Discount Tickets Vegas Style
Just as you learn not to ask people in your airline row what they paid for their plane tickets, don't bring up the question at a Las Vegas show. The answer might ruin your fun.
Internet discounting and "half-price" ticket booths on the Strip have made the standing Las Vegas shows a game of "mark 'em up to mark 'em down." While you will still pay face value (or more) for the big touring concerts, it pays to shop around for most of the titles here week in and week out. When the first Tix4Tonight discount booths (now known as Tix4Vegas) arrived on the Strip, they functioned more like their counterparts on Broadway, selling remaining seats at half-price once it appeared full-price sales had peaked for the day.
But with eight outlets in prominent locations—and now, online vendors such as Groupon as well—a middle-tier show such as Fantasy lists at $52 in order to get roughly half that. Any budget-minded person is almost forced to seek out the discount outlets for all but a handful of shows that still sell run close to capacity: Cirque du Soleil's O, usually, or headliners such as Lady Gaga, who offers a limited number of performance dates. By contrast, if you wonder how a magician such as Nathan Burton can sustain for years in such a crowded tourist market, check out his ticket prices on Vegas.com: $13, advertised as a "79%" discount from the face value of $50 or $60.
The proliferation of discount vendors also changed what once used to be a simple, across-the-board pricing scheme—all seats half-price, plus a service charge—to offer discounts of less than 50% and some shows available in advance through telephone and online sales. "Half-price outlets are like crack," noted one veteran of the ticket wars. "You start with a few and get that easy sale, so you start doing more and more."
When you do start shopping online vendors such as Vegas.com or TravelZoo—even the casinos themselves, who often offer room-and-show packages—it can get bewildering. The Las Vegas Advisor once experimented to see how many options for Britney Spears tickets it could find, and came up with 37 different prices.
