Does anyone know how Ticketmaster figures this out?

[mistrhia]

Since we will be in Vegas for Jimmy's second show this year, I was determined to grab some good tickets for the show. Got online just prior to the onsale time, logged into my Ticketmaster account (for quicker purchase) and started to refresh screen in anticipation of the sales opening up. Sure enough, at 10am I got the "Buy Tickets" screen and dove right in for our 2 tickets. After going through the usual verification screen, it came up with the wait time message - stating approximately a 10 minute wait! ARRRRGGHHH! After close to 7 minutes, it came up and offered me seats - in Section L10! HUH? No floor seats and already partway up the side? Oh well, I had asked for best available, so I decided to take them rather than risk a shut out. Finished the purchase, got my confirmation and heaved a sigh of relief! Then hubby phones from work - confirming that I got tix. Told him I did, and where, and he informed me that a co-worker had just that minute pulled up a ticket request for the same show and was offered 2 Floor Seats, Section A, Row A!!!!!! He was looking at their screen as he was talking to me, so go figure - someone logs in 20 minutes after they go on sale and gets better seats than I did by logging on immediately!
So, how DOES Ticketmaster figure out the Best Available Seats? I had asked for the "Best Available at any price", and got stuck halfway back in the arena at the start of ticket sales. Should I have done something different in my request? I just assumed it would give me floor seats first, unless they were already sold out (obviously not!). I'm still really happy to be going to our 7th Buffett show, but feeling a little ripped off by what we got for seats.

[green1]

Welcome to BN.

From my understanding, as limited as some here may claim that to be , when you ask for best available it will do just that. Search for however many seats together in the best possible section. You then have a certain amount of time to purchase the tickets or they go back out into the "open tickets" cue. Now, your situation. Let's assume that someone jumped into the cue before you and asked for BA tickets. They got those ones on the floor but didn't purchase them in time. So those tickets went back out into the cue and your husbands co-worker picked them up.

This scenario is usually what happens, but then there are also the seats that the casino holds for it's high rollers, the ones reserved for the band, the corporations and the other "greedy piggys at the trough". Any of these tickets can be released by the holders and are then dumped onto the market. Hope this helps, and enjoy the show.

[Tropic_Al]

I think they sell the lousy ones first. I've had the same happen to me, better seats come up later.

[spayne12]

I have noticed for the last few years it appears they release semi ok-to bad seats and then slowly release good ones here and there....This is for all shows just not a buffett show and to me more fair. They should be random that would go over well LOL....anyway I tried this out when getting wiggles tickets for my daughter and I held out for over 45 minutes and got fourth row center! Not nearly the same as buffett...

[pghparrothead]

I have been purchasing through Ticketmaster for many years. Each year, my wait time gets longer. I am always logged into my account and ready to go. Two years ago my wait time was about 10 minutes, which was not bad. Last year, my wait time was an hour. My seats were not bad, but not great either. I always purchase best available.

This year I am a bit concerned because of the whole Hanna Montana thing where ticket brokers used software to purchase large quantities of tickets. I know there were lawsuits, but did not follow what the outcome was.

[FunkHouse9]

I think it mostly has to do with transactions that get dropped because they didn't get completed in time. As much as I'd like to think Ticketbastard holds the good seats and releases them slowly, it would make no sense for them to do that. They're trying to screw us, not toy with us.

Four lessons I've learned:

#1 ALWAYS log in before tickets go on sale. I tried to get Buffett tickets a few years ago, pulled them up, got all the way to the purchase screen and had a page error and lost the tix. I tried and tried, but never could pull up more. Ticketmaster called me that afternoon and because their system pulled them and was holding them under my id, and they saw what happened, they still had the tickets for me several hours later and I got them.

#2 Use multiple windows at a time. Open several different IE windows and go to the onsale page individually for each (don't go to the page and hit ctrl-n). Only refresh one or two pages until the onsale time and then once you have one window working, start going through the others until one pulls tickets up. That way you have a couple windows working at once and I've had the second window come up sooner and with better tix than the first. You can start going through one transaction and it's possible that before you're done, another window could give you a better option.

#3 Refresh sparingly. Ticketmaster's system tracks refresh rates and if you hit refresh too many times in too short of a period, it will block you for a few minutes to prevent automated systems from getting tickets. This can really stink if it causes you to miss the on-sale time.

#4 Wait time may not mean anything. I've waited 20 minutes to end up with Buffett tickets and I've waited 1 minute for nothing. Don't give up until you see the result.

Before relying on these, I'd suggest getting on during some other show's on-sale and practicing these skills. They take some quickness and some multitasking ability.

[pghparrothead]

Thanks for that suggestion. I think I will do that this year.