The public sale doesn’t tip off until Friday, but Jay-Z’s concerts launching Brooklyn’s Barclays Center are already hot tickets.
Ticket buyers with access to a special pre-sale today gobbled up many of the tickets to three concerts set for Sept. 28-30 and began hawking them on secondary markets like Stub Hub, demanding huge profits.
By midday, officials for the Nets new home added two new Jay-Z shows for Oct. 3 and 4, saying ticket demand was very strong.
Jay-Z — a part owner in the Nets — scaled down pricing as a give back to fans living in his native Brooklyn..
About 7,000 of the 14,586 seats to each show cost a modest $29.50 ($37.20 after ticket fees), but on StubHub the starting price for nearly 2,000 seats for the arena’s Sept. 28 opening show was $72. Stage seats costing $254 were running as high as $25,000 on the ticket resale site.
An arena spokesman said there would be “thousands of seats available” for the opening show during the public sale. The special pre-sale was offered to Nets premium season ticket holders and certain American Express card holders
The rapper — who is also bringing his 40/40 Club to the arena — grew up in the Marcy Projects in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Although the arena holds 18,200 for basketball, many of the seats behind the stage are not being offered for the shows