Indian Wells Masters Tickets: Prices and How to Buy Them

Indian Wells Masters tickets — officially for the BNP Paribas Open, the ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 tennis tournament, not a golf event — start at $10 for a qualifying-day Grounds Pass, according to the tournament’s own pricing. Main-draw Grounds Passes and early Stadium 1 sessions typically run $30 to $90, climbing past $400 for a reserved seat at the singles finals, and a full-tournament Series Package in Stadium 1 starts at $875. Everything is sold direct through bnpparibasopen.com and the tournament’s ticketing partner AXS. Here’s what each ticket type actually gets you, what it costs by round, and why players keep voting this Masters 1000 their favorite stop on tour.

How much do Indian Wells Masters tickets cost?

Unlike Wimbledon or the US Open, Indian Wells doesn’t publish one fixed price chart — tickets are dynamically priced through AXS and move with demand, day of the week, and how far out you buy. That said, real listings cluster into predictable bands by round and stadium.

Ticket type	Round / stadium	Typical price	Notes
Qualifying Grounds Pass	Feb 28–Mar 2	$10 flat	Official price; all-day access, benefits a tournament charity
Grounds Pass	Main draw, Stadiums 3–9	roughly $30–$90/day	No Stadium 1 or 2 access
Stadium 1, early rounds	Round of 64/32	from ~$32	Cheapest reserved stadium seat
Stadium 1, second week	Round of 16 / quarterfinals	roughly $100–$250	Prices jump once seeds start clashing
Stadium 1, semifinals	Men’s/Women’s semis	from ~$200	Two singles semis plus doubles finals
Stadium 1, final	Championship Sunday	from ~$420, averaging well over $1,000 on resale	Highest-demand session of the event
Series Package (Stadium 1)	Full tournament, same seat	starts at $875	Best value only if attending most sessions

Those Stadium 1 figures reflect marketplace listings tracked by Vivid Seats closer to the tournament, and the qualifying and Series Package numbers come straight from the tournament’s own site. If you want the cheapest real day at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, a qualifying Grounds Pass is it — you’ll see rising pros and, most years, a handful of seeded players sneaking in practice sets on outer courts for a tenth of what a main-draw ticket costs.

Grounds Pass vs. stadium ticket: what’s the real difference?

A Grounds Pass buys full-day, non-reserved access to Stadiums 3 through 9, every practice court, and the grounds themselves — dining, shopping, and the general buzz that makes Indian Wells feel more like a tennis festival than a stiff formal event. It does not include Stadium 1 or Stadium 2.

A stadium ticket is a reserved seat for one session in Stadium 1, 2, or 3, and it also folds in Grounds Pass-level access to the smaller courts on that same day. So a Stadium 1 ticket effectively includes a Grounds Pass, but a Grounds Pass never includes a Stadium 1 seat. If watching a specific top-10 player on the main court is the point of your trip, you need the stadium ticket, not the grounds-only option.

Should you buy a single session or a Series Package?

A Series Package locks in the same Stadium 1 seat for every session of the main draw, from the first Wednesday through the championship match, and starts at $875 per the tournament’s official package page. Package holders also skip resale fees on sessions they can’t attend and get general admission to every other stadium for the full two weeks.

Here’s the honest math: if you’re only in town for a long weekend, single sessions almost always cost less in total than a package, even stacking three or four premium days. The Series Package earns its price only for fans who are actually there most of the fortnight — locals, retirees on a long desert stay, or anyone building a trip entirely around the tournament. For a first visit, buy one or two single sessions in the second week, when the draw has thinned and the tennis is sharper, rather than paying for ten days you’ll only use for three.

Why do players and fans call Indian Wells tennis’s “fifth major”?

Indian Wells isn’t officially a major — it’s a joint ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 event, one tier below the four Grand Slams, per ATP Tour’s own tournament listing. But the nickname sticks for real reasons. Stadium 1 seats 16,100, the second-largest purpose-built outdoor tennis stadium anywhere after Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open, and the grounds sprawl across nine show courts instead of two or three.

Access is the bigger draw. Practice courts sit close enough to the walkways that you can hear a coach calling out footwork drills, and outer-court sessions put you within a few rows of players you’d never get near at a Slam. The 2025 edition drew a record 504,268 fans through the gates, according to the tournament’s own recap — more than any non-Slam event on either tour, and players have voted it their favorite Masters 1000 stop for over a decade running. The atmosphere backs up the marketing, which is rarer than it sounds in tennis.

Did Indian Wells change Grounds Pass access to Stadium 2?

Yes, and it’s the one thing most ticket guides skip. For years, a Grounds Pass or a Stadium 1 ticket also got you into the upper bowl of Stadium 2. That changed: Stadium 2 is now fully reserved seating, and neither a Grounds Pass nor a Stadium 1 ticket grants entry anymore, per the tournament’s current FAQ. Fans noticed immediately — Yahoo Sports reported visible backlash after night sessions in Stadium 2 played to sparsely filled seats while Grounds Pass holders were turned away at the door.

The practical takeaway: if a specific Stadium 2 match matters to you — and Stadium 2’s lower bowl often hosts genuinely good tennis on quieter days — you now need a Stadium 2 ticket specifically. Don’t assume your Grounds Pass covers it the way it used to, and don’t plan a day around “we’ll just wander into whichever court looks good,” because that no longer works for Stadium 2.

When do tickets go on sale, and how do you buy them?

Series Packages go on sale first, typically months before the tournament. Single Session and Daily Double tickets follow, going on sale in September for the following March’s event, per the tournament’s official ticket announcement. Qualifying Grounds Passes at $10 usually open up closer to the event itself. All tickets are digital, issued through AXS, and accessed via the BNP Paribas Open mobile app rather than a printed ticket.

Buy direct at bnpparibasopen.com/tickets or by calling the box office at 1-800-999-1585 (Monday–Friday, 10am–5pm PST). There’s no ballot or lottery system like Wimbledon’s — it’s straightforward first-come, first-served sale, which makes Indian Wells noticeably easier to plan around than a Grand Slam.

Is it safe to buy Indian Wells tickets on resale sites?

Safer than most tournaments, with one catch. AXS runs the tournament’s official verified resale, so tickets bought through AXS.com or the AXS app carry the same guarantee as a first sale. Third-party marketplaces like StubHub, Vivid Seats, or Gametime also sell real inventory, since they source from AXS listings, but prices there move with demand and can run well above face value for marquee sessions.

The one policy to know: the tournament’s weather-exchange protection, which lets you swap a rained-out or heat-delayed session for a Grounds Pass, only applies to tickets bought through official channels. Buy on a third-party site and you lose that safety net if a session gets cut short.

Buying Indian Wells tickets from the UK, Australia, or Canada

There’s no residency requirement on any Indian Wells ticket — you set up the same AXS account a Southern California local would use, and tickets deliver through the tournament app regardless of where you live. The friction is entirely logistical: flights and a Palm Springs-area hotel during a two-week event that regularly pulls half a million fans book up and price up fast, so lock accommodation as soon as you’ve settled on dates.

Every price above is in US dollars, and the pound, Australian dollar, and Canadian dollar all move against it throughout the year. Check the live rate before comparing an Indian Wells session to a home-market event, and remember that March in the Coachella Valley means daytime heat — pack for desert sun, not a typical tennis-season forecast.

Which ticket should you actually buy?

For a first trip, skip the Series Package and buy one strong single session in Stadium 1 during the second week, when the draw has narrowed and every match matters. Pair it with a Grounds Pass day earlier in the tournament to see more courts and more players for less money — just don’t expect that Grounds Pass to open Stadium 2 anymore.

Once your tickets are sorted, brush up on the basics before you go: our guide to how tennis scoring works covers the format you’ll see across all nine courts, and our breakdown of what counts as a Grand Slam in tennis explains exactly where a Masters 1000 event like this sits below the four majors. If Indian Wells is one stop on a bigger tennis trip, see our guides to Wimbledon tickets and Cincinnati Masters tickets for how the buying process compares at the other big stops on tour.