Here's just the ticket for concert deals

David Hoang of Blaine is known to his friends as a shrewd penny pincher, but his frugality faded like a bad romance when Lady Gaga performed recently at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Face value for a pair of tickets was $250, but Hoang paid $560 for lower-level seats several weeks before the concert.

Cody Pullins of Maple Lake and his girlfriend, Marchelle Lien of Elk River, took a different tack. They showed up ticketless on the second night of the show hoping to pay no more than $60 each. By 8:15 p.m., while the forgettable opening band was still playing, Pullins and Lien negotiated, poker-faced, and scored tickets for $50 each in the 13th row on the main floor.

"Someone sitting four seats to the right of us in the same row paid $175," Pullins said. "She wasn't too happy when I told her what we paid."

So goes the fickle business of buying concert tickets. A diehard fan who is on Ticketmaster.com five minutes before tickets go on sale and refreshing the screen every 30 seconds often gets rotten seats. Then a Johnny-come-lately such as Pullins adds insult to injury by landing a better seat at a better price.

How can you avoid paying a premium for a hot seat? Try these eight tips for cheaper concert tickets.

Procrastinate with Ticketmaster. Check on the day before or the day of the concert for good seats released at the last minute by promoters. Tickets to Lady Gaga's concert were released on the day of the show. Event sponsors often release "hold-back" tickets as the event draws closer, according to Ticketmaster.

Try Goldstar for half-price tickets to smaller venues. Sign up free for a weekly e-mail of upcoming events at about 50 percent off through Goldstar (www.goldstar.com). The events are usually a week or so out, so you don't have to do a last-minute scramble. Recent events included Conan's bandleader Max Weinberg at the Guthrie, the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall, saxophonist Big Jay McNeely at the Music Box Theater and Monroe Crossing Bluegrass Band at the Schneider Theater in Bloomington.

Search Craigslist for cheap seats. The popular classifieds website (minneapolis.craiglist .org) is an excellent resource to get a sense of market prices for the event you want. Last week, one seller wanted $200 for four Maroon 5 tickets in Section 110, Row C, at Target Center on Oct. 28. With fees, the tickets would have sold for $246 originally.

But be careful about fake tickets. Read the tips on avoiding scams and fraud (minneapolis. craigslist.org/about/scams). Get only hard tickets, not the ones printed at home.

Visit StubHub! for a safer version of Craigslist. The site (www.stubhub.com) guarantees authenticity of tickets listed there by individual sellers. Prices sometimes start dropping several days before an event.

Use FanSnap for one-stop shopping. The site (www.fansnap.com) compiles ticket information from 13 sites but not Craigslist. Want to see Lady Antebellum at Northrop? Last week about 70 sellers from eBay, Stubhub and Ticket Network were listing them from $96 to $460 each.

Sign up for presale passwords. Fan clubs, radio stations and some credit-card companies offer passwords to purchase tickets before they go on sale to the general public. Often, all you have to do is sign up for a free e-mail newsletter, although some fan clubs have a fee. You also could troll the Internet for passwords. Google "presale password for [name of artist] concert," or try sites such as www. freepresaleinfo.blogspot.com.

Try again at Ticketmaster. If you're not happy with the seats you get at Ticketmaster.com, refuse them and try again. You might pick up better seats that someone else refused or that they lost because they didn't check out in time.

Don't worry if you don't have tickets. Show up a half-hour or so before the show starts and find someone (not a broker) hoping to unload tickets at a discount. Save even more if you're willing to buy single seats. One reader said he goes to scores of concerts every year, and even though he never has an advance ticket, he always sees the show and he always pays less than face value.

John Ewoldt • 612-673-7633 or jewoldt@startribune.com.

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