Letter: Beware of ticket pre-sales | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Four years ago, I bought tickets for the Paul McCartney concert at Rio Tinto Stadium. Wanting to make sure I got the best possible seats for what I thought was a once in a lifetime event, I skipped work in order to purchase tickets early through the American Express pre-sale. Within ten minutes, I had bought a set of 4 tickets for $1,000 54 rows back from the stage that were listed as the "best available." Several weeks later, I logged onto Smithtix to see what kind of seats were available for the general public. Much to my surprise, there were several locations available on the 15th row for the exact same price! Center stage!

Flash forward four years and Sir Paul McCartney is once again coming to Salt Lake City, and once again American Express is sponsoring a pre-sale for their customers. Word to the wise: do not buy your tickets from the pre-sale. Simply wait until tickets go on sale to the general public and you will get much better seats. The pre-sale is nothing more than a ploy to get people to buy the bad seats by selling them first and listing them as "best available."(You're welcome.)

Ron Draughon

Salt Lake City