Arts & Entertainment

How to Get FreeFest Tickets: 5 Tips

How to improve your chances of getting Virgin Mobile Freefest tickets this week.


Tickets for 2013's Virgin Mobile FreeFest at Columbia's Merriweather Post Pavilion will be available at a general sale Friday at noon.

(Technically, it's not really a sale, since tickets to the Sept. 21 event are free, but Virgin recommends festival-goers donate to a local charity.)

Anyone who has tried to obtain tickets to FreeFest in the past knows how difficult it can be, with thousands of people all attempting to get free tickets at exactly the same time.

Well, here are five tips on how to improve your chances when the tickets become available:

  1. Follow Virgin Mobile on Twitter and Facebook. These accounts will release early access codes to obtain tickets. The company is using the hashtag #breakfree, so search for that to help you find a code.
  2. On TicketFly, make sure you have an account ahead of time, and have the FreeFest sale site bookmarked on your computer, this will help you get to it quickly at noon.
  3. Clear your cache, or restart your browser if you can't access tickets immediately on TicketFly, don't just refresh.
  4. Don't go to the Merriweather box office or try to call. The tickets are available only online during the initial sale, according to a Merriweather box office employee. The employee said as of right now, they don't even know if tickets will be available for a charitable donation after the inital sale.
  5. Don't try to order more than two tickets if you do get through. On TicketFly, ordering more than the maximum number of tickets can get your order canceled, so you risk losing the two you may have gotten if you just followed the rules.
Robin Thicke, Vampire Weekend and Icona Pop are among the big names headlining this year's trendy festival, which takes place to raise money to fight youth homelessness.  Check here for a list of the acts that will be playing at Virgin Mobile FreeFest this year.


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