When Do Ticket Prices Drop? Timing Your Purchase

By the Reserved Seat editorial teamUpdated October 1, 2026How we research

Short answer: only in a soft market

Ticket prices do not drop on any guaranteed date. On the resale market, prices tend to slide as an event gets close only when more tickets are listed than buyers want at the asking price. When seats are scarce, prices hold steady or climb until the doors open.

So the real question is not when, but which kind of event you are shopping for. A midweek game with thousands of empty seats and a farewell tour stop follow completely different curves. Your job is to read the market, then decide how much risk of losing the seat you want is worth a possible discount. If the seat you have picked is the reason you are going (front row, the shade side, the aisle for a child), waiting puts that specific seat at risk even when the average price falls.

Where the starting price comes from

Every ticket has two possible price-setters. On the primary market, face value (the original ticket price) is set by the promoter, the team or the venue. On the secondary market, fans and professional brokers resell tickets they already own at whatever price they choose.

Face value now moves too

Face value was once set months ahead and left alone. Many sellers now use dynamic pricing, raising or lowering primary prices with demand, much like airline fares. The San Francisco Giants tested it on about 2,000 seats in 2009 and applied it to the entire ballpark in 2010. In 2022, Ticketmaster's demand-based concert pricing drew a public backlash when some platinum seats for Bruce Springsteen's tour sold well above standard face value. The upshot: the primary seller is reading demand as well, so last month's face value may not be today's.

Seats held back from the general sale

Not all inventory is released at once. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 2018 that 10 to 30 percent of tickets to major concerts were usually sold in presales (in some cases a much larger share), and pointed to New York research showing about 16 percent held back for artists, promoters and venues. When holds and unused presale tickets are released late, supply grows, which helps explain why some prices ease near the date.

Evidence on late price cuts

The best-known study of resale timing comes from economist Andrew Sweeting, who examined 2007 regular-season Major League Baseball tickets as they were resold on StubHub and eBay and published the results in the Journal of Political Economy in 2012. Sellers marked prices down steeply as game day neared, by 40 percent or more, with the sharpest cuts in the last month. His reasoning: a ticket is perishable. At first pitch its value to the seller hits zero, so each day of holding out costs more. He estimated that adjusting prices over time lifted sellers' expected returns by about 16 percent on average.

Read the study with its limits in mind. The data are from 2007 and from regular-season baseball, a sport with 81 home dates a year and plenty of empty seats. A hot concert or a one-time event can behave very differently, so treat this as a historical pattern rather than a rule. The paper is posted by the University of Maryland economics department.

Other evidence shows the opposite end. In the GAO's 2018 ticket market report, a small sample of events had resale listings from a little above the primary price to many multiples of it. A 2025 submission to the Maryland Attorney General from the National Independent Talent Organization, an advocacy group that supports resale limits, estimated that the average resale ticket for Maryland concerts cost about twice the average face value. And the concert market as a whole does not move in lockstep: after years of steady increases, the average ticket price across Pollstar's 2025 worldwide Top 100 tours dipped 2.4 percent year over year.

Signals that a price will soften or hold

Check these before you decide to wait.

How rare the event is. Limited tour dates, a final season or a once-a-year event leave little room to fall. A team that comes to town every season leaves plenty.
What is at stake. Rivalries, playoff races and postseason games pull in committed buyers. A late game between two eliminated teams does the reverse.
When it happens. Weekend nights and holiday weekends draw more buyers than weekday afternoons and weeknights.
Room size compared with the fan base. A stadium-level artist in an arena creates scarcity; an arena act in a stadium creates surplus.
How many people are traveling in. Destination events attract visitors who tend to buy early. In 2024, by the Sports Events and Tourism Association's count, 109.7 million sports spectators made trips of at least 50 miles to attend.
The forecast. Cold or rain ahead of an open-air game can loosen prices in the last few days.
The listing count. A growing number of tickets for sale means sellers are competing for you. A shrinking count means buyers are competing with each other.

Patient buyers vs. early buyers: which events reward each

Waiting tends to pay

Regular-season games against non-rivals, weeknight dates in big buildings, and the second or third show added in the same city usually carry more seats than buyers, much like the regular-season baseball in Sweeting's sample.

Buying early tends to pay

Think title games, the Super Bowl, the big rivalry, a lone regional tour stop, or a Broadway hit in its opening weeks. These usually sell out. Across Broadway, the 2024 to 2025 season filled 91.2 percent of available seats, according to the Broadway League, so the busiest houses have little slack.

Group size changes the math

A single seat is often easier to find late than four seats together. Sellers have trouble moving singles, while groups all chase the same runs of seats in a row.

Deciding when to stop waiting

Price the downside first. If you are flying in, celebrating or bringing children who are counting on it, buy once you find the right seats at a total you can accept. Waiting is a wager; only make it if losing would not hurt.
Write down your target. Choose a section range and an all-in total before you start. Since May 12, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission's fee rule has required sellers to put the full price of a live-event ticket up front and make it the most prominent figure, which makes totals the honest comparison. The rule text is in the Federal Register.
Track listing volume as well as price. Look at the same event every few days. More listings at lower prices point to a soft market; fewer listings point to a firm one.
Leave time for delivery. Mobile tickets have to be transferred, so do not cut it so close that there is no time to set up the right app or fix a problem.
Look sideways. Another date, opponent or nearby city can be a completely different market.

Whenever you buy, every Reserved Seat order is backed by a 100% guarantee.

Price-timing beliefs that do not hold up

The day-of crash. It happens for soft events, but a last-minute buyer chooses from a shrinking pool and has no buffer if delivery goes wrong.

Face value as a floor. Weak demand can push resale under face value, and dynamically priced primary seats can come down too.

A magic weekday. There is no published research backing one weekday as the cheapest time to buy. What the event itself draws in demand outweighs which day you happen to purchase.

The onsale is always cheapest. For high-demand events, the onsale is often your best shot at face value. For soft ones, it may be the highest price you see.

Frequently asked questions

Do resale ticket prices always fall right before an event?

No. They tend to fall late only when more tickets are listed than buyers want. Sellouts and hot events often stay firm, or get pricier, all the way to showtime.

How much did prices fall late in the classic baseball resale study?

Andrew Sweeting's study of 2007 MLB resale found sellers cut prices 40 percent or more before game day, with most of the drop coming in the last month. The data are old and from regular-season baseball, so concerts and big one-off events may differ.

Why does face value change from week to week?

Many primary sellers use dynamic pricing, adjusting face value up or down with demand much like airline fares. The San Francisco Giants applied it across their ballpark in 2010.

Is it easier to find one ticket or four late in the sale?

One is usually easier. Sellers struggle to move single seats, while groups compete for the same blocks of seats together in a row.

What is the risk of buying at the last minute?

A soft event might come in cheaper, yet you have fewer seats to choose from, may pay more for a popular event, and have little time to fix a mobile transfer problem.

When Do Ticket Prices Drop?