San Francisco

non-annual events worth Attending

SFWanderlust Team November 28, 2018

Bay never falls short of Fun !

On Monday we covered annual events worthy of your attention and perhaps attendance as well. In this post, cover other fun and worthy events that are don’t follow a particular schedule. We will also cover different ways to find them as well.

First of all, I am a big fan of concerts and I feel lucky to be living in San Francisco, which gives me tremendous access to them. By access I mean close proximity to areas that most artists and bands performs at. For example, in the city, you’ll usually see concerts taking place at the AT&T park, Bill Graham Auditorium, the Ferry Building, and the Masonic. Unfortunately, most of these places are small in size – SF is a small city square-foot-area wise. So if concerts are happening in the city, you better get your tickets fast.

Oakland and San Jose also host tons of concerts throughout the year. My favorite bands and artists are One Republic, Kelly Clarkson, Linkin Park and many more. All of them have performed in San Francisco in the last 5 years or so and I attended them. How do I find out about concerts and get my tickets?

Where to look and book ?

There are a few big websites that inform you about concerts and sell tickets including: Ticketmaster, LiveNation, and Stubhub. I believe with both Ticketmaster and Stubhub, you can buy and sell as well if you change your mind. You can create a customized search on their websites and set it so that it notifies you via email or phone if your favorite band or artist is coming to town (the city or area that you’ve set online). Make up your mind quickly and know you want to attend a particular concert. If you are OK with the dates and times, get your tickets at the time they’re on sale – that’s when you get the best prices. If the cheapest tickets run out however, you can also purchase them from people who change their mind and put their tickets for sale online.

Don’t rely on this, but this technique has rescued me and my girlfriend once at the last minute. We totally missed the first sale window and only VIP-price tickets were available so we checked Stubhub and found someone selling two regular standing tickets at even lower prices than they were at the time of first availability. You can also search on Craigslist and we’ve covered Craigslist in other posts. I prefer to buy physical items like laptops, phones, headphones etc. on Craigslist but not electronic items such as tickets and software delivered via email/digital codes.

Another strategy is to simply search on social media platforms such as Facebook – just do a general search and type something like “One Republic tickets” in your search bar and you’ll see a ton of relevant results. I haven’t had luck with this strategy but I know folks who have.

Watch the Champions

Next events are sports games, usually for the Bay Area that would typically be a baseball or basketball games. Our Bay Area-based and beloved basketball and baseball teams are the Golden State Warriors and San Francisco Giants, respectively. Tickets can be found online as well at StubHub, MLB, NBA, and TicketMaster. The same strategies mentioned above would apply here as well.

Soccer isn’t the biggest sport in the Bay Area or in the US, in general. But if you search, you’ll always find matches here and there. Not much to say here, but when I attend games I see folks wearing jerseys to support their team. Get your gear online and save some money.

Get-together Event

Baseball game - San Francisco Giants

Basketball game - Golden Gate Warriors

Thinking non-sport and non-concert ?

The next category is hobby-related and really, this could include endless possibilities. There are so many events and get-togethers here that you’d have to be strategic about how you want to attend them to get the most out of your time. For these kind of events I typically use Eventbrite, Meetup.com, and Facebook under the event section. For example, I am into hiking and photographer in nature and national parks so I’d search something along the lines of: “weekend national park hike,” “national park photography,” or “landscape photography meetups.” I then sort them by relevance or date, depending on how many results came back. Some events are free, some are paid. If you’re going to have to spend money on these events, dig in a bit deeper and know what you’re paying for.

Make your experience better

I’ve had great experiences with great events, but there were also events that were a total waste of time and money – I won’t get into that now. Look into reviews and try to find different things people say about the particular event you’re interested in. On Meetup for example, you can actually view the participant list. Read through their bio and see if your interests are somewhat similar – you might know more innovative ways to learn about events so please share them with us down in the comment section.

We know, for certain, that you are already familiar with some of the techniques mentioned above. If not, I hope that you’ve learned a couple new things about finding and getting tickets for your events. Stay tuned for our next post and follow us on social media. For more San Francisco travel tips and locations, please click here. Take care for now.

Google Sites

Report abuse