Here’s how to spend less on live concerts
Festivals and gigs are a great night out, but the tickets aren’t cheap. Fortunately, there are often late deals to save money on tickets.
Here are the best deals we’ve found to save you cash. We can’t do anything about the rain, though!
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Ticket discounts
Concert Week: flash ticket sale
At midday on 8 May 2025, you can get concert tickets for various artists at reduced prices. Last year they started at £25. The sale is on for just 24 hours, so you’ll have to be quick if you want to get tickets.
There are tickets available for Busted, Smashing Pumpkins, Supergrass, Sugababes, Iggy Pop and Dizzee Rascal, to name a few.
Barclaycard: 5% off tickets / 10% off some events
If you have a Barclaycard credit card you can save 5% if you book via Barclaycard Entertainment and pay using your card.
You’ll also be able to get 10% off and early access to the following:
- Download
- Camp Bestival (Dorset)
- cinch presents Creamfields (North)
- cinch presents Latitude
- Wireless (Crystal Palace and Finsbury Park)
- Reading and Leeds
- cinch presents the Isle of Wight Festival
- Capital’s Summertime Ball with Barclaycard
- Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball with Barclaycard
- Radio X Presents events (where applicable)
- and many more through their partnership with The Ticket Factory
Presale hacks
A good way to save cash is to get a ticket when it goes on sale – so you can avoid resale sites charging a premium on top.
O2/Virgin: Priority tickets
O2 and Virgin Media customers get access to the O2 Priority app, and this has a huge number of shows on sale before the general public can get them. And it’s possible to get access to this even if you’re not on O2!
Free tickets
Why pay when you don’t need to? There are offers where tickets are given away for free, or in return for an admin fee.
Seat filling
Sites like Show Film First and Central Tickets often have tickets for live concerts and festivals at short notice where you only need to pay a booking fee (usually between £3 and £8). I’ve written a full guide to how these work and which sites are best.
Volunteer at festivals
Each year it’s possible to volunteer at all the big festivals in return for a free ticket. This includes Glastonbury, though there’s obviously huge demand for this. Read our full guide for details on how to apply and what it entails.
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