Friday, July 11, 2003 | 8:41 a.m.
Las Vegan Ken Solky was just 11 years old when his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers played the Oakland Athletics in the 1974 World Series.
That didn't stop Solky a Los Angeles resident at the time from spending 72 hours camped out at Sears in a successful bid for tickets to the games.
In those days the procedure for purchasing event tickets was simple: show up and wait. First come, first served.
That has changed dramatically in the years since, however. These days, Solky operates a Las Vegas ticket broker service, providing seats for those unable to secure them on their own.
"Most people who want to see an event don't want to get left out," Solky said. "They don't want to end up at home, listening to the CD instead of going to the show."
On ticket on-sale dates, services such as TicketMaster offer telephone and online purchasing options, along with sales at their many outlet centers throughout Southern Nevada.
Most venues also offer direct ticketing at their box offices, sometimes utilizing a random selection process.
All of which leads consumers to ask one question: What is the best method for obtaining tickets to popular events?
Tickets can be particularly scarce in Las Vegas, where many concerts sell out within minutes of going on sale as tourists and locals search for an edge in obtaining top-flight seats.
The search for coveted tickets doesn't end when a show sells out, either. For an added premium, legitimate broker services such as the one operated by Solky offer coveted seats to most events, as do illegal on-site scalpers.
Getting a head start
Sometimes, fans can score tickets even before an official on-sale date.
More and more, artists are offering exclusive Internet "pre-sales" to loyal fans, usually through paid memberships to online fan clubs.
For example, for a $60 annual fee, members of the Eagles Official Fan Club had access to tickets for the band's Aug. 9 MGM Grand Garden Arena date prior to the official June 7 on-sale date.
Concert promoter Clear Channel Entertainment offers a similar service, though not restricted to a particular artist or band. Among other perks, such as VIP parking, the $60 annual fee for getAccess allows members to purchase advanced tickets to selected shows.
Phish is one of several bands that does not restrict pre-sales to paying fan club members. The Vermont jam band's mail-order ticket service is open to all, though not all orders are guaranteed to be filled.
From the official Phish Tickets website: "Our allotment of tickets for each show is limited, so we may not be able to fulfill every request that we receive. You will be notified of your ticket status and your seat assignments prior to the public on-sale date."
The on-sale date
Speculation persists that those attempting to buy tickets online, over the phone and in person might be choosing from separate pools of seats. But TicketMaster spokesman Larry Solters insists otherwise.
"All the tickets online, at outlets and box offices and on the phones are all pulled from the same pool of tickets," Solters said in an interview from his company's Los Angeles corporate headquarters. "Some people may feel going to an outlet is better or buying online is better, but it's really just a matter of personal taste."
Mark Prows, MGM Garden Arena vice president, concurred with Solters' assessment.
"Whether you're standing in line at the MGM Grand or doing it over the phone, it's the same," Solters said. "Everyone has their own preferred method of buying tickets."
Buying tickets in person does have certain advantages, particularly the ability to discuss seating options with the individual behind the counter while looking at a seating chart.
Likewise, over the phone, a customer can discuss specific requests, such as a preference for aisle seats or a desire to sit on one side of an arena or the other.
Online, "best available" seats are offered to prospective buyers once they specify their price point. Beyond that, few specific options are available.
Internet buyers might encounter difficulties purchasing tickets on sites such as ticketmaster.com, the result of "robot" programs which automatically sign on users and purchase mass quantities of tickets for them.
To curb that problem, TicketMaster has installed a higher level of security during its purchase process, asking buyers to retype a randomly generated word on their screen to prevent robots from succeeding in gobbling up seats.
Arriving early or "camping out" to obtain tickets in person might not necessarily work, either. Box offices or outlets might opt to hold a lottery before beginning a ticket sale, eschewing the old-fashioned "survival of the fittest" routine for a more streamlined procedure.
"We always hold a lottery for anticipated sellouts, mainly to maintain order on the premises and to create an orderly environment for the sale," Prows said. "We don't want people lining up and spending the night in line in the casino."
Selling out
In recent months, scheduled appearances by the Beastie Boys (at the "Jam Master Jay Benefit") at House of Blues at Mandalay Bay and Linkin Park at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel have sold out within 10 minutes of going on sale.
That might come as no surprise to most, since those venues hold crowds under 2,000. But even Southern Nevada's larger concert halls, such as the MGM Grand Garden Arena (Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam) and the Thomas & Mack Center (Phish) have been home to sold-out shows during the past year.
However, tickets can sometimes still be available to shows listed as "sold out," Solters said.
"The best thing to do is keep calling or keep checking the Internet, because oftentimes they get cancellations," he said. "Or they might have production holds. For example, they might hold a section of 85 seats for the stage, and it might turn out they don't need that much room.
"They always err on the side of holding more than less, so there's always a chance. But there's never a guarantee."
Prows suggested those looking for tickets to a sold-out MGM show call or stop by the box office the day of the event, in case an act determines it needs to hold fewer tickets than originally planned.
"Sometimes, more tickets are released," he said. "It varies widely, but some acts might go to a 270-degree sale, or even a 360-degree sale, with people sitting behind the stage. They usually decide when they physically get into the building."
And of course, casino venues hold back an unspecified number of tickets for most concerts for use as comps for high-rollers and executives from other casinos.
Paying a premium
If all else fails -- or for those who prefer not to hassle with on-sale dates -- ticket brokers can be avenues to hot tickets.
Perhaps as a result of his long ordeal cuing up for Dodgers tickets, Solky has been president of such a service in Las Vegas for the past 16 years: Nevada Ticket Services, (known online as lasvegastickets.com), 5030 Paradise Road.
"Generally speaking, we have access to everything," Solky said. "So whether you're looking for two tickets to a show, or a bunch of tickets to a large event, we'll have what you're looking for.
"The vast majority of people would rather pay a fair service fee to make sure they get quality seats to a quality show than make sure they're in the right place at the right time at 10 a.m. on a particular day to buy those tickets."
Of course, going with a broker means paying an additional premium. For example, general admission tickets to Neil Young's July 26 date at The Joint sell for $160 at Nevada Ticket Services, up from the $105.50 original price.
"It really is all based on supply and demand," Solky said. "If an artist is playing multiple dates in a city and there's a larger capacity at the venue, that will generally mean a larger supply is available which will keep prices more reasonable.
"But the more in-demand a particular artist is, and the smaller the capacity is will generally result in a higher price. If you put Crosby, Stills & Nash in a 2,000-seat Hard Rock, the demand will be greater than in a 7,000-seat Aladdin after the show sells out."
Jason Osborn, office manager for Elite Tickets, 105 E. Reno Ave., said timing can also determine ticketing options for a particular show, both in terms of availability and pricing.
"Your best pick of the tickets would come about three weeks after it goes on sale, but to get the tickets the cheapest, try about a week before the event," Osborn said. "Some people do have a tendency to wait for the prices to go down, but that doesn't happen all the time. There might not be any seats left."
Clark County and city of Las Vegas regulations prohibit the sale of tickets on hotel or arena property. That still does not prevent scalpers from lurking along Swenson Road on the drive up to the Thomas & Mack or outside the ground-floor entrance to the MGM's Grand Garden Arena.
"From a property perspective, we do not allow people to transact on our premises," Prows said. "Whether they're selling tickets for face value or above face value is too difficult to determine, so if they are operating on the premises they can be cited, eighty-sixed from the building and lose their ticket stash."
Buyers who purchase tickets from scalpers also run the risk of ending up with illegitimate tickets, be they counterfeits or bar-coded tickets that have already been used to gain entrance to a venue.
"Counterfeit tickets are pretty rampant on big events," Joe Santiago, assistant director for booking at the Thomas & Mack, said. "We've been seeing a lot of them."
Above all, Solters cautions ticket-hunters to remember the simple truth about sold-out shows: Not everyone who wants in can get in.
"When the supply exceeds the demand, there's no viable way for all the people to get the seats they want," Solters said.
"If 100,000 people want seats for a building that holds 15,000, 85,000 are going to be mad because they didn't get tickets and seven percent are going to be upset with being in the back half of the building. But you just can't put a gallon of water into a cup."
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