Scalping tickets in Germany 2006

[zlzfire]

From the Fire Boards:

Being the veteran of two World Cup Trips, 1998 and 2002, I can tlel you right now that your best bet is to plan your travel arrangements and buy alll your tickets through scalpers the day before or early the day of the game.

Ther are plenty of tickets available day of game.

There was in France and there was in Korea. No problem. any game you wanted and for much cheaper than going through the USSF or FIFA.

hope that helps

Frankie


Does anyone else have similar advice or rebuttal? If this were true then it would totally change the way me and my friends go about trying to make this trip happen.

Thanks in advance

Zak

[buckeye5]

From the Fire Boards:




Does anyone else have similar advice or rebuttal? If this were true then it would totally change the way me and my friends go about trying to make this trip happen.

Thanks in advance

Zak

For Korea this was definitley the case. USA-Mexico, 6000 miles from North America. Tix were available for 20% of face value (which was 100 USD for Cat 3).

However, if we have England (or Holland, Germany, Ireland, Sweden) and another European team in our group, this may not necessarily be the case.

I haven't been to a Euro-based WC. But at Euro 2004, the 'worst' England game (Switzerland) was still going for 150 Euros (as compared to 35 euros for face).

[Mikeymike15]

From the Fire Boards:




Does anyone else have similar advice or rebuttal? If this were true then it would totally change the way me and my friends go about trying to make this trip happen.

Thanks in advance

Zak

I scalped in WC2002 but for non-US games.

I paid quite a premium for England tickets, were unable to get tix to Belgium v Russia, and paid relatively face value for Ecuador v. Croatia.

At Euro 2004 I bought tickets through UEFA at three games and was able to scalp my extra tickets to two of the games (England v. Portugal and France v. Greece) for a considerable profit while I took a hit on the Germany v. Czech Republic match.

My advice, try to purchase through FIFA/USSoccer first.
Reasons:
1) If the US get grouped with a good fan base team like Germany or England or someone like that, you won't be able to find a ticket at cost.
2) Japan/Korea was such a remote location that many US supporters either could not afford or did not want to travel to Asia to attend the game and as such tickets were more widely available to US matches.
3) With the WC in Germany and the growing popularity of US Soccer, there will be much heavier demand on tickets from US fans then before. Many more people will be planning holidays in Germany then they did during previous World Cups.
4) If the OC actually do go through on their promise to check tickets with this new Microchip technology then this will further reduce your chance to gain entrance into the matches with scalped tickets.

Honestly, I think you can probably get tickets to all the games through scalping, however you're being naive if you believe that you will be able to find tickets much cheaper (in fact you may be paying more money) and not have any difficulty securing entrance.

You might as well try for face value tickets (even if they are just CAT-4 tickets) and only use scalping as a last resort.

[blech]

i am aware of people who bought at less than face value for games in the south of france in '98, but agree that the savings (10-15%) were not enough to warrant the risk of not getting tickets or paying a premium. their attitude was that they would go to stadium early and try to get a deal, and if they didn't, they would go to a pub. without knowing anything about the German laws about this, i might consider an approach like this for "extra" games, but for the games i want to be at (USA), it makes more sense to me just pay fifa or ussf and not have to worry about being hit by a premium. (they also were flexible about getting single tickets, which is probably easier than if you need a pair or more).

this '98 experience was also before the days of "chips" in tickets. i have yet to hear of anyone who bought a ticket in this manner not getting into a game in 2002 or at euro2004, but i'd have to ask why risk it for a game you really want to be at. that guy at the corner who sold you the ticket isn't going to be there to give you a refund, so even if you get a discount on all the tickets, it would only take one "bad" ticket to eliminate any savings.

in my mind, this is the way to go for people who didn't make plans but are able to get over there at the last minute or for people over there and just looking to pick up an extra game or two as a bonus. it wouldn't be (and won't be) my strategy.

[wonderman]

The tickets are totally forgery-proof. Tickets will be dispatched around six weeks before the tournament and feature an embedded chip including access data. Summarised Horst R. Schmidt: "We have an effective weapon in our efforts to put a complete end to touting." Personal data such as names will not be stored on the chip , which contains only access information.

from ussoccer email

I went to 7 games at the euro 2004. I only bought one ticket when I got there. the rest I had purchased through uefa. at every game I went to I saw scalpers, and people trading tickets for different games. most of the games I saw weren't sold out either, which was odd, I thought. I went to all 6 portugal games and sweden vs bulgaria (which was the one ticket I scalped) In every away fan section, there always seemed to be plenty of room so I would assume the same for a USA game. does anyone know if the americans stationed in the bases in germany tend to enjoy soccer? are there any posters here who are military and could guesstimate whether the local usa forces will be looking forward to supporting the usa team? might impact ticket availability, might not.

[Adam Zebrowski]

antonio paz and his boys from soccervacations.com had match tickets available for almost any match you wanted in '02...

just meet him in the hotel lobby and arrange the deal...

antonio got caught with too muck currency entering korea from japan...so he was doing a frisk business...

[Mikeymike15]

antonio paz and his boys from soccervacations.com had match tickets available for almost any match you wanted in '02...

just meet him in the hotel lobby and arrange the deal...

antonio got caught with too muck currency entering korea from japan...so he was doing a frisk business...


Thats good to know in case we go farther then I expect, although I bet that demand will be higher this go around subsequently making tickets more scarce in Germany.

[rksehga]

from ussoccer email

I went to 7 games at the euro 2004. I only bought one ticket when I got there. the rest I had purchased through uefa. at every game I went to I saw scalpers, and people trading tickets for different games. most of the games I saw weren't sold out either, which was odd, I thought. I went to all 6 portugal games and sweden vs bulgaria (which was the one ticket I scalped) In every away fan section, there always seemed to be plenty of room so I would assume the same for a USA game. does anyone know if the americans stationed in the bases in germany tend to enjoy soccer? are there any posters here who are military and could guesstimate whether the local usa forces will be looking forward to supporting the usa team? might impact ticket availability, might not.

by the time the world cup rolls around we will have seriously scaled down our military presence in Germany. Part of reorganization plan and the shift to a modern military.

[Thunderpac]

If you count on buying tickets outside the stadiums, you are taking a gamble. Personally I would rather have the guarantee that I'll get in to the USA matches and then try to buy into non-USA matches on off days through scalpers.

Keep in mind that if we get drawn with a team like Brasil, you'll probably end up paying more than face value for a scalped ticket. In Korea I was not successful in getting into the Costa Rica - Brasil game because the prices were either too high or the Korean guy who was selling the ticket refused to sell to (white|black|Japanese|insert your non-Korean race here) guys. There were far more people trying to buy tickets outside the Brasil match than there were outside of Spain - South Africa, and I believe both matches took place after the group winners had clinched.

[socrne1]

Well I'm sure people will be wanting to unload tickets before we even go over there. Maybe a bigsoccer ticket website where people can buy and or trade for games would be a good plan, nobody better steal my idea. The Cubs have something like this called cubbiestix.com, where fans can go on and trade, sell or barter for tixs, but never selling them above face value. Any other ideas?

[Mikeymike15]

Well I'm sure people will be wanting to unload tickets before we even go over there. Maybe a bigsoccer ticket website where people can buy and or trade for games would be a good plan, nobody better steal my idea. The Cubs have something like this called cubbiestix.com, where fans can go on and trade, sell or barter for tixs, but never selling them above face value. Any other ideas?

Thats a good idea and I'd be willing to host it on my web site. (see my signature below for the web site "US Supporters Travel Site")

My concern is that we have 9 people in our group so we'll have three different sets of seats. We'd be looking for people to trade tickets with to get our group relatively near each other if we don't happen to be in the stand-up american section.

[socrne1]

Thats a good idea and I'd be willing to host it on my web site. (see my signature below for the web site "US Supporters Travel Site")

My concern is that we have 9 people in our group so we'll have three different sets of seats. We'd be looking for people to trade tickets with to get our group relatively near each other if we don't happen to be in the stand-up american section.
I've been to the sight many times and that is a great place for it. I know our crew of 8 peeps or more, only 4 of us will be going to see all 3 games or more, so we will have extra's. Please let me know what I can do to help get this going.

[Bigdog]

There is a website that gets used for BIG Us Matches (US Mex@C-bus i.e.) and World Cups. http://www.dansoccerzone.com/sa_ticket_exchange.shtml

Not for scalping per'se but for helping each other out with face value tix

[Mikeymike15]

There is a website that gets used for BIG Us Matches (US Mex@C-bus i.e.) and World Cups. http://www.dansoccerzone.com/sa_ticket_exchange.shtml

Not for scalping per'se but for helping each other out with face value tix

That's good info although I'm slightly skeptical that with the Sam's Army site in a state of Limbo, that Dan's site may be passively updated. I noticed an article as recent as 9-Jan-05 but it seemed that not much else has changed in years.

Regardless, I'd be more then happy to host or you we can use Dan's site. Either way is cool with me.

[pasoccerdave]

does anyone know if the americans stationed in the bases in germany tend to enjoy soccer? are there any posters here who are military and could guesstimate whether the local usa forces will be looking forward to supporting the usa team? might impact ticket availability, might not.

There were plenty of US forces in Korea who showed up for games . . .

[Chelsey]

I hope there will be game tickets on the day of the match, I know my brother is counting on that when he bikes across Germany next summer.

[JBigjake]

There were plenty of US forces in Korea who showed up for games
Many weren't soccer fans but showed up to support the USA & were very friendly!