This Beyonc fan scored a cheap ticket by waiting until the last minute to buy

If you've been hoping to see Beyonc at her last Canadian tour stop in Vancouver on Mondaybut can't afford the steep ticket prices, you might be able to score a deal if you're willing to wait.

That's what fan Zaid Dagamseh did when the music icon performed in Toronto earlier this summer and resellers were listing prime seats to that showbetween $1,200 and$30,000 a pop.

"Does Beyonc know how expensive her tickets are?"Dagamseh told Cost of Living.

"I don't know what her concept of expensive is like, if she even knows what laundry detergent costs. I am sure Beyonc is like, what's two grand?That's like breakfast or something."

Dagamseh wanted to pay $200, which is roughly what a seat in the nosebleeds was selling for when tickets to the Renaissance World Tour were first released back in February. But Dagamseh didn't want to watch Queen Bey on a screen from afar, he wanted to sit up close and figured he could do that if he waited until the last minute to buy his ticket.

According to one Toronto-based independent ticket broker, Dagamseh's odds were pretty good.

"Ticket prices move in a free market economy,"said Shiraz Mawani, who helps people find tickets to events and resells them."So prices move up, prices move down. But as it gets closer to the event, generally prices come down."

The fact that Beyonc was doingback-to-back concerts in Toronto was also in Dagamseh's favour, Mawani said.

"If there aretwo shows, it basically means there's twice the amount of inventory availableand you can kind of run into an opportunity to potentially find something abit cheaper."

To find out how far prices would fall, theCost of Livingteam took screenshots of several ticketsto Beyonc'sJuly 8 concert at Rogers Centrethat resellerson StubHub reduced in price at the last minute.

In the hour leading up to the show, floor seats that had been listed for thousands of dollars just a few hours earlier started dropping in price.

Dagamseh was gambling that the same scenario would play out for Beyonc's second show on July 9. While he didn't find a seat next to the stage, he bought a front row ticket in the section just above the floor.

The ticket had a face value of $680, but Dagamseh got it for $200 less than a third of the original price from a Facebook buy-and-sell group, 15 minutes before the show started.

How to spot a scammer

Mawani says buying event tickets fromFacebook and other social media outletscan be risky.

"Obviously, there's no 100 per cent perfect way of doing it when you are doing a private transaction like that," he said.

To make the process safer, Mawani suggests checking the seller's Facebook profile and looking around for red flags. If it was created within a few weeks, that's a sign a person may beadvertising fake tickets.

He says you should only buy from a seller with a history of posts and photos that go back several years, and who lives in the same city or country where the concert is happening.

Buyers should alsoinsist on sending money to strangers through PayPal and use the paying for an item or service feature as it entitles buyers to a reimbursement if sellers don't deliver the tickets.

Mawanisays he was once burned by a private seller on Craigslist who was selling four tickets to a Toronto Maple Leafs game. After sendingthe money by Interac e-transfer, Mawani said the seller ghosted him.

"No response. The guy disappears emails bouncing back. Nothing I can do."

E-transfers"cannot be reversed once a recipient has deposited the funds," according to the Interac website.

Girls' nightruined

When buying from ticket resale websites, such asSeatGeek, Vivid Seats and StubHub, buyers are guaranteed a refund if anything goes wrong.

That's what happened to Amanda Dias and her three friends when they went to see Beyonc's second Toronto show this summer. They never made it through the gates of Rogers Centre because two of the four tickets they purchased from a reseller on StubHub three weeks prior had already been scanned by another ticketholder.

Dias said it was a relief to know shewill be reimbursed for herticket, but is still out hundreds of dollars from the gas she spent travelling from Georgetown, Ont., to the Big Smoke,plusUber rides and a new outfit she bought for the concert.

"It was girls' night," Diassaid. "I have a four year old at home, so I made major arrangements to come here."

Cost of Living7:57How to score cheap (and fantastic!) seats to a concert

With big stadium concerts likeColdplay and Aerosmith coming through Canada this fall,there are plenty of opportunities to try and score a last minute seat. But likely just one seat.

Lucky for Dagamseh, that was all he needed.

"If you want to sit together,you're gambling. It's going to be tough,"said Dagamseh.

"If you're a lone ranger, you're all good."