Country guide · Germany

Presales in Germany in 2027: Vorverkauf, Eventim and Presale Windows

Where a German presale sits inside the Vorverkauf

Every German release follows roughly the same sequence. First comes the announcement, usually on a weekday morning, with a poster listing cities, venues and a start time for ticket sales. Then comes one or more presale windows, and finally the allgemeiner Vorverkauf, the general sale open to anyone. Promoters in Germany tend to compress this sequence more tightly than their counterparts in the United States or the United Kingdom. Where a British tour might run an artist presale on Wednesday, a venue presale on Thursday and general sale on Friday, German releases frequently stack the artist or platform presale on the morning of general sale itself, or a single day before it. Bryan Adams is a good recent example: his Roll With The Punches dates in Germany had a presale on Thursday 8 October 2026 and a general sale on Friday 9 October, sold through both Eventim and Ticketmaster. Take That followed a slightly longer pattern, with presale activity on Wednesday 2 September and general sale on Friday 4 September 2026.

Why a German presale is often only hours long

The short window is a deliberate choice. German promoters work with large regional networks of advance booking offices, the traditional Vorverkaufsstellen found in newspaper shops, ticket counters and municipal box offices, and those outlets all go live with the general sale. Keeping the online presale brief prevents a long stretch in which only one platform has stock while hundreds of local outlets have none. It also limits the time during which tickets can be bought purely for resale. For fans this has a practical consequence: if you are eligible for a German presale you rarely get a second chance in the same release, because general sale follows almost immediately and draws far more people into the queue. Registering in advance, logging in early and knowing exactly which link to use matters more here than in markets where presales stretch across several days. Our Germany presale calendar lists the windows we have confirmed so far for 2027.

Eventim, Ticketmaster and the platforms behind a German presale

Two platforms dominate online ticket sales in Germany. Eventim, operated by CTS Eventim, is the historic market leader and also owns or holds stakes in ticketing operations across Europe, including TicketOne in Italy and, since a 2024 deal, majority control of France Billet in France. Many German promoters, including several large independents, sell primarily or exclusively through Eventim. Ticketmaster Deutschland is the second major player and is the default platform for most tours promoted by Live Nation Germany. In practice many large tours are split, with the same concert appearing on both eventim.de and ticketmaster.de, as the Bryan Adams release showed. AXS appears on a smaller number of arena dates, notably at venues operated by AEG, such as the Uber Arena in Berlin. Venue box offices and local booking offices remain significant for regional tours, Schlager acts and open-air summer concerts in smaller towns, where online presales may not exist at all.

How the platform shapes your German presale experience

The platform matters because each one handles demand differently. Eventim uses a virtual waiting room on popular releases and asks buyers to hold a customer account before purchase; some events are sold as personalised tickets tied to that account. Ticketmaster Germany uses its own queue and, for high-demand tours, can require a Ticketmaster account plus a mobile app ticket that only appears in the app shortly before the show. When one tour is sold on both platforms, the allocation is split rather than shared, so a sold-out message on one site does not always mean the other is empty. A sensible approach is to identify in advance which platform the presale itself uses, because presales are often exclusive to one of them even when the general sale is split. The presale queue guide explains how waiting rooms randomise arrivals and why refreshing during the queue usually hurts rather than helps.

Promoters who decide the German presale schedule

The platform sells the tickets, but the promoter decides who gets a presale and when. Live Nation Germany handles many international pop and rock tours and typically runs a Live Nation presale through Ticketmaster, sometimes preceded by an artist presale. Our data shows Live Nation presales on German dates for Teddy Swims, whose UGLY Tour 2027 tickets went on sale on Friday 31 July 2026, and for Cage The Elephant, whose presale activity ran from Wednesday 9 September with general sale on Friday 11 September. FKP Scorpio, based in Hamburg, promotes a large share of international club and arena tours as well as festivals such as Hurricane and Southside, and frequently sells through Eventim. DEAG, the Berlin-based Deutsche Entertainment AG, and its subsidiaries handle classical crossover, comedy and arena acts. MLK, the Marek Lieberberg Konzertagentur, is now part of Live Nation and remains a familiar name on stadium posters. Knowing the promoter on the poster tells you whether to expect a Ticketmaster presale, an Eventim presale or a partner window, and where the registration page is likely to appear.

Telekom Prio Tickets and partner routes into a German presale

Germany has one partner presale that has no exact equivalent elsewhere: MagentaMusik Prio Tickets from Deutsche Telekom. Telekom describes them as a customer benefit that lets eligible customers buy tickets for selected concerts up to 48 hours before the official sale. Eligibility is linked to a Telekom contract, either fixed line or mobile, and an active Telekom login, and Telekom's own help pages describe the offer as available to private customers. Purchases have generally been limited to a small number of tickets per event, historically up to four, though limits can vary. Because many of these concerts are promoted by Live Nation, the sale itself has typically been processed through Ticketmaster, so buyers have needed both a Telekom login and a Ticketmaster account. Prio Ticket windows are announced at short notice on Telekom's music pages and in its customer app, and they do not apply to every tour. Check the current terms for each release rather than assuming a past pattern will repeat.

What a Prio Ticket German presale looks like on the day

Reports from previous large releases describe a fairly consistent sequence. The Prio Ticket window opens first, often at 10:00 on a weekday, and runs for up to 48 hours. A platform or promoter presale may follow, and general sale opens after that. For buyers this creates a layered release in which the earliest access goes to a group defined by their phone or broadband contract rather than by fandom. Demand during that first window can still be very high, and Telekom has warned customers in the past to expect waiting times and to keep their logins ready. If you are a Telekom customer, the practical preparation is to confirm that your account is active, that the customer app is updated, and that your Ticketmaster account is linked to the same email address you plan to use. Our alerts tell you when a Prio window has been announced for a tour we track, but access always depends on your own eligibility.

Card, streaming and fan club routes to a German presale

Beyond Telekom, partner presales in Germany are less standardised than in the UK. Bank presales do exist: trade reports have described Commerzbank and comdirect Visa cardholders receiving access to selected presales on Eventim, but these are tied to specific campaigns rather than a permanent programme. American Express runs presales on some international tours; in our 2027 data, Harry Styles' Berlin dates combined an artist presale with an Amex window, with presale activity from Monday 14 September and general sale on Wednesday 16 September 2026. Spotify presales also appear occasionally for artists with strong streaming audiences. Fan club and artist presales, usually built on a newsletter sign-up or a code sent by the artist's team, remain the most common early route on international tours. For background on how each route works, see our guides to the fan club presale, the Amex presale, the artist presale and the Spotify presale.

What time a German presale usually opens

The default start time for a German presale or general sale is 10:00 local time, and the overwhelming majority of the 2027 releases we track opened in the morning. Some promoters prefer 11:00, and a handful of artist presales have opened at noon or in the early evening to suit international fan clubs, but morning starts are the norm. The weekday pattern is equally clear. In our data, Friday is the most common day for both presales and general sales in Germany, with Wednesday as the second most common day for presales and Thursday a distant third. That creates a familiar rhythm: an announcement early in the week, a presale on Wednesday or Thursday, and general sale on Friday morning, or in the compressed version, everything on Friday. Our network also shows that German tours go on sale a long time before the shows themselves, with a median lead of around 230 days between the first sale and the concert date. Many 2027 arena dates were therefore on sale by spring or summer 2026.

Fees and personalised tickets in a German presale checkout

The price shown on a German poster is rarely the price you pay at checkout. German ticket prices typically include a Vorverkaufsgebühr, the advance booking fee, which is often built into the advertised price as a percentage of the face value. On top of that, online platforms may add a system fee, a service charge per order and a delivery fee depending on whether you choose a print-at-home ticket, a mobile ticket or a posted hard ticket. The amounts vary between platforms and events, and they are set by agreement between promoter and ticketing company rather than by law. Presale buyers pay the same fee structure as general sale buyers in almost every case; a presale gives you earlier access, not a discount. Some events also use dynamic pricing or platinum seats, where certain tickets are priced according to demand. Our dynamic pricing explainer covers how that works and how to spot it before you reach the payment page.

Personalised tickets and ID checks after a German presale

Personalised tickets, known as personalisierte Tickets, have become more common on high-demand German releases. On these events the buyer's name, and sometimes the name of every attendee, is printed on the ticket or stored in the platform account, and venue staff may ask for photo identification at the entrance. Promoters use personalisation to reduce speculative resale, and they generally pair it with an official name-change or resale function on the original platform. The rules differ by event: some allow free name changes up to a fixed date, others charge a small fee, and some do not permit changes at all. Before buying, read the event-specific conditions on the sales page, check how many tickets you can buy and whether each attendee must be named, and make sure the spelling matches the identification each person will bring. Getting this right during a fast presale checkout is much easier if you have the names ready in advance.

Resale rules and cancellation rights after a German presale

Germany does not currently have a specific statutory price cap on ticket resale. Trade and legal commentary has long noted that the secondary market for event tickets is largely unregulated by dedicated legislation, and organisers have relied instead on their general terms and conditions and on unfair-competition law. That may change. The governing coalition formed in 2025 committed to regulating the secondary market for sport and culture tickets, and at the time of writing the Federal Ministry of Justice has said it is working on a draft that would include a limit on resale mark-ups and give organisers more control over the secondary market. No final law had been passed when this page was written, so check the current position before relying on it. Meanwhile, many organisers allow resale through official exchanges on Eventim or Ticketmaster, sometimes at face value. Our resale rules guide describes the different models neutrally, including face-value exchanges and open marketplaces.

No Widerrufsrecht on German presale tickets

One rule surprises many first-time buyers: there is normally no statutory right of withdrawal on concert tickets bought online in Germany. German consumer law grants a fourteen-day withdrawal right for many distance purchases, but section 312g of the German Civil Code excludes contracts for leisure services that are tied to a specific date, and courts have consistently treated dated concert tickets as falling within that exclusion. In practice this means that once a presale purchase is confirmed, you cannot simply cancel it because you changed your mind or found better seats later. Refunds are generally available only if the event is cancelled, and the handling of postponements depends on the organiser's terms. Some platforms sell optional ticket insurance, which is a separate product with its own conditions. Because a German presale often moves very quickly, it is worth deciding on your budget, seat category and number of tickets before the queue opens rather than at checkout.

German presale FAQ

The questions below are the ones we receive most often from fans preparing for releases in Germany. They focus on the practical side: registration, timing, eligibility and what happens after you buy. Rules and partner programmes change from tour to tour and from year to year, so treat these answers as a guide to how the market usually works rather than a promise about any specific release. For the latest windows we have confirmed, use the alert form on this page or tap the alert button next to a tour, and we will email you when a presale is announced and where it takes place. We never publish or sell presale codes. Codes and access links always come from the official channel that runs the presale, whether that is an artist newsletter, a promoter, a card issuer, a telecom provider or the ticketing platform itself, and you should only enter them on that channel's own sales page.

Do I need a German address to join a German presale?

In most cases no. Artist and promoter presales on Eventim and Ticketmaster Germany are generally open to anyone who registers in time and holds an account on the relevant platform, wherever they live. Delivery options may be limited for buyers outside Germany, but mobile and print-at-home tickets have made that less of an obstacle. Partner presales are different. MagentaMusik Prio Tickets require an active Telekom customer contract, and bank presales require a card from the participating bank, which in practice means a German customer relationship. Amex presales usually require a card issued in the relevant market, so check the terms for each release. If you are travelling from abroad, the simplest route is usually the artist presale or the general sale, combined with an account created well before the day. Make sure your payment card works for online purchases in euros and is not blocked for foreign transactions.

Is a German presale cheaper than general sale?

Almost never. A presale is about timing, not price. The ticket categories and fees offered during a German presale are usually identical to those offered at general sale, and on some releases the best seats or VIP packages are offered first during the presale at their full price. The real advantage is choice: you see the seat map before most of the public and can pick a category before it sells out. If a tour uses demand-based pricing, prices can also move during the release, which means an early purchase may be cheaper or more expensive than a later one depending on demand. The Vorverkaufsgebühr and online fees apply equally to presale and general sale buyers. Compare the total price on the checkout page, including delivery, rather than the headline figure on the poster. That total is the figure to compare across Eventim, Ticketmaster and any partner window offering the same concert.

How many tickets can I buy in a German presale?

Limits are set per event by the promoter and the platform. For large arena and stadium shows a cap of four or six tickets per order or per account is common, while smaller club shows may allow more. Partner presales often apply tighter limits: Telekom's Prio Ticket offer has historically allowed up to four tickets per event. Personalised-ticket releases may also require you to enter a name for each ticket, which effectively limits purchases to people you know. Trying to bypass a limit by using several accounts can lead to orders being cancelled under the platform's terms. The safest approach is to check the limit shown on the event page before the presale starts and coordinate with friends in advance about who buys which tickets, rather than splitting attempts across multiple devices at the last minute. A shared plan also avoids two friends accidentally buying the same seats twice.

What happens if a German presale sells out?

A sold-out presale allocation does not necessarily mean the concert is sold out. Promoters reserve separate allocations for each presale window and for the general sale, and additional tickets are often released later as production holds, seats with partial views or returns come back into stock. In Germany, general sale also opens at local booking offices, which can have separate allocations on some events. If the online presale sells out, it is still worth joining the general sale queue at the stated time. After general sale, keep an eye on the official resale exchange of the platform that sold the tickets, as personalised events in particular tend to channel returns there. Our alerts flag extra dates when promoters add them, which is a common response to strong presale demand on German arena tours. Second dates usually go on sale within days, often with their own short presale.

When will more German presales for 2027 be announced?

Announcements continue throughout the year. Our data shows that German tours typically go on sale many months before the concert, with a median lead of around 230 days, so tours for late 2027 are likely to be announced and sold during the first half of 2027. Summer open-air seasons are often announced in the autumn and winter before, while arena tours for the following spring frequently go on sale between May and September of the previous year. Festival lineups follow their own cycle. We cannot predict announcement dates that have not been made public, and any tour not yet confirmed by its promoter remains unannounced. The most reliable approach is to sign up for alerts on the artists and cities you care about, so that you hear about a German presale as soon as it is published by the official channel. Our Germany calendar is updated as new windows are confirmed.