FanSnap--another way to find cheap concert tickets

Tuesday's post on using Craigslist to buy secondhand concert tickets drew a response from a company called FanSnap, which uses live feeds to aggregate ticket listings from online marketplaces and broker sites (such as StubHub and TicketNetwork) and eBay auctions.

FanSnap would argue Craigslist is fine for price-sensitive fans who don't need to go to a particular show and who are willing to meet and negotiate with other individuals, pay cash where necessary, and run the risk of buying a fake ticket. (Although the only time I've ever seen a fake concert ticket was in 1989 on the streets of Manhattan, when I bought a very realistic counterfeit to a Jane's Addiction show at the Ritz.)

Fans who want a slightly more convenient buying experience might go with eBay, where they can use PayPal and rely on seller ratings, while fans who absolutely need a guaranteed ticket can go with a marketplace like StubHub, which offers a toll-free customer service line, money-back guarantee, and other benefits. FanSnap operates on an affiliate-oriented revenue model, so it gets a commission from sites on which sales are made.

FanSnap shows you where tickets are located in a seating chart of the venue.

I ran a search on FanSnap for Pixies tickets, and it found more than 70 listings for the sold-out show this Friday, compared with about 30 listings on Craigslist. (The Craigslist screenshot in Tuesday's post showed only listings that had been added on that day.) Prices were similar to Craigslist--lower in a few cases--and the site has some great design touches, like a seating chart of the venue that maps tickets to particular locations. Craigslist, of course, is purposely and resolutely lo-fi. I still think there's something refreshing about dealing with a real fan, face to face, but I can see reasons why others wouldn't want to.

Correction at 8:00 a.m. PDT, Nov. 12: This post mischaracterized how FanSnap aggregates ticket listings. The site uses live feeds from its sources, which allows ticket listings to be updated immediately as prices change.

[daniel hobbs]

sounds like an interesting option to try

[cvaldes1831]

You need to point out which city you reside in.

SF does not have many rock venues with reserved seating. You go to the Fillmore (as well as anything else under 1000 seats) and basically you're getting "general admission." This makes ticket selling rather easy on Craigslist (or other sites) because all the tickets have the same face value.

I want to know how well FanSnap works in a real rock town. Tell me the effectiveness of FanSnap in L.A. or NYC. Heck, if you're covered pop music in general, we need to know how this effedts Nashville.

[christian_anderson]

Hi cvaldes1831,

FanSnap shines for events with only general admission seating because we put the lowest price ticket at the top of the list. There's no need to sort through a bunch of listings, it's right there at the top.

Take a look at the Taylor Swift tickets in Madison Square Garden to see how FanSnap works for big venues (http://www.fansnap.com/tickets/184835-on). We show the tickets on a map of the venue and highlight best values with blue stars. The lowest price tickets are represented by yellow stars. The tickets priced higher are represented by darker colored circles.

Hope that helps,
Christian Anderson
FanSnap
[e-mail]

[aesculus09]

craigslist is also ripe with scam artists who sell you fake tickets. if you get scammed on tickets, report the email address of the scam artist to suspectedscammers.com. we openly publish email addresses of scam artists for the internet community to see. submissions to and searches through our database of scam artist email addresses are free and anonymous.

[dcsre]

i used fansnap and it doesnt have every ticket website. i found cheaper tickets at a place called nofeestickets.com...i never trust these price compare sites..they dont usually have all vendors on their site, only vendors that pay them commission to show their tickets...