Three delivery methods cover almost everything you will be offered here: mobile transfer (about nine in ten listings), e-ticket PDFs, and instant download. All three are electronic and none of them costs extra. Physical tickets that ship are not listed on this site at all, and a small number of paperless or guest-list listings are redeemed at the box office instead.
You do not pick the method: the seller sets it on each listing and your order shows it. Here is what each one means, and when the tickets actually arrive.
What are mobile tickets?
By a wide margin, the most common one you'll get. A barcode or QR code lives on your phone, in a wallet app or the venue's app, and staff scan it right off your screen at the gate. Nothing to print, and mobile delivery almost never carries a delivery charge.
What is mobile transfer?
A particular flavor of mobile delivery: instead of handing you a barcode directly, the seller transfers the tickets into your own account or wallet app. You accept the transfer, and they're yours.
Once tickets are in your account, passing them to a friend is its own small process. How to transfer tickets walks through it step by step.
What are e-tickets (PDF)?
An electronic ticket that comes as a PDF: pull it up on your phone or print it at home, your call. Each PDF carries its own barcode. If your event goes the PDF route, keep the file somewhere easy to find, and printing a paper backup isn't a bad idea in case your battery's running low by showtime.
Instant download is the same idea on a faster clock: the ticket file is available the moment the order confirms, usually as a PDF from a link in your account or email, which is why it is the usual method when a purchase happens hours before the show.
What about will-call and shipped tickets?
"Will call" means the tickets are held for you at the venue, under your name, and you collect them in person at the box office. The name is old box-office shorthand (the tickets "will be called for"). It is the exception here rather than a method you can choose — a small number of listings are paperless or guest-list and are redeemed at the box office.
Physical hard stock, a small and steadily shrinking share of tickets industry-wide, ships to your door, and most marketplaces bill the courier separately. We don't list those. Nothing you buy here arrives in the mail, so there is no shipping charge to disclose and nothing to wait for.
Which will I get, and when?
You don't pick the method: the seller sets it on each listing, and your order shows it. Some mobile tickets land right after you buy; others are held back until closer to the date as an anti-fraud measure. That's completely normal, and either way they're guaranteed to reach you in time. There's more on the timing in how mobile ticket delivery works.