Access. Service. Choice. How NATP members help fans experience the events they care about.

Today alone, nearly 300,000 consumers in the United States will purchase a ticket on the secondary market through a marketplace or ticket broker and those tickets may come from an NATP member.

There are too many reasons to name why a fan chooses to buy from the secondary market, but trust, convenience and access to good inventory without pressure to purchase, are certainly among them. Some fans may just want to attend one football game this season. Some fans may have missed the original on sale for an artist they love. Some don’t want to wait in a virtual queue months before an event to purchase now when they are unsure of their plans next June. Some may only now be learning their favorite artist is coming to town. Others are traveling and decide they want to catch a game while they’re there. And plenty are simply looking for a deal on tickets to a game they want, and they know the secondary market is a great place to explore that.

That’s why the secondary ticket market exists. NATP members help connect fans with the tickets they want, when they want them, while providing something consumers benefit from in virtually every other industry: competition and choice.

1. Access when fans actually want to buy

The original on sale is one moment in time. Life doesn’t work that way. We’re busy humans. People hear about concerts later. Work schedules change. Friends make plans. Families travel. Teams make the playoffs. NATP members maintain and source inventory throughout the life of an event, giving consumers another way in when the original on sale has passed. Members provide an outlet for great tickets to any number of events a fan wants to see.

A ticket market that only works for someone who was online at exactly 10:00 a.m. six months ago isn’t necessarily more fan-friendly. It’s simply a market with fewer options. You can purchase tickets on secondary market at any point and up to just minutes before your event starts.

2. The tickets fans actually want

A professional sports team would understandably love to sell a fan season tickets. But the fan may not want 81 baseball games or 41 basketball games. That fan may only want four good seats to Saturday night’s game, and that’s it. NATP members provide a value added service to those fans by splitting up large blocks of season ticket inventory into individual events and seating options. Fans can shop for the particular game, date, quantity, location and price that work for them. The tickets on the secondary market are often better than whatever remnant inventory is available at the box office.

That’s a basic but important service: offer fans what they want, not just what you have available to buy.

3. Prices go down, too

The secondary market stories that generate headlines usually involve high prices for certain popular events. The media loves to jump on stories where there is huge demand for an event (e.g.- the Knicks NBA Finals Games in NYC) and the prices for courtside seats go way up. Social media users may share that story gawking at the prices listed, which makes for a viral moment but is not the whole story. That is also only one side of the market, as the secondary market is also the place without a price floor (which many teams and primary sellers use).

Tickets are perishable and demand is not static. At event time, an unused ticket becomes worthless. When demand doesn’t meet expectations, sellers are lowering prices to get those unsold tickets sold.

Current industry transaction indicate that roughly 40% of secondary-market tickets are selling at or below face value. That is a whole of deals for fans who purchase there. Other published transaction research has similarly documented millions of below-cost secondary sales.

When demand is strong, prices can rise. When demand is weak, prices fall. When NATP members get demand wrong, they take the loss and the fan gets the deal. In those cases, the venue and team are still paid in whole upfront. That same opportunity does not exist for fans who are trying to buy direct from their team or at the venue box office. The primary market is incentivized to hold up prices so fans who bought early are not disappointed that fans who waited to buy got significantly better prices. Many times today, the primary market, teams or promoter would rather leave seats unsold than sell a cheaper ticket. You will never see that same mentality on the secondary market where ticket prices will always drop if demand doesn’t support the current market.

4. NATP members take the risk

Ticket brokers commit real capital to purchase ticket inventory long before anyone knows exactly what final demand will be. NATP members are typically local experts in our market but that does not mean that we don’t get it wrong. A large number of events underperform due to weather, an injured player, lack of fan interest or some other factor. Sometimes it’s as simple as more tickets were released by the primary market, a second show is added or some other event steals the spotlight. In those cases, sellers are lowering prices on their tickets, and fans are getting access to deals.

NATP members assume that inventory risk so the consumer doesn’t have to. The fan can show up days or even hours before an event and shop from inventory someone else has already financed and held. Fans increasingly take advantage of that flexibility, with industry data indicating that roughly one in three secondary-market purchases occurs within 48 hours of an event.

5. Real people with real ticket expertise

Many NATP members have spent decades learning venues, seating configurations, pricing patterns, transfer systems and fulfillment. The market knowledge runs deep in NATP members. Need six seats together? Taking a client to a game and want to know where to sit? Trying to balance location and budget? Ticket hasn’t transferred properly two hours before the event? You can reach out and speak to an NATP member in your market.

For many members, ticketing isn’t an anonymous transaction. It’s a relationship business built on repeat customers, referrals and trust. It’s one of the aspects of this business that many members truly enjoy, to serve clients and help make these experiences easily attainable.

NATP members are also bound by a Code of Ethics requiring honest ticket descriptions, clear disclosures and professional conduct. The NATP Fan Guarantee provides a 200% refund for qualifying guaranteed tickets that aren’t delivered as promised. These are meaningful protections that distinguish NATP members from unaccountable sellers.

Even as more fans have shifted to buying online at the large ticket marketplaces, our members continue to offer that personal service that is often missing in business today.

Technology makes buying tickets easier. Expertise and human service make difficult transactions better.

6. Competition gives fans another choice

Most events have one authorized primary ticketing provider, in most cases Ticketmaster. The secondary market creates alternatives. NATP members and the large ticket marketplaces compete for consumers based on price, inventory, seat location, service, convenience and fulfillment. That competition doesn’t guarantee every ticket will be inexpensive. It means sellers have to earn the customer’s business.

We often pose this question to folks who ask about the value of the NATP members: Would consumers be better served if there were only one gas station in their hometown? Would the service improve? Would prices become more competitive? Would they be able to get in and out without waiting in a long line?

Competition matters in ticketing for the same reason it matters everywhere else.

7. A ticket shouldn’t become worthless because plans change

Tickets are unusual assets: they can have significant value today and no value at all once an event begins. Plans change. People get sick. Business trips come up. Kids have games. Flights get cancelled. Friends back out.

A functioning secondary market lets someone who can’t attend recover some or all of the value of a ticket while giving another fan the opportunity to use it. That’s liquidity. It turns an otherwise wasted ticket into an opportunity for another fan.

8. NATP members help create fans, too

NATP members, and the large ticket marketplaces, spend money marketing events and reaching consumers who may not even be aware an event they want to see is happening near them. And even if they are aware, they may not know how to secure tickets and most fans have never have visited the team’s, venue’s or artist’s website.

For the artist, team or venue, those aren’t merely “secondary-market customers.” They’re fans in the building. Those fans filling up the stands enrich the experience for everyone else in attendance. Think of the last time you attended a game when the stands were 70% full versus a sold out, high energy one. Event discovery, where consumers are even aware there is event they like in their area, has been a huge issue in the live events industry for decades. The secondary market contributes immensely to making sure fans hear about the best live events in their market.

Then those same fans who purchase tickets from NATP members buy parking, food and merchandise. There is a false premise that the secondary market often leaves tickets unsold, which is exactly the opposite of what actually occurs. The secondary market sellers are going to work, and/or lower prices, until every seat is sold. And some of those fans who have a great experience at their game may return to the team to be a season ticket holder.

9. NATP members aren’t asking anyone to defend bad actors

NATP supports strong enforcement against illegal, fraudulent bots, deceptive look-alike venue websites and sellers who fail to deliver what they promise. The NATP’s Code of Ethics specifically prohibits members from using ticket-purchasing software that violates the federal BOTS Act, along with deceptive practices that mislead consumers about a seller’s affiliation with teams, venues or box offices.

The practices of those bad actors can hurt fans. They also hurt legitimate NATP members who compete for those fans’ trust. The answer to bad actors is to stop the bad actors, not eliminate consumer choice. Many parties push an agenda that tries to tie the two together but the simple reality is illegal acquisition and legitimate resale are different entirely.

10. Protect the ticket. Then let the fan choose.

Technology should make tickets safer, easier to authenticate and harder to counterfeit. It shouldn’t unnecessarily dictate what a lawful owner can do with a legitimate ticket.

NATP’s principle is simple: Buy it. Receive it. Own it. Transfer it.

Authenticate the ticket and deliver it to the buyer as soon as it’s available. Then let that buyer decide whether to use it, give it away or resell it through a legitimate channel. The primary market should be protecting the validity of the ticket, but it should not lock the customer into one outlet to buy.

These principles are reflected in NATP’s longstanding Ticket Owner Bill of Rights, which advocates for a free and open ticket market, the ability to use or transfer legitimately purchased tickets, accurate seat information, reliable delivery and appropriate refund protections.

Primary and secondary pricing deserve the same scrutiny

Ticket prices move with supply and demand on both the primary and secondary markets. The key difference between the two is the secondary market ticket prices are market driven due to the abundance of competition on pricing. Whereas the primary ticket market, in particular Ticketmaster, does not have competition except from the secondary market.

Primary sellers increasingly use premium or platinum tickets in place of the best seats in their venue. The primary market has also adopted dynamic pricing, which they can use during an on sale to continue to raise prices as fans are just trying to find tickets to buy. The primary market also commonly releases additional ticket inventory (aka: hold backs) as an event approaches, in some cases even after they have told fans the event is “sold out”. Worst yet, the primary ticket market often will just keep prices so high that tickets do not sell and those seats are empty at the show. That last phenomena is where the term “blue dot fever” was coined because you can pull up Ticketmaster’s website and scroll through hundreds of shows still showing thousands of unsold tickets (i.e.- the blue dots).

The NATP doesn’t believe changing prices are inherently bad. But consumers deserve transparency, and similar pricing behavior should be evaluated consistently regardless of who is selling the ticket.

If policymakers want to understand what fans pay and push for more affordable prices in tickets, they should examine the entire ticket lifecycle: original pricing, presales, inventory holdbacks, premium inventory, dynamic pricing, late releases, resale prices, fees and transfer restrictions. The growing use of dynamic pricing and premium ticket inventory has greatly contributed to higher face-value prices for many popular events, making primary-market pricing an important part of any serious affordability discussion.

A better ticket industry for fans

NATP supports those actions which will truly make the ticket industry better for fans. That includes targeting practices that actually harm consumers while preserving the competition and choice that benefit them. There are federal and state laws already that govern much of the illicit activity so the first thing done should be to stop the illegal bots and fraud; require transparent all-in pricing; refund protections; and then eliminate the deceptive look alike venue websites. The most important change would be to provide greater transparency around tickets; enact policies that require tickets to be distributed to the buyer when they purchase the ticket, and preserve a fan’s ability to transfer a legitimate ticket.

Regulate bad conduct. Protect consumers. Preserve competition.

Nearly 300,000 American consumers will choose the secondary ticket market today to buy tickets. They do so because it solves a problem for them. It gives them easy access to the tickets they want and lots of available options to shop.

NATP members give fans an opportunity to purchase tickets when they want, with no pressure to buy immediately and after they can see the full selection of available tickets. They provide a chance to buy for fans who miss an on sale. They help families find four tickets to tonight’s game, sometimes at greatly reduced prices. They take inventory risk and sometimes sell tickets below what they paid. They provide expertise when a customer needs help. And they compete every day to earn that customer’s business.

It is in these ways, and many others, that NATP members provide real value to fans. In the simplest terms, NATP members provide fans more ways to get through the gate and experience the events they care about.

Access. Service. Choice.

That’s what NATP members provide to fans.