What ticket camping is, and how to spot a scam

The short definition

Camping means holding a place before tickets officially go on sale. The word comes from the practice of queueing overnight outside a box office. Most camping today is online: entering the platform’s waiting room early and keeping that session alive until the on-sale moment.

Hiring someone to camp for you means they hold the place while you carry on with your day, and close the tier you asked for when their turn comes.

Camping is not reselling

This is the confusion behind most objections to the practice.

Camping done properly is buying on someone’s behalf: the ticket belongs to the person who asked for it, the face value is unchanged, and the fee pays for the work. Scalping is buying tickets nobody ordered and reselling them above face value. Two different things that often get the same name.

It is a fair question to ask a service directly: is this ticket bought for me, or bought already and resold to me?

When camping is worth it

Not every show needs it. Camping only makes sense when at least one of these is true:

• The fanbase is far larger than the ticket supply and the show sells out in minutes.
• The on-sale falls during working hours or the small hours in your timezone.
• The platform assigns random queue numbers, so the number of sessions matters more than clicking speed.
• Tickets are sold at a counter and require a physical queue.
• You need one specific tier and will not accept a substitute.

How it is usually priced

Normally three separate amounts: face value, platform fees where they apply, and a service fee. A service worth using quotes all three before you send money and adds nothing afterwards.

The fee varies by show, tier and whether camping is online or in person. There is no market-wide standard, so treat anyone quoting a "standard rate" with suspicion.

Six ways to check a camping service

There are real scams in this market, which is why you should check rather than trust. Every one of these is checkable, and you should apply them to us as well.

• Proof must be public, not a screenshot sent privately. A private image could be someone else’s order, or an edited one.
• Proof must have a history. An album spread over months is far harder to fake than a few loose images — look at the oldest posts.
• Nobody may promise you will get a ticket. Camping improves the odds; it does not make them certain. This is the clearest warning sign there is.
• Price and fees must be stated before you send money.
• There must be a name with a reputation worth keeping. A long-running page with public comments has more to lose than an account made last week.
• You must be able to verify before you pay. If nothing can be checked, that is not trustworthiness — it is a gamble.

If you camp yourself

Entirely doable, and worth doing if you are free at the on-sale. A few things help: prepare your account and payment details in advance rather than mid-queue, use a stable connection rather than mobile data, and read each show’s limit on tickets per account.

Do not open dozens of tabs on one machine — many platforms detect it and void every session.