Ben WesthoffSo Coachella sold out in a heartbeat, again. Even though they added a second week and, you know, certain headliners aren't maybe the most exciting headliners ever.
But, of course, that doesn't mean there still won't be passes available, via the so-called “secondary ticket market.” (In my day scalpers shiftily circled clubs with cock-eyed looks, while nowadays they have internet IPOs.) But the question about buying Coachella tickets online is: When is the right time?
The answer is right now! And we've got a bunch of stats below to prove it.
General admission Coachella tickets initially went for about $300 per weekend this year, through the festival's official site. But as you can see on the chart above, immediately after going on sale on January 13, they were already selling for more than $600 for the first weekend, at sites like StubHub and Ebay. Each week since the price has dropped, however, and the first weekend's currently going for just above $500, with the second closer to $400
But guess what? They're probably not going to get much cheaper, and in fact will likely start heading in the other direction. As you can see below, after similarly dropping in 2011 in the first month after going on-sale, prices started to rise again, and continued doing so (more or less) almost until Coachella itself. (Note: the reason tickets were so much more expensive last year is largely because there was only one weekend, says DJ Premvaree, a data analyst for SeatGeek, who were kind enough to provide us with this data.)
Credit: Courtesy of SeatGeek
It seems entirely reasonable for ticket prices to follow a similar pattern this time around. For one thing, line-up announcements from other indie-oriented festivals are competing for folks' attention right now: Sasquatch! just released their line-up, while Bonnaroo and Pitchfork festival will likely unveil theirs soon as well. Many people are likely figuring that if they can't go to Coachella, one of these others might work instead.
Sasquatch! and Pitchfork festival breakdown below.
Credit: Courtesy of SeatGeek
As you can see from the above graph (wait, is that just one graph, or multiple graphs within a graph?), Sasquatch! also followed the trend of sales falling-off until the fourth week last year, although Pitchfork showed a slight rebound in that time period. So keep that in mind if you're attempting to buy secondary tickets to those fests this year.
But concerning Coachella, as we said, right now is the time to get while the getting is (somewhat relatively) good.
See also:
*Coachella 2012 Lineup Announced
*Pictures of people you won't be canoodling with now that Coachella is sold out
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