Takin' a T/O With BT: Max Deale—Fan, Author, and Sports Strategist

concert, a Van Halen with David Lee Roth concert, and an NHL game) where I spent a combined 700% less than he did for better seats first hand, he decided to have a little faith in my system.

I know that he's not alone in his old ways of thinking. By his own admission, he just goes along with what everyone else is doing. He was skeptical, even afraid, of making a change.

Unfortunately, a lot of people fall into this category. They believe what they are told when they hear the words "sold out" and their mindset becomes "I have to spend more to get in". It's just not true.

BT: How did you go about doing the research for 'Sold Out...SO WHAT?!' Was it all based on personal experience through a specific location, or did you explore different markets throughout the world and develop different strategies and notice difference patters dependant on where and what people were buying?

MD: Trial and error over the course of a couple hundred events was the culminating research done for the book.

Over the years this had been strictly for fun, as a way to spend my time on a limited budget (I have had several "jobs" over the years but never made it beyond the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle that so many people I know live in). It wasn't until 2007 though that I had it in mind to begin documenting my experiences for the purpose of writing—after all, I wanted to keep everything fresh and current, so my ways of going about things years ago didn't necessarily work the way they do now.

All of the "plays" in Sold Out...SO WHAT?! are formulated from the past 18 months of research.

I live in a city where there are a ton of options for live events at venues of all sizes, so a great majority of them were in my major metropolitan city. That being said, I did get a chance to test the plays at certain landmark venues across the country.

One of the beauties of the playbook is that it will work for any arena or stadium in any city or country.

BT: Did you have trouble getting a hold of scalpers, brokers, or re-sellers to gather your information? What was their reaction when (or if) they found out why you were doing this?

MD: I talked to a ticket broker who posted on Craglist recently after responding to an ad that he placed. It was the day before a show that featured Robert Plant (of Led Zeplin fame) with Allison Krauss.

This particular ticket broker had several dozen pairs of tickets and had sold off most of them already. Throw in the fact that the venue had announced a second show and the broker was practically giving away the rest of his tickets for the following evenings performance. I told him my strategy about when to strike when looking for the great deal and he told me that 99 times out of 100, if I wait until the day before or the day of a show, I will get a ticket for face value or below.

On this occasion, not only did he sell several pairs of tickets at a high profit rate, the announcement of a second show was a death toll for him trying to get top dollar for the remaining tickets. The face value was $143 each and I snagged them for $50 a pop. Because I waited it out, I got a value of $246 for just $100.

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