3.7.14 Queen + Adam Lambert TICKET BUYING INFO

This is an important point to emphasize.  "Sold Out" in industry terms refers specifically to the orginal sale of the tickets and has absolutely nothing to do with resale of tickets.  When numbers are reported to Boxscore or Pollstar agencies the venue is reporting THEIR sales of tickets.  Once they have sold a ticket it matters not who purchased it, whether it be end user or scalper.  Also I remember U2's manager stating that for reporting purposes only the initial agreed ticket release counts.  In other words the venue and promoter agree to a configuration and to an initial block of tickets to release on the official onsale day.  They may have agreements to add other sections once certain sales quota's are reached but from what McGuiness said those additional blocks of tickets would not affect whether a concert is considered sold out.  I believe that is why 90% plus is considered a "sell out" because 90% of all tickets may be what the original release plan was and the  other 10% were add ons like those side sections in Toronto that Adam tweeted about today.  Also allocations like tickets reserved for band members and crew when not used can be turned in to the venue for resale but probably wouldn't count against the sell out if they didn't sell.  If those tickets are instead released to resale vendors the point is moot.  They might not even be counted in the available number reported to Boxscore and Pollstar.  I don't think promo tickets are counted either as that is similar to promo copies of albums which are not counted for sales figures in album sales.  Those tickets would not be part of the available number released to the reporting agencies.  This is why you also can't just look at what the venue's capacity is because each concert's available tickets for sale will be determined between venue and promoter and may not reach venue's actual capacity.

U2 uses staggered release of tickets as well in order to insure that more people have a chance a good seats.  I also hope that someday Adam uses the fan club presale model they do.  They have a heirarchy of fan presales determined by how long you have been a registered fanclub member.  So keeping your membership every year gives you access to earlier tiers of presale.  Plus everyone has an individually assigned fan club access code and the tickets you purchase are tracked.  If you resale for more than 10% mark up and they discover it they reserve the right to revoke your fan club membership.  This is to catch the ticket scalpers who use fanclub memberships to get premium tickets.  The amazing thing with them is that when they set up the initial online fanclub they grandfathered in anyone who was a previous member of the email fan club so there are fans online who have over 30 years of history with them.