I’m a Swiftie who knows Ticketmaster. Learn from me to see Beyoncé in Charlotte
In case you’ve been on a wilderness retreat or in a medically induced coma in recent days, you should know Charlotte got some pretty big news recently.
The one, the only, the majestic Beyoncé is coming to town later this year.
The show is months away, but the battle royale for tickets is already kicking into gear. No doubt sending chills down the spines of many aiming for glory is the fact that the process for getting tickets involves none other than the Ticketmaster Verified Fan system.
The same system that so gloriously blew up the ticket sale process for fellow star Taylor Swift’s 2023 tour the whole thing triggered mass hysteria and a Congressional hearing.
I myself am batting .500 against TicketMaster in recent months, having secured presale tickets to Paramore just in time to develop a false sense of confidence before being brought to my knees by the aforementioned quest to scream sing “All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)“ with tens of thousands of my fellow late-stage millennials.
And so, like these two true icons of our time sharing a hug at the Grammys, I share these tips for navigating the TicketMaster wilderness:
Preload your payment information
You don’t have to wait until checkout to plug your credit card information into Ticketmaster.
Instead, save yourself time and stress by preloading the card you want to use into your account ahead of the ticket sale and save it to your profile. The last thing you want is to have your dream tickets in your cart only to lose them because you can’t type in your card number fast enough.
Already have a card saved to your account? Take a second to make sure it hasn’t expired and that it’s the card you want to charge your tickets to.
And if you’re trying for a presale that requires a specific type of credit card, make sure you have the appropriate one. You won’t be able to purchase your tickets without it.
Set a budget, and stick to it
The process of trying to secure tickets in a competitive presale is truly a blur. You will be actively trying to buy the same tickets as many others in Charlotte and beyond at the same time.
You need to move fast to have any chance of success.
The best way to do this is to have a plan heading into the sale and stick to it. Know exactly how much you can spend, and don’t forget to factor in taxes and fees (Ticketmaster will allow you to see the real full price while you’re scanning tickets, but you’ll need to toggle on “include fees”).
If you’re buying tickets for a group, talk through everyone’s budgets beforehand to make sure no one gets blindsided by the final bill and that you’re not frantically calling around to get an OK on a price during the sale process.
Once you know your spending limit, you can immediately weed out the tickets that are out of your price range and focus all your time and energy on going after attainable seats.
A budget will also help you avoid getting swept up in “dynamic pricing,” when ticket prices go up before your very eyes over the course of a presale as demand increases.
Clear your cache, browser history
The whole logic behind the Verified Fan process is to try and prevent bots and scalpers from gobbling up tickets only to resell them at an outrageous mark-up.
Now as a wounded Swiftie I have my questions about how well that process is going for Ticketmaster, but it is emblematic of the company having systems in place to at least try to keep out mass buyers.
And one of the easiest ways to trigger the virtual ticket police to boot you out of the presale you’re trying to participate in is to be using Ticketmaster on multiple devices or, in some cases, just logged in on multiple devices.
The easiest way to avoid this is to log out of Ticketmaster on all your devices (phone, laptop, etc.) and rid yourself of cookies (the electronic footprint tracking kind) by clearing your internet cache and browser history on those devices. Then when it’s time to get ready for your chosen presale, log back in on the device you want to use for the sale.
Use one device. One browser. One tab. Don’t try to be a hero and think your cookies are the ones the system won’t catch. You’ll only set yourself up for heartbreak and need real cookies to cope with the disappointment.
Follow the rules of the waiting room
If going for Beyoncé is going to be your first experience with a Ticketmaster sale, let me introduce you to a space known as the “waiting room.”
The waiting room is what you’ll be put in during the time right before the presale opens. Much like the physical waiting room of, say, your dentist’s office, it is a thoroughly anxiety-inducing place.
And it has rules worth following.
You want to join the waiting room pretty much as early as possible. We’re talking about checking to see if it’s available an hour before your presale is scheduled to start.
And yeah, you need to know your presale time! When going for presale tickets for Paramore at the Spectrum Center, it was scheduled for 8 a.m. Then it was pushed to 10 a.m. I kept checking Ticketmaster every few minutes starting at 8 a.m. anyway and got in well before 10 a.m. The same tickets I got had about doubled in price by 10 a.m.!
Once you’re in the waiting room, stay in. Do not refresh the page. Do not close the tab and try another one. All that does is increase your chances of getting sent to the back of the line.
If at first you don’t succeed, try another presale
Doing everything in your power to get tickets through a presale and coming out with nothing can be genuinely upsetting. I know this first-hand.
One way to up your chances of success is planning to participate in multiple presales.
In the case of the Renaissance Tour, there will be the Ticketmaster Verified Fan sale as well as the Beyhive Fan Verified Fan Sale, the Citi Verified Fan Sale and the Verizon Up Presale.
So, don’t just rely on the Ticketmaster one (you may not even get an access code, let alone successfully purchase tickets if you do get in). If you’re not in the fan club or don’t have a Citi credit card or a Verizon account, ask the friends you’re planning on getting tickets with. There’s a decent chance at least one of you fits the criteria for at least one of the other presales.
Presales can be stressful, but they really can save you money and increase your chances of getting into a show.
Tickets in the same section my group is in for Paramore are selling now for about triple what I paid (not even counting taxes and fees).
And as of this writing, there hasn’t even been a general sale for Taylor Swift tickets.
So do your best, don’t bankrupt yourself and remember to breathe. You might get tickets, and you might not.
Not getting tickets doesn’t make you a bad fan.
After all, I don’t think it would come as a huge shock if we all find out eventually that Beyoncé is an immortal goddess.
And that means there will be other tours to try for.
This story was originally published February 9, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
