Tickets, fees, and not getting burned

The advertised price of a show and what your card gets charged are usually two different numbers. Here's how the gap works, platform by platform, and how to avoid the actual dangers — which are resale scams, not service fees.

Every show on our /shows calendar links to wherever its tickets really sell, and you can filter by price there. One honest caveat we print right on the page: advertised prices usually exclude service fees.

Where tickets actually sell here

• TicketWeb — the workhorse for Vancouver's club rooms. Fees are added at checkout on top of the face price. TicketWeb's event pages do publish their fee breakdowns, and we scrape those where available to make the /shows price filter honest about face value.
• Ticketmaster — the big rooms and arenas. Expect per-ticket fees (service and sometimes a facility charge) plus a per-order processing fee at checkout; Ticketmaster's own help pages describe these as set and shared between it and venues, teams, and promoters.
• Eventbrite — common for one-offs, festivals, and community events. At the time we checked, Eventbrite's Canadian pricing was a 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per ticket plus a 2.9% payment-processing fee per order — paid by the buyer by default, though organizers can absorb it (some do; those listings feel weirdly cheap in a good way).
• DICE — growing in the club scene. DICE's stated policy is that the price you see is the price you pay: its booking fee is baked into the displayed number rather than appearing at checkout. That doesn't make it fee-free — it makes it fee-honest.
• Showpass, Zeffy, and the rest — smaller platforms show up on community shows. Same rule everywhere: the number that matters is the checkout total, not the poster.

Fee structures change without notice. Treat the numbers above as a snapshot from the date at the bottom of this page, and the checkout screen as the only truth.

Door and PWYC shows

A lot of the best shows here never touch a platform:

• Door shows — pay cash or tap at the door, get a stamp or a wristband. "$15 at the door" means exactly $15; there is no fee. Bring a backup plan for a sold-out room, because there's no capacity counter online.
• PWYC — pay-what-you-can. The sliding scale is real: pay the low end without shame if that's your week, pay above the suggested number if you can, because the money is going to the bands and the room. Nobody is judging either direction.
• "No one turned away" — some DIY spaces mean this literally. Take them at their word; put money in next time.

Spotting resale scams

This is where people actually get burned. The pattern is always the same: a sold-out show, a stranger with "an extra," and pressure to pay before you can verify anything.

• Buy from the primary source first. The ticket link on the /shows listing goes to the real seller. Sold out there? Check whether the platform has an official resale or exchange before going anywhere else.
• Screenshots are not tickets. A QR code image can be sold to twenty people; only the first scan gets in. Legitimate transfers happen inside the platform (Ticketmaster transfer, DICE's in-app system, Eventbrite reissue) so the barcode changes hands, not a picture of it.
• Facebook/Instagram/Craigslist "extras" are the danger zone. Red flags: brand-new profiles, "my friend can't make it" plus urgency, payment only by e-transfer to a stranger, refusal to do the transfer in-platform, prices oddly below face.
• E-transfer to someone you can't find again is a donation. If you must buy from a human, a mutual friend vouching for them is worth more than any screenshot.
• Below-face for a sold-out show is a scam more often than a bargain.

If a deal falls through, remember the door: Vancouver club shows often hold back door tickets, and "sold out online" isn't always sold out. Ask the venue.

The short version

Check /shows for the real ticket link and face price, expect fees at checkout everywhere except DICE-style all-in pricing and cash at the door, never buy a screenshot, and treat PWYC honestly in both directions.