Ticket KPIs · Ticket resale glossary
Total Tickets Sold
Also known as: Tickets sold, Total sales, Total Qty
Total tickets sold is the cumulative number of tickets sold for an event since sales began, counted per market: completed resale transactions on the secondary market, or tickets gone from the primary seller's inventory.
On resale marketplaces it's a count of real, completed transactions. Primary sellers like Ticketmaster don't publish their sales, so primary tickets sold is estimated: the event's capacity minus the available tickets still on sale.
On its own, the total says how big the market for an event is. Read it with tickets sold in the last 24 hours to see whether the event is still selling, and with available tickets to see how much is left — together they give the sell-through rate.
How total tickets sold is measured
On resale, total tickets sold = the sum of the quantities in every completed transaction since the event's listings went live. A sale of 4 tickets adds 4, not 1; the number of transactions is tracked separately as listings sold.
On the primary market the count isn't published, so it is estimated: estimated primary tickets sold = capacity − primary tickets still available. Using all available tickets instead of primary ones mixes resale stock into the estimate, so splitting the two pools gives a cleaner number.
Worked example: primary and resale counts
A 12,000-capacity arena has 2,300 primary tickets still on sale on the ticketing site. Estimated primary tickets sold is 12,000 − 2,300 = 9,700.
On StubHub and viagogo the same event has 1,150 resale tickets sold. Adding the two to claim 10,850 tickets sold would be wrong: resale tickets were bought on the primary market first, so they are already inside the 9,700. Resale tickets sold measures how many changed hands a second time — here about 12% of primary sales.
Primary vs resale tickets sold
The two numbers answer different questions:
- Primary tickets sold: how much of the event's supply has gone from the organiser to the public — the road to a sell-out.
- Resale tickets sold: how active the secondary market is, meaning how many tickets are traded on after the first sale.
- The ratio of the two: resale sold as a share of capacity shows how much of an event changes hands; across a venue's events this becomes the resale rate.
How to read total tickets sold
On its own, the total measures market size and little else. Two events with 5,000 resale sales can be very different: one sold them steadily over six months, the other in the last fortnight. The daily sales chart and tickets sold in the last 24 hours show the timing; sales volume shows the money.
For decisions, ratios beat totals: tickets sold against capacity, against available tickets, or against the same artist's previous tour in the same city.
Pitfalls when counting tickets sold
Watch for these before relying on the total:
- Holds counted as sold: early in a sale, unreleased seats make capacity-based estimates too high.
- Restocks: when tickets return to the primary site, the estimate drops and sold tickets seem to 'unsell'.
- Wrong capacity: an estimate built on the venue's headline size instead of this show's layout is off by every seat lost to the stage.
- Coverage: resale counts only include the marketplaces being tracked; private deals and other platforms are missing.
Track it with Eventory
Eventory shows total tickets sold on every event page, for the resale market and for Ticketmaster, with a chart of how sales developed over time.
Frequently asked questions
How do you know how many tickets have been sold for a concert?
Organisers rarely publish it. Primary sales are estimated from capacity minus the tickets still on sale; resale sales are counted from completed marketplace transactions. Both cover part of the market, so treat them as strong indicators rather than official figures.
Does Ticketmaster show how many tickets are sold?
No, Ticketmaster doesn't publish sales counts. You can estimate them from the event's capacity and the tickets still available, which is how Eventory's Ticketmaster tab calculates estimated tickets sold, next to the tickets sold in the last 24 hours.
Do resale tickets count as tickets sold?
They are counted separately. A resale ticket was already sold once on the primary market, so adding it again inflates the total. Resale tickets sold measures trading on the secondary market, not extra people at the event.
Why did the number of tickets sold go down?
With a capacity-based estimate, tickets sold falls whenever available tickets rise — usually a release of held seats, cancelled orders or added capacity. Nobody returned a ticket; the supply grew.