Ladies and gentlemen, the best time of the year is officially here! And yes, sorry to say, that includes your birthday and Christmas. Just kidding, kind of. It’s time for the NBA Playoffs! Just like you, I am dying to experience the Lakers Road to a Three-peat first hand at the Staples Center. Ticketmaster is definitely not an option to get a Lakers ticket, a task that is already so hard to pull off as is so I decided to a little digging to come up with the best way to go about getting a hold of Lakers playoff tickets at a reasonable price.
1) DON’T BUY TICKETS FROM CRAIGSLIST
Before we get to the nitty gritty though, I do want to share some advice that is based on past experience. Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way about buying tickets off Craiglist by becoming a victim of fraud. Basically, I bought actual tickets to a Laker game from this guy, but they wouldn’t scan at the gate. I thought I just bought fake tickets, which I thought were really well done. But tt wasn’t until a few months later when I was inquiring about tickets at a broker’s office that I learned of a dirty little tactic shady sellers employ.
In case you didn’t know, season ticket holders have the power to call the box office and report their tickets as missing or lost, thereby rendering the originals useless. They are simply reissued to the owner with a new code to scan. So, basically, the person who sold me those tickets actually sold me REAL tickets, but between the time he gave me the tickets to the time I went to scan them, he called in to the ticket office and reported the tickets stolen/missing. He got a replacement set with a brand new bar code, so that’s why my tickets didn’t work at the gate. Bottom line, I got ultimate screwed.
I just thought I’d share that story in case anyone out there is seriously considering buying playoff tickets off Craigslist. A lot of people turn to that method because it’s an easy way to lowball sellers on the day of whatever event and potentially come up in the deal. Sure, it does work here and there, but this is the playoffs we’re talking about. You know as well as anyone else that all the shadiest “sellers” are going to come out of the woodwork. Just be careful because as I learned, there’s absolute no guaranteed recourse with private sellers.
2) Paying for Some Peace of Mind
Going through a ticket broker and hoping to get a reasonable price really isn’t impossible at all, especially considering the fact that we’re discussing Lakers playoff tickets. I actually have been looking for some playoff tickets lately and during my research, I thought I’d just make this into an article to better serve Lakers Nation. From what I saw, there are basically 3 brokers out there that are even worth mentioning – VIP Tickets, Barrys Tickets & Stubhub. I checked out all their websites and tried to look for the same tickets to offer a fair comparison, so this is as accurate as I could make it.
If you look below at a little something I put together, you’ll see what I mean!
So after doing the research, I found that even though VIP Tickets charges a service fee, they really had the best out-the-door prices from what I saw. Barrys Tickets advertises that they don’t charge service fees, but it’s pretty obvious that they’re putting them into the overall cost of the ticket. From my research, I found that Stubhub buys tickets from Barrys and VIP, so they logically have to charge more money than both as well as charge you an additional $15 to pick up or $20 to deliver.
So if you’re on the hunt for some Laker Tickets, I think this pretty covers what your main options are. I personally save up all year to go to some of these games, so I hope to see some of Lakers Nation out at the games to support our team on the road to another THREE-PEAT!
*Disclaimer – VIP Tickets has been a past sponsor for Lakers Nation but did not provide any information regarding this article. Research was done independent and tickets were randomly selected during my research. The numbers are 100% accurate in this article, but I’m sure there are different scenarios where the case may be different. Barrys Tickets and Stub Hub fans have claimed differently, so please feel free to do conduct your own research.*