Glossary

Presale Glossary 2027: 80 Ticketing Terms in Plain English

Presale glossary: phases of a ticket release

A tour announcement is the public reveal of dates, usually with sale information attached or promised soon. The on-sale is the moment tickets become purchasable, a term that covers both early and public phases. A presale is any sale restricted to a defined group before the public, and a window is one such restricted period, with its own start time, end time and eligibility. Several windows together form a presale stack, the sequence of early phases running up to the general sale, which is the release open to everyone and is sometimes simply called the public on-sale; do not confuse it with general admission, which refers to unreserved tickets. A sign-up deadline is the last moment to register for a window, often well before it opens. An allocation is the share of tickets reserved for a particular window or channel.

A hold is a block of seats kept back by the promoter or venue, for production, guests or later release. A production release happens when held seats, often those near the stage or mixing desk, are released once the staging layout is final, which is why tickets can appear for a show that was sold out. An added date or extra show is a further concert announced because of demand, frequently with its own windows. Sold out means no tickets remain in the current release, not necessarily that none will ever appear. Limited availability signals that few tickets remain in some categories. A staggered on-sale opens cities or countries at different times. A soft launch is an informal early opening, rarer than it once was. Finally, a tour leg is a block of dates in one region, usually sold by a separate promoter on its own schedule.

Presale glossary: access and eligibility

An access code is a string you enter to unlock a window; a unique code is valid only once or only for one account, while a generic code is shared among all eligible people. Account-based access unlocks early tickets automatically when you log in with an eligible account, increasingly replacing codes. A fan club presale is reserved for members of an official fan club, sometimes paid, sometimes free, and a membership cut-off is the date by which you must have joined to qualify. An artist presale is run from the artist's own sign-up page or mailing list. Registration means entering your details in advance to be considered for access. An invitation is the message telling you that you have been selected, often with a personal link. A waitlist holds registrants who were not selected initially and may receive access if tickets remain after the first group.

Verified Fan is Ticketmaster's registration system, in which fans sign up before a sale and selected registrants receive access; the term is often used loosely for any similar scheme, sometimes called fan registration. Album pre-order access grants presale entry to buyers of a record from the official store, sometimes called an album bundle presale. A streaming presale invites listeners chosen according to their listening activity, as in Spotify's fan-focused presales. A ticket limit caps how many tickets one person, account, card or household may buy, and may apply per show or across a tour. Eligibility sums up all the conditions for a window: membership, card, country, account or registration. And proof of eligibility is whatever evidence a door team may request, from a student card for a concession to the payment card used.

Presale glossary: card, network and promoter partners

A card presale is a window reserved for holders of cards from a sponsoring issuer, unlocked by entering part of the card number or paying with it. An Amex presale is run for American Express cardholders in markets where the brand has a ticketing partnership, such as the United States, the UK and Australia. Citi Entertainment is Citi's US programme giving cardholders presales and reserved tickets for certain events. A Mastercard presale is a window for Mastercard holders in participating markets, often promoted under the brand's experiences programme. A preventa bancaria, or bank presale, is the Mexican and wider Latin American form of card window; Mexico's best known has long been the Banamex presale, formerly Citibanamex. Meses sin intereses, or interest-free months, lets eligible cardholders in Mexico spread a ticket purchase over instalments, and Brazil has a similar culture of parcelamento.

A network presale is reserved for customers of a mobile operator, delivered through its app. O2 Priority is the best-known UK example, described by O2 as offering tickets up to 48 hours before the general sale, while Three has run comparable windows in Ireland. A promoter presale is run by the company organising the tour in a market, such as Live Nation, AEG Presents, evenko in Quebec, or Frontier Touring and TEG in Australia. A venue presale comes from the arena, stadium or theatre, usually through its newsletter. A sponsor is any brand paying for association with a tour or venue, often in exchange for a window. A loyalty presale rewards members of a retail or travel loyalty scheme. Finally, a naming-rights venue carries a sponsor's name and sometimes grants that sponsor's customers early access.

Presale glossary: queues and waiting rooms

A waiting room is the holding page you reach before a sale opens. When the sale begins, it becomes a virtual queue, an ordered line of shoppers admitted in turn; in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking markets you will see the term fila virtual. Randomisation means everyone present in the waiting room at the opening time is placed in a random order rather than by arrival. Queue position is your estimated place, and the estimated wait converts it into time, both of which can change. A batch is a group of shoppers admitted together. Bot detection refers to the systems platforms use to identify automated buying, and a challenge or captcha is a test asking you to prove you are human. A session is your connection to the queue, often tied to a browser cookie or app login and lost if you clear it.

Once admitted, you reach the seat map, a plan of the venue showing available areas, or a best available search, which assigns the best remaining seats in a chosen price or area. The basket or cart holds your selected tickets, and the basket timer counts down the minutes you have to complete payment before the seats return to the pool. A release back happens when unpaid baskets expire and tickets reappear. Strong customer authentication is the extra step, usually an approval in your banking app, that many banks, especially in Europe, require for online card payments. An order confirmation is the screen and email confirming purchase; only once it arrives is your order complete. Duplicate session warnings appear when the same account is active in several places at once and may lead to removal from the queue.

Presale glossary: seats, standing and packages

General admission, often shortened to GA, means unreserved tickets, usually standing on the floor or in a field, where position depends on arrival time. A pit, front standing or golden circle is a premium standing area near the stage, typically priced higher. A reserved seat has a fixed row and number. Restricted view seats have partial sightlines, often from pillars or stage equipment, and are priced lower. Side-stage or behind-stage seats are released when the production allows them. Tiers, levels or blocks divide seated areas, and price levels group seats by cost. Accessible tickets are for disabled customers and their companions, often sold through a dedicated process with the venue. Seated only shows have no standing floor, while in the round staging places the stage in the centre and changes the value of seats in every block.

A VIP package combines a ticket with extras such as merchandise, early entry, a dedicated bar or a meet-and-greet, and is priced well above standard tickets. Hospitality refers to premium packages including food and drink in lounges or boxes. Early entry lets a ticket holder in before the main doors open, valuable in standing areas. Platinum tickets, on Ticketmaster and some other platforms, are seats priced by the promoter according to demand and sold as primary tickets. A concession is a reduced-price ticket for an eligible group, such as students or older people; Brazil's meia-entrada, a half-price ticket available within a legal quota of the tickets for each event, is the best-known national example. A family ticket bundles admission for several people. A ticket type, finally, is the label distinguishing standard, package, concession and premium tickets in the same area.

Presale glossary: prices and fees

Face value is the price of the ticket set by the promoter, before fees. A booking fee or service fee is charged by the platform for each ticket or order. A facility fee is a charge collected for the venue's upkeep, common in the United States and in some other markets. An order processing fee applies once per transaction. A delivery fee covers posted tickets, now rare with mobile tickets. All-in pricing means showing the total including mandatory fees from the start; in the United States, a federal rule in effect since May 2025 requires this for live-event tickets. Drip pricing is the opposite practice, revealing fees step by step, which consumer rules in several markets now restrict. Taxes, such as VAT or sales tax, are usually included in the displayed price in Europe and may be shown separately elsewhere.

Dynamic pricing allows the price of some tickets to rise or fall with demand during a sale; Ticketmaster labels such tickets in some markets as in-demand or market-priced. Tiered pricing releases tickets in successive price tiers, such as early bird and regular tiers for festivals, so the same ticket costs more once a tier sells out. An early bird ticket is a cheaper initial tier, common for festivals. A price band or price category groups seats sold at the same price. A price cap is a maximum set by law or contract, usually discussed in the context of resale. Currency conversion fees may apply when buying abroad with a card issued in another currency. And a refund is the return of money for a cancelled or significantly changed event, governed by the organiser's policy and local consumer law rather than by any personal change of plans.

Presale glossary: delivery, transfer and resale

A mobile ticket lives in the buyer's account inside the platform's app and is scanned from the phone. A rotating barcode, used by Ticketmaster under the name SafeTix, refreshes the code every few seconds to deter screenshots. Delayed delivery means tickets appear in your account only some time before the event. A transfer sends a ticket to another person's account through the official tool; some events restrict transfers until a set date or disable them. A named ticket or nominative ticket carries the holder's name; Italy has required them for concerts in venues with more than 5,000 places since 2019, and France uses them frequently for large events. A name change updates the holder through the official channel, sometimes for a fee. An ID check compares the ticket with an identity document at entry. Box office collection means picking up tickets at the venue.

The primary market is the first sale by the promoter's appointed platform, and the secondary market is any resale after it. A face value exchange or fan-to-fan resale lets holders resell at no more than the original price, often through the primary platform. A resale cap limits the resale price by law or by platform rule; Ireland bans resale above face value for designated events, and South Australia and Western Australia cap resale at 110 per cent of the original price for covered events. A designated event is one covered by such a law. A tout, in British and Irish usage, or scalper, in North American usage, is someone who buys to resell at a profit. Cancellation for breach is a promoter's right, set out in the terms, to cancel tickets bought or resold in breach of the conditions of sale.

Presale glossary: regional terms from Asia and Latin America

Japan's ticketing has its own vocabulary. Senkō, meaning advance, refers to early sales, and a fan club senkō is the members' priority phase, often the main route for popular acts. Chūsen, meaning lottery, is the ballot system used for most high-demand Japanese releases, with an entry period, a result announcement and a payment deadline. Ippan hatsubai is the general sale, usually first come first served. Konbini payment lets buyers pay or collect tickets at convenience stores, a long-standing Japanese practice. Japan's resale law, in force since 2019, prohibits the resale of specified tickets above face value as a business without the organiser's consent. In South Korea, ticketing is used as a noun for the whole race to buy, and fans speak of a ticketing war for fiercely competitive sales on platforms such as NOL Ticket, formerly Interpark, Melon Ticket and Yes24.

Korean sales also rely on real-name verification, linking accounts and sometimes tickets to an identity, and on fan club verification, which confirms paid membership before a priority phase. Spanish-speaking markets use preventa for presale and venta general for the general sale, with boletos in Mexico and entradas in Spain both meaning tickets. In Brazil, the presale is the pré-venda, tickets are ingressos, and the lote, or batch, is a price tier: when one lote sells out, the next is released at a higher price. In Germany the advance sale is the Vorverkauf, in the Netherlands the voorverkoop, in Italy the prevendita and in France the prévente. Our country guides, such as those for Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil, explain how these terms show up during a real sale.

Presale glossary FAQ

Readers sometimes ask how we choose the terms on this page and how they should use them in practice, so the short answers below explain our approach. The aim is not to be exhaustive, since every platform invents new labels, but to cover the words most likely to cause hesitation at an important moment. If you meet a term on an announcement poster or checkout page that you cannot find here, it is worth sending it to us so we can consider adding it, especially if it appears in more than one market. We update the definitions whenever a programme is renamed, a platform changes its terminology or a law alters the meaning of a resale term. For the mechanics behind each term, follow the links to the type and country guides, which provide the context that a one-line definition cannot. Meanwhile, the terms of each sale remain the reference.

How should I use this presale glossary during a sale?

Ideally, read it before the sale rather than during. The minutes in a basket are too short to research vocabulary, so the most useful approach is to skim the sections on ticket types, prices and queues a day or two in advance, and note any term that appears in the announcement for your tour. On sale day, keep the page open in a separate tab or on another device if you like, but rely mainly on your written plan, which should already state the ticket type and price you will accept. If an unfamiliar label appears on the seat map, such as a package name or an in-demand price, take a few seconds to check it rather than adding it to your basket out of panic. Combined with the sale-day checklist, the glossary helps you recognise what you are buying and avoid surprises once the confirmation email has arrived.

Why does this presale glossary include local-language terms?

Because many fans buy across borders, and local terms appear on announcements, platforms and queue screens even when an English version of the site exists. A Japanese fan club phase may be described only as a senkō, a Brazilian sale may advance from one lote to the next, and a Mexican announcement may list a preventa bancaria and a fila virtual. Recognising these words helps you understand the structure of a sale and the conditions attached to each phase. We include only the terms most likely to matter to international buyers, and we explain them as concepts rather than offering full translations of platform interfaces. For the broader context of buying in each market, including platforms, typical opening hours and resale rules, the country guides go much further, and the country comparison sets the fifteen markets side by side so you can spot the differences quickly before you commit to buying abroad.

Are definitions in this presale glossary legally binding?

No. The definitions describe general usage to help you understand announcements and checkout pages, and they cannot replace the official terms of sale for any specific event, the policies of a platform or the text of a law. Where we mention laws, such as Ireland's ban on resale above face value for designated events, the resale caps in some Australian states or Japan's resale law, we summarise them cautiously and recommend checking current official sources, since laws are amended and their scope can be narrower or wider than a short definition suggests. The UK's planned resale cap, for instance, is still a draft at the time of writing. When a definition and an official document appear to conflict, the official document prevails. If you need certainty about a legal question, such as whether a particular resale is permitted, consult the relevant authority or a qualified adviser rather than any general guide.

Does the presale glossary explain how to get codes?

It explains what codes are and where legitimate access comes from, but it does not and never will provide codes. Access codes, unique links and invitations belong to the official channels that run each window, whether fan clubs, card issuers, mobile networks, promoters, venues or platforms, and to the fans who qualify through them. The definitions of fan club presales, card presales, registration systems and promoter windows tell you which channel to approach, and the type guides explain how each one normally delivers access. Our email alerts complement this by telling you when a tracked tour has scheduled a window and which kind it is, so that you can register in time. You can subscribe with the alert form on this page or by tapping 🔔 Alert me next to a tour in our tables, and every message includes a one-click unsubscribe link should you ever wish to stop receiving them.