My son will be celebrating his 16th birthday in March (for those of you who do not have children, the best time to plan for life's greatest blessing is for the birth to be right around March Madness), and I am planning a weekend away at one of the first round sights (Raleigh would be most ideal) in celebration of said birthday. I have a couple of questions...
Do any of you have experience purchasing Tournament tickets?
If so, do I buy now or wait (as some suggest)?
Should I go to Raleigh with the plan of buying off the "street"?
If any of you have experience with this, and wouldn't mind passing along your insight, that would be awesome!
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
You should wait till the VT office announces ticket sales BECAUSE WE'RE TOTALLY GOING TO THE FINAL FOUR.
Sure we are champ! Shhhh... nobody tell him...
Tell him what...? We ARE going to the Final Four, after all.
/s
Here's what I've done in the past and it's been successful:
1. Pick which city you want to go to - you can't worry about the teams, but you'll get a general idea of who is going to be in which region based on the bracket projections.
2. Once you've zeroed in, start looking for the actual costs for each ticket in the area in the arena you want to sit. Also make sure you know what a legit and non legit ticket look like before hand.
3. Start scouring Stubhub, ticket master, resell sites, etc. before selection Sunday, when demand will be lowest. If you find a price you can live with, go ahead and buy it.
In some select times, I've been fortunate. Couple years ago I found a guy in the parking lot with a 1/2 court ticket 10 rows up for $60. You will find a lot of singles in good spots in the arena for decent value, Doubles are more expensive. I try to stay away from the professional scalpers, they set their prices really high and then wont come down on them until the 2nd half of the first game has started, then you can get a deal for the 2nd one.
If you are buying on the street, I would come early and figure out the area where you'll see the most people coming to the stadium and just hold up your fingers.
Good luck - Raleigh is a good time and an easy arena to get in and out of, just be aware you're probably going to get Duke, UNC, or Virginia, or a combination of the two in that region.
The fans of losing teams usually unload tickets in droves - especially if they aren't local. I wouldn't try to buy before the tourney starts - unless you can get them at face value of course. By Friday evening/Sat morning maybe 25% of the weekend tickets are suddenly for sale. You shouldn't have much problem unless a local team or regional team with a rabid following are playing on Sat and/or Sunday.