlined place to search for gig tickets, browsing by location, genre or date as well as searching directly for bands. The use of hero images is helpful to make certain shows stand out, which can help when browsing without a specific band in mind. Once you’ve found the gig you want, this site will direct you to the third-party website that it is sold through and guess what that site is? Yup, Ticketmaster. So this is a more direct way to browse music concerts without having to trawl through everything that the Ticketmaster site has to offer, essentially.
How we tested the best concert ticket sites
To find the best ticket sites, we checked prices for local and national concerts and events on the same day and made a note of the lowest prices available, as well as comparing overall value for money. We also ranked sites based on price, availability, website and app features and the variety of events covered. We went through every step of the buying and selling process for tickets to make sure there were no hidden fees or issues with these sites, so you can be confident in picking the right concert ticket site for you. We’ve reviewed concert ticket websites for several years and we know what to look for in the guarantees and money-back promises that these companies offer. We’ve made sure to compare them all on guarantees for peace of mind, and compared customer experience and customer service options to make sure that even if you do experience difficulties, there’s a team you can trust to set things right.
How we found the best concert ticket sellers
There is a lot to take into account when determining the very best concert ticket sites. Not only did we look at the features, like pricing, availability, usability and mobile experience, but we also went beyond that. Each step of the buying process was taken into account and scored so as to find the best result in order. Delivery was also an area we focused on, checking to see how tickets were delivered, by whom and how long you can expect to wait nationally and locally. Security and fees were also areas explored with your bank details, the website’s build and aftersales support all taken into account. When selling using these options we found that selling online is more expensive than using a listing or social media – as they take 10 to 20% of the sale price. But we also found them to be a safer option where your audience of potential buyers is far greater.
How much do concert tickets cost?
The price of a concert ticket cost depends on who is performing and where. Service and shipping fees vary by event and by website, but our research shows the average service fee is about 23%, added to the cost of the ticket. Standard shipping costs could also run you an additional $15, though they’re sometimes wrapped into the service fee. If you’re interested in selling tickets, most websites take about 15% commission. However, some websites don’t take any commission at all, and some will buy them from you outright to save you the trouble.
What are the ticket service’s fees?
All the online ticket brokers we reviewed charge service fees. Some also charge convenience fees, shipping and e-ticket delivery fees. We found that e-tickets were the most cost-effective, with the delivery fees around $5 versus the $15 average fee for delivering physical tickets. Our top pick, Razorgator, doesn’t charge delivery fees for e-tickets which is a great way to save on additional costs. Fees are unavoidable, so you might want to consider shopping around before you make your final decision.
What’s the difference between primary and secondary sellers?
This is a big distinction worth knowing. A primary ticket seller is a website, like Ticketmaster, that works directly with the event to sell its tickets. That means they work out a deal based on a price that works for both. From a buyer’s perspective this is the most secure way to buy, with tickets right from the seller meaning you get them officially. The downside here is that the price might already be high, despite no official markup, since the seller and event organiser decide this and control the first batch of tickets. Secondary ticketing sites are those that re-sell tickets for an event. This is a great option if the event is a sell-out and you still want to get a ticket or two. These will be charged at a markup meaning they will cost you more than the face value ticket price in most cases. However you can sometimes find that these are actually cheaper than primary pricing. In most cases these come with guarantees so even though you’re buying secondary tickets they should still be secure, get to you in time, and actually work on the day.
Which concert ticket sites can you trust?
There’s a lot of horror stories involving people buying concert tickets from fraudsters or unreputable sources. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t recommend you any sites that we don’t think can be trusted. However, sometimes things go wrong, especially when you’re buying through an online marketplace as opposed to the site itself. That’s why every site we’ve recommended has a 100% guarantee on tickets. This is a standard feature across ticket resale sites which promises your money back if your tickets don’t arrive in time, are invalid or not what you were promised. With the exception of Ticketmaster, they won’t give you your money back if your concert is rescheduled and you can’t make the new date. However, some will help you to resell your tickets and if an event is permanently cancelled you should expect to be refunded for your tickets. In every review we’ve extensively checked the customer guarantee of each site and given you all the information you need to make an informed decision. We’ve also taken this into account in our ratings.
Do they have an interactive seating chart?
All the services we reviewed allow you to click on various sections in the venue and compare prices. An interactive seating chart makes it easier to visualize where you’ll be sitting in relation to the stage. Some services offer point-of-view pictures from larger stadiums and venues so you can check out the viewing angle from the seats you’re reserving, and with some sites this function gives you a 360-degree view.
Concert calendar apps
The use of calendars, which can be searched, is a helpful addition that the sites listed here offer. That allows you to search by date so you can find events, or certain dates for an event, to suit when you can make. Many apps offer personalized alerts, for bands, venues and concerts, which are also a very helpful way to get the heads-up on those events you can go to that actually interest you. The best app on the sites reviewed here was StubHub, so if you’re planning to use alerts like this then that could be the ideal option for you. It even lets you sync your music so it can make suggests based on the artists you listen to most. We’ve also looked around for other concert calendar apps: Songkick’s free concert calendar app This concert calendar app is free and available for iOS (opens in new tab) and Android devices. It searches services like Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer to find out what kind of music you listen to and curates a personalized concert guide based on your playlists. Songkick sends notifications about concerts and festivals near your current location and allows you to set a reminder to buy a ticket. This app also recommends bands and comedians that aren’t on your playlists to help you discover new and emerging artists. It displays pricing information, but we suggest using one of the licensed ticket broker sites we reviewed to ensure your transaction is secure and that you can get help and support if something goes wrong. Bandsintown’s concert planning app This app has similar search capabilities as Songkick – it can sync to your playlists on popular streaming services and send notifications about bands you follow. However, because it allows artists to post tour dates free of charge, Bandsintown is a better option for searching for and discovering smaller local acts. It also has better social media features. For example, you can invite friends to a concert with a Facebook post, view tour news and updates, and post photos of yourself dancing or attempting an epic stage dive. Bandsintown is available in the Google Play and Apple App (opens in new tab) stores free of charge.
