If you've ever been to a concert, sports game, or even, you probably know how expensive and tricky it can be to even get tickets in the first place.
The reality is that the ticket and events market is massive yet complex. And the balance between supply and demand means there's a huge opportunity to be made by buying and reselling tickets for popular events.
That's what this guide is all about. If you're wondering how to sell tickets for money and want to get into this flipping side hustle, read on!
Pro Tip: List your tickets for resale across several platforms with Lysted, a leading tool for resellers and hustlers!
How To Make Money Reselling Tickets
Here are the five general steps to resell tickets as a side hustle:
- Research the ticket market to understand demand and trends
- Purchase tickets you want to resell for a platform
- List your tickets for resale on popular resale platforms
- Invest your profits into additional tickets
- Scale your ticket resale business
1. Research The Ticket Market
The first step in reselling tickets for profit is to begin developing your understanding of different event markets in general. After all, the last thing you want is to invest in tickets that are difficult to sell or even impossible to offload.
Generally, here are the main factors to consider when you begin scouting tickets to buy and flip:
- Artist or sports team popularity
- If there's limited availability for specialty tickets like VIP or certain stage sections
- The size of the venue and how many tickets are in circulation
- How loyal the artist or fans are for the event you're selling
- If the event is taking place on a weekend or busy part of the year
When you find an event that has a massive fan-base and a lot of hype behind the event, that's a good sign. In this case, snagging tickets during a presale or the first-day of public sales could result in a super easy flip.
Take Taylor Swift tickets for example. This one person managed to buy four VIP Eras Tour's tickets for $800 each but resold them for about $20,000!
2. Purchase Tickets To Resell
Once you spot an event coming up that you think is a nice flipping opportunity, it's time to invest in some tickets.
This is one of the hardest parts about reselling concert tickets for profit. Oftentimes, tickets sell out almost instantly on major ticket resale platforms. And it can be difficult to get into exclusive early-buy groups and is often down to a bit of luck.
My advice is to follow major artists and teams you're interested in flipping tickets for. This is an easy way to get email notifications about when tickets drop and how to potentially snag them quickly.
If you can buy tickets from primary ticketing platforms like Ticketmaster, venue websites, or Live Nation, you set yourself up for the highest profit potential.
You can also buy tickets from resale sites like StubHub, Vivid Seats, and SeatGeek. However, every time a ticket changes hands, the margin potential likely shrinks.
Pro Tip: Don't give up if you can't buy tickets to flip in your first few tries. It's difficult to buy tickets for super popular events, which is why this flipping hustle takes time, patience, and practice.
3. List On Ticket Reselling Platforms
Once you buy your tickets, it's time to list them on popular reselling platforms at a higher price than you bought them for.
Some flippers suggest listing them the same day you purchase them for at your desired profit margin. This gives you time to slowly drop the price or experiment with pricing as you approach the event date.
As for where you resell your tickets, one of the easiest ways to get started is to use Lysted.
Lysted is a leading ticket resale platform that places your tickets on every major resale marketplace for you. Some of the main platforms it works with include:
- Gametime
- SeatGeek
- StubHub
- TickPick
- Ticketmaster
- TicketNetwork
- Vivid Seats
What's nice is that Lysted has a built-in pricing tool that uses historical data and its algorithm to suggest prices that help you sell. And once you resell your tickets, Lysted removes them from all other platforms so you don't run into issues with duplicate sales.
Lysted also handles payments. You get paid via bank deposit a couple weeks after your buyer receives their tickets. And this is much more secure than trying to buy and sell tickets on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist where scams are common.
4. Invest Into More Tickets
If you pull off a successful resale, you should have some nice profit in your pocket. And this is the perfect way to begin growing your “invesntory” buy investing into more tickets to sell.
Now, many sellers earn about 10-20% profit by buying and flipping tickets. You can earn much higher margins for super popular sold-out events, like a Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran show, but this isn't the norm.
Ultimately, this means it takes time and dedication to grow your inventory. Additionally, you can lose money reselling tickets if an event is less popular than you thought and you end up selling day-of tickets for a massive discount.
This is how any flipping hustle goes. But you can begin by flipping $500 or even less worth of tickets and continue investing into additional tickets.
5. Track Your Margins & Scale Your Ticket Resale Business
The final step in reselling tickets for money is to track your business and to focus on scaling.
Over time, you might find certain artists, genres, or niches work well for you. You might also find better platforms to buy tickets on during presales. Or, you might even make connections with different venues and get exclusive access to some tickets.
Ultimately, you want to build a network of people and resources you can rely on. Additionally, you want to develop a reputation as a reputable seller so platforms, venues, and buyers trust you as you scale.
Is Reselling Tickets Profitable?
Ticket reselling can be profitable, especially if you manage to buy and flip tickets for highly-anticipated events that sell out quickly. Generally, trending and famous musicians and important sports games are some of the most profitable tickets to buy and flip.
That said, this side hustle takes time and practice. And you can potentially lose money if you overspend or can't find buyers in time.
Ticket Reselling vs Ticket Scalping
Ticket reselling and ticket scalping have a lot of overlap and are often lumped under the same definition. However, ticket scalpers generally sell tickets in-person outside of venues and often skirt local laws and may even run fake ticket scams. Plus, scalpers don't usually report the income they earn from ticket sales.
In contrast, ticket reselling is a blanket term that just describes the act of reselling a ticket after you've purchased it. This includes intentional buying-and-selling for a profit but also includes people who offload tickets once they realize they can't attend an event.
Pros & Cons Of Reselling Tickets As A Side Hustle
Pros:
- A potential lucrative side hustle, especially if you find sold-out tickets
- Can scale into a serious side business
- This side hustle is possible year-round
- You can start with a small amount of money
Cons:
- It can take time to learn the ropes and to buy the right tickets
- You can lose money if you overpay
- Some people think ticket reselling is unethical
Is Reselling Tickets Illegal?
Reselling tickets isn't illegal in most US states, and there aren't laws that prohibit or restrict reselling items for a certain profit. However, resale laws vary by state and by country and ticket reselling is illegal in some parts of the world.
Additionally, many places prohibit or at least discourage ticket scalping right outside of events. When in doubt, use reputable platforms like Lysted, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, and others to find buyers and securely transfer your tickets to them.
Is It Ethical To Flip Tickets For Money?
The whole ticket industry, which is about $5 billion in the United States, already gets a lot of flack. Going to events is expensive these days when you factor in ticket prices, food and drink costs, transportation, and accommodation. And when you consider how some ticket buyers and platforms use bots and automated tech to purchase tickets as soon as they're available, it's easy to get angry as a consumer.
For some, reselling tickets for money is a part of this problem. For others, this is a pure form of arbitrage that takes advantage of basic supply and demand laws.
As someone who goes to concerts, sports games, and festivals every year, ticket reselling doesn't bother me. Someone out there is putting in the time and effort to buy something of value to then resell for some profit. I don't have the time or skill to buy Weeknd or T-Swift tickets when the drop, so hats off to whoever manages to pull it off.
In my mind, reselling concert tickets or sports tickets is no different than other flipping hustles. And in my opinion, it's the venues and major ticketing companies that need to keep prices reasonable and eliminate scalping bots, not everyday people or hustlers.
Extra Reading – 10+ Legit Ways To Make Money With Your Home.
Final Thoughts
I hope this guide on how to resell tickets helps you decide if this type of hustle is right for you.
Ultimately, this isn't the type of hustle that will make $10,000 a month right out of the gate. As mentioned, it takes a lot of time, planning, and practice to make this work.
However, some people make great money with reselling. If you love events and some math-type games, it could be a great fit for you.
