A presale exists because ticket demand is lumpy. The people most likely to buy are the people who already follow the artist, and they buy as soon as they are allowed. Giving them a short head start rewards them, cuts the risk of a slow public onsale and gives the promoter numbers to plan with.
Most shows in Sweden and across Europe now run at least one presale. Larger tours run several in a row, each tied to a different partner, before tickets go on general sale.
How a presale works, step by step
The promoter and the artist's team agree the date and time of the public onsale, then set one or more presale windows before it. A typical sequence for a club or theatre show is announcement on a Monday, artist presale on Wednesday, venue or platform presale on Thursday, and public onsale on Friday morning.
Each presale has a code or a link. The code is sent to the list that owns that audience. Fans enter it on the ticketing page to unlock the allocation. When the window closes, the remaining tickets roll into the next window or into the public onsale.
Allocation is a judgement call. Release too much and the public onsale looks dead. Release too little and the fans who signed up cannot buy and feel cheated. A common starting point is between 25 and 50 percent of capacity across all presales, adjusted for how strong the artist's own list is.
Who gets presale access
Artist presale. The artist's mailing list, fan club or app. This is usually the strongest list and the first window.
Venue presale. The venue's own members and newsletter. Useful for local demand, especially for artists without a big list in that city.
Ticketing platform presale. The platform's members. Reach is large but less targeted.
Card or sponsor presale. A bank, telecom or brand buys the right to offer early access to its customers. The promoter gets a marketing partner and the sponsor gets a perk to advertise.
Spotify and streaming presales. Fans who follow or listen to the artist on a streaming service get a code through the service's own channels.
What the presale tells a promoter
This is the part most guides skip, and it is the reason we care about presales in ticket marketing.
The presale is the first number that is not a guess. If the artist's own list takes only a small share of the allocation in three days, the public onsale will not rescue the date.
In our experience running ticket campaigns, a soft presale is the most reliable early sign that the final weeks will cost more per ticket than planned. The warning is visible months before the date.
The useful reading is the share of the presale allocation sold and the pace on day one. A presale that sells its allocation in the first hours says the venue could have been larger or the price higher. One that limps says the opposite, and that the ad plan needs to be heavier and earlier than planned.
How to promote a presale
The presale sign-up is the real product at announcement. Every channel should push one action: join the list that gets the code.
Paid social at this stage should send people to the sign-up page. Use the artist's best live footage: pooled across four of our ticket accounts over twelve months to October 2026, video ads reached a median link CTR of 2.08 % against 1.41 % for image and carousel ads, Meta-tracked.
The sign-up list then becomes the retargeting audience for the onsale and the last-call ads, which is why it is worth paying to build it.
When the presale opens, send the code by email first, then post it in the artist's channels. Ads that run during the window should reach only the people who already hold a code. Showing a presale ad to someone without a code wastes money and annoys them.
Common mistakes
Treating the presale as a secret. Fans who do not know a presale exists cannot sign up for it. Announce it with the date.
Too many presales. Four windows in a row teach fans that "onsale" means nothing and the real tickets come later. Two is enough for most shows.
Ignoring the number. A soft presale is a decision point: change the venue, the price or the ad budget while there is still time.
Sending presale ads to cold audiences. Code holders see the presale ad. Everyone else sees the announcement ad.
No tracking on the sign-up page. Without the pixel or Conversions API on the form, the list cannot be used as an ad audience later.
Difference from related terms
Onsale is the public window that follows the presales. It is the second largest sales peak after the final weeks.
Early bird is a price, not an access window. Anyone can buy, but the first batch is cheaper.
Fan club allocation is a fixed block held for paying members, often with the best seats, regardless of timing.
Concert marketing is the whole campaign from announcement to last call. The presale is one phase of it.
Where Adsome fits
Adsome runs ticket marketing for concerts and tours on Meta, from the announcement and presale sign-up ads through onsale and last call, measured on tracked ticket purchases. Promoters who want the presale read as part of a per-date plan can start on the tours page. The wider campaign is covered on the concert marketing page.
Relevant tutorials
- When to start advertising a concert, a tour marketing timeline places the presale in the full timeline.
- How to sell concert tickets with Facebook ads covers the campaign build.
- Concert marketing plan, what to put in it and when covers the written plan.