When Arcade Fire’s recent New York shows went on sale, the difficulty quotient of scoring tickets ranked somewhere between solving Rubik’s Cube while blindfolded and managing to watch an entire episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos without seeing a guy get hit in the nuts. In the age of online ticket selling, rampant scalping and music blogs clueing in every Tom, Dick and IT guy to new music, it’s no surprise that hot-ticket concerts sell out their supply faster than a Meatpacking District coke dealer. TONY knows your pain, so we’ve assembled eight strategies—including getting freaky—to help you end up inside the walls of a sold-out show, along with tales of glory from the successful. Study up, and maybe we’ll see you at the Police gig, swooning over Sting’s cheekbones. If you’re lucky.

TACTIC:
Buy tickets to the same act in a different city

Success Story:“I wanted to see Arcade Fire at the Bowery Ballroom right after they blew up at CMJ in 2004, but it was sold out. I saw they were also playing the next night at T.T. the Bear’s in Boston, and it wasn’t sold out yet, so I snagged tickets. I took the bus, and saw an amazing show.”—Jonathan Najman, 26, medical student
Recon: Tickets to the Police’s local shows are long gone, but at press time, seats were still available to the band’s July 20 show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about 170 miles away. It’s a Friday night, so buy a $95 ticket and crash at the Best Western Inn Hershey or Holiday Inn Express Hershey; both are about two miles from the venue and have rooms available for $220. Add travel ($105 round-trip on Amtrak) and it’s still way cheaper than the $1,000 comparable seats are fetching for the band’s NYC shows.

TACTIC:
Play the waiting game with scalpers

Success Story: “Scalpers panic and just want to recoup some money. I got into a Clapton show at MSG for $10 because the show had started ten minutes before. I wound up on the floor.”—Asa, 32, real-estate professional
Recon: Bigger venues have black markets teeming with opportunity, so don’t be afraid to sweat it out as the curtain comes up. At MSG, the drama plays out on the steps leading to the Garden’s Seventh Avenue entrance—cool your heels and monitor the scalper action from inside the Borders bookstore on Penn Plaza. At Radio City Music Hall, the corner of Sixth Avenue and 51st Street practically becomes a scalping bedouin market, and you shouldn’t have a problem finding a desperate seller. The United Palace on 175th Street—which recently hosted shows by Björk and Modest Mouse—is a schlep for many, so those without tickets are less inclined to travel there, eliminating the pesky competition.

TACTIC:
Befriend the venue personnel

Success Story: “I usually go to the back door and ask if I can get in, or I say my friends are inside and I couldn’t get a ticket. The guys say no a lot, but I just hang out with them. I’ve gotten into Wilco in Boston, Oasis in Dallas, fashion shows at Bryant Park—and have never paid. Eventually the guy would just say, ‘Go through and don’t talk to anyone.’”—Amy Parness, 32, product designer
Recon: Target venues with the fewest human obstacles standing in the way of your full-on eargasm. Greenpoint’s Studio B—recently graced by LCD Soundsystem and Moby—usually employs only a couple of twentysomething hipsters to check tickets. Ask nicely and offer to pay the full price, and they might sympathize. True pros stop by the venue a few times before they want to see a show, cementing those bonds by buying the door peeps drinks. Booze builds bridges, after all.

TACTIC:
Pretend to work for a celebrity

Success Story:“My girlfriend made some calls and got a table in the VIP section of a Rolling Stones show at the Beacon Theatre, under the premise she was Mel Gibson’s publicist. When the tour manager came to inquire about Mel’s whereabouts, she told him Mel had to head to a friend’s place. He was skeptical, but he let them stay.”—Joseph Carone, 36, businessman
Recon: “That happens,” says Mark Dinerstein, senior talent buyer for the Knitting Factory. “A manager or agent will call to arrange guest-list spots, and we try to verify it, but sometimes we don’t know.” This is a ballsy scam, so don’t be reckless. “If someone tried to get in with no advance notice, we’d be skeptical,” Dinerstein says. Call a couple days before, be pleasant but assertive and ask to speak with an in-house publicist or booker. And do your research: Sign up for a free trial at IMDbpro.com, find out who the real publicist is and drop their name; and use a celeb who doesn’t live in New York. It minimizes the risk that the venue will know that person’s reps. Oh, and keep in mind: This approach is, like, really, really dishonest and of questionable legality. Shame on you.

TACTIC:
Swap sexual favors for tickets

Success Story: “I was a tour manager for eight years, and I was offered everything from flashings to blow jobs from people trying to get into shows. I took advantage zero times, but I know some who have.”—Matthew “Chewy” Smith, private-concert booker
Recon:Craigslist is flooded with people offering tickets for “special benefits,” but it’s not clear if anyone takes up the offers. Smith, who worked with bands like the String Cheese Incident, and G. Love and Special Sauce, has advice for the desperate and horny. “Go for the low guys on the road-crew totem pole—the drum techs, the lighting and sound guys—they’re more accessible and willing.” The best venues for naughty favors? Smith says “the Theater at MSG, in the back dressing rooms. If somebody were to—you know—that’s the perfect place.”

TACTIC:
Get a job at the venue, then ditch it

Success Story: “It was 1995 in Orlando, and my friend and I didn’t have Grateful Dead tickets, but we saw flyers for jobs at the arena. Our first night was the night of the show. We were snack girls, and when the show started, we kept taking bathroom breaks to catch a song. Five songs in, they fired us. We ran straight into the show and wound up in the fourth row!”—Rachel, 31, online creative services
Recon: Your best bet for quickie employment is the Central Park SummerStage, which hires around 300 volunteers to aid in assisting audience members and staff, according to David Rivel, executive director of the City Parks Foundation (go to summerstage.org for info). While most shows are free, the benefit concerts—such as Joss Stone and Common on June 8—usually sell out. If you feel guilty about flaking out on a benefit, at least you’ll be working outdoors and you’ll still hear the show.

TACTIC:
Don’t give up. Keep scouring the ticket outlets

Success Story: “Spoon was at the Bowery Ballroom, but it was sold out and Craigslist was expensive. I was on brooklynvegan.com the day before the show, and I read that tickets went back on sale. It was a miracle.”—Tricia McDermott, 33, online news editor
Recon: According to Ticketmaster, which also owns Ticketweb, last-minute passes to sold-out events can be released due to the artist no longer needing tickets that were being held, or the venue staff realizing after setting up that more fans can be sardined in. Music blog BrooklynVegan has become a go-to for keeping fans updated on these reappearing tickets. Says BV’s anonymous editor: “Check the ticket sites three times a day—more in the days leading up to the show. It’s not sold out until the performer hits the stage and the staff assures you you’re not getting in.”

TACTIC:
If all else fails, hit the online brokers

Success Story: “I had paid a bit over face value on Craigslist to get a Coachella ticket, but it was worth it. On the flip side, I snagged Phil Lesh tickets for his show at S.O.B.’s, and I had aging rich hippies offering me hundreds. Phil Lesh is great, but not as great as a new PlayStation 3!”—Jeffrey Baum, 25, paralegal
Recon: Even Ticketmaster is getting into the online auction game, so hawking tickets above their printed value is now as socially acceptable as outlandish service fees. Pros and amateurs alike unload on sites like eBay, Craigslist and StubHub, but it’ll cost you: Tickets to the Kings of Leon show at Roseland on June 5 are going for up to seven times their $27 face value on StubHub. Craigslist usually has better deals, but StubHub scores bonus points for its rollover seating charts showing what’s available in each section. It’s like the microwave oven of scalping-technology breakthroughs.

Also in this issue:

• Ticket masters: Trying to score seats to a sold-out show? Savvy concertgoers reveal eight proven strategies to get you in.
• Win our concert tickets: Want to see some of the hottest acts of the summer? One great photo is all you need.
  • Contest 1: the Police (Meet our winner.)
  • Contest 2: Lily Allen (Meet our winner.)
  • Contest 3: Rock the Bells (Meet our winner.)
  • Contest 4: Live Earth (Meet our winner.)
• Attack of the McVenue: This summer, you’ll find seven fresh clubs, many with connections to big corporations. Does this signal a golden age or Golden Arches for live music?
• Live from New York: The stage, the bathroom and everything in between: Our music staff grades seven of the summer’s newest spots for live music.
• Are new clubs a good thing?: We want to know how you feel.
• Boogie knights: Escort ditches the DJ, bringing back live disco (that’s a good thing, we promise).
• Download-worthy discs: These albums are dropping like it's hot—because it is!
• Summer concerts: June: Your comprehensive calendar to this month's music in New York
• Summer concerts: July: Your comprehensive calendar to this month's music in New York
• Summer concerts: August: Your comprehensive calendar to this month's music in New York
• Summer performers on YouTube: You've heard the songs, but how do these artists stack up live? We give you a taste of their performance mettle.
• Take it outside: Download a block-rocking map of this summer’s outdoor concert venues