markfeber@yahoo.com wrote:in 1990 i went to see him without a ticket and found out they hold back tickets to sell on the day of the concert. i got a fantastic seat but i dont know if they still do this but ya might wanna try this. good lock
I worked in the concert industry for a number of years, and this is standard practice. bands started doing this in the late 80's to keep people from having to buy tickets from scalpers on the day of show. The only problem is a lot of people (including scalpers) now know about this and show up first thing in the morning hoping to get those great seats and camp out all day, but if you're patient it just might work. I remember I went to see Stevie Nicks about 11 years ago and had bought my tickets in advance, they were decent but not great. On the day of the show, just out of curiousity I went up to the box office, and they had 15 seats in the first row that were available all of a sudden.
But there really is no great "secret" to getting good tickets. Different artist handle this issue in different ways. Personally I have always found Bruce Springsteen and Prince's methods to be the best and fairest.