A Simple Ticketmaster Hack

Everyone seems to have their own reasons for hating ticketmaster.

Here is mine - ticketmaster tries to optimize house filling. At first glance, this is great, since otherwise there would be a single-seat gap between every group at a show. However, this plan breaks down as the seats fill. I was recently presented with the following empty seat options for a show. I could either buy three seats in a row so that the two of us could sit together, or seat two attendees in different sections.

Seat in another section not shown below.

Attempting either of the two-seat pairs of the three seats below...

...yields:

Thanks Bucko. In fact, selecting one seat here and one in another section is fine, like this:

Once you select it, ticketmaster temporarily reserves your seat and takes you to a holding area:

Interestingly enough, opening a private tab at this stage shows that the seats in the holding area are no longer available.

Now, you can reserve the two seats you wanted in the first place, and buy them

In retrospect, we should have started with the normal tab, and used the private tab to do the switcheroo. So, to wrap this up cleanly into some sensible instructions, the steps needed are:

1. Log into ticketmaster in normal tab
2. Find the seats you want
3. Find the seats in the way of the seats you want
4. Open a private tab, and fill out an order for the unwanted seats, but do not order
5. Refresh the normal tab, confirm unwanted seats no longer available.
6. Order the seats you wanted in the first place.
7. Close the private tab
8. Have a wonderful night at the opera