My father will turn 60 in September and I'd like to take him to NYC for this birthday. As part of the trip, I'd love to take him to a Yankee game (a tough thing for me as I am a Red Sox fan but when in Rome). At any rate, I've tried a variety of dates (do need a weekend game as we'll go for a long weekend) throughout the 2006 season and keep getting the response "no seats available". Any suggestions about how to go about getting tickets? Are the chances of getting a weekend game ticket pretty slim? Thanks for any suggestions!

The reason you're getting no seats available (unless you're trying to get a big block of seats) it that many games are already sold out - even for just a pair of tickets. You can sometimes get tickets if you go for singles - but what's the fun of sitting separately? (Many seats are season tickets - often corporate - and weekend games - and most others - almost always sell out.)

Your best bet is to try e-bay (but make sure the seller gets good ratings on reliability) or a scalper like StubHub.com. It's sometimes possible to get better prices on e-bay - with the scalpers the tickets usually go for at least twice face value if the opponent is a good one.

Begin a skeptic, I went to Yankees site and in fact it does appear that most weekend games are sold out.

A newer issue with buying tickets from a scalper (and I include eBay on that - although with good reviews it is less of a risk than the street) is that many tickets bought on-line are not issued from the home computer printer. You have no way of knowing if that person printed 12 of the same ticket, or copied them, and is selling them around until you get to the gate and they check the barcode.

The RedSox have also on their ticketing page indicated that season holders with some sort of violation, credit or behavior, can have their tickets voided - and then they will void the barcode as well.

Since I am guessing that you don't want to take your father to stand on a street corners and try to buy tickets, that leaves ticket brokers. We have used a Boston ticket broker for Boston events and been pleasantly surprised that the cost is not as outrageous as we thought - yes, it is often twice face value for regular events, but you can decide if it is worth it or not.

If you do end up at Yankee Stadium, I will loan you my "Yankees Sxxk" t-shirt if you wish.

Agree with above post by NYT--Ebay is a very good source for tickets at fairly reasonable prices. Absolutely check the seller's feedback before bidding however. Last spring I was able to get two tix for Boston vs. Yank's at a price well under the scalper sites. Hey, at least you'll get a chance to see Johnny Damon again!

I've used both stubhub.com a couple of times and never had a problem. I was sent via fedex original tickets, not computer printouts.

I like middle or lower tiers, and something inside 1st/3rd base. Last season I got $60 tickets for about $70 a couple of times.

stubhub and other on-line scalper pricing can differ (sometimes up to $50 per ticket) so do shop around if you go that route. And be sure to download a good seating chart (you can get one on the Yankees web site) before you shop.

We buy from scalpers fairly frequently because we don;t have enough time free (or schedule flexibility) to justify season tickets - even if we could get decent seats. If you pick a less popular opponent and are willing to take seats farther from the field, sometimes the premium isn;t so much.

But still try e-bay first - we do that if we can get from a reliable seller.

A few years ago three of us attended a game and used the single seat method. We were able to secure three seats in a row vertically or one behind or in front of the other. We found this to be sufficient as they were all aisle seats and still easy to talk to the others in my party. The only draw back was people entering and exiting the row. Just a thought.

Thanks folks! I'll look into the scalper suggestions. I did check on a few Thursday night games and did find availability. I was planning on us getting up there on a Thursday night and having all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday so getting in earlier enough to catch a night game might be a plan. Thanks again!

Sorry to interupt travelgirl but..... Sox fan here - gail can you tell me who your Boston tix. vendor is for Fenway tix. - would like to go even though Johnny jumped ship.
Thanks;
Sherry

We have bought tickets from Ace Tickets on several occasions - they have website by same name listing availability and costs, but you can get more specifics by calling them.

Our first experience was buying Super Bowl tickets from them last year - were very apprehensive since they were outrageously expensive, but for too-lengthy-to-go-into-here family reasons, it was a special event.

They were going to deliver tickets to my husband in Savannah but when his travel plans changed they were quickly able to make other arrangements.

When doing research found their prices to be identical to StubHub. I am still nervous about eBay for tickets - had friend who bought tickets to popular event and they arrived FedEx after the event - she got her money back and it was not fault of EBay or seller - but that did not really matter after she traveled to event city and then had no tickets.

Many, many tickets on www.craigslist.com

Thnaks;
Sherry