The first blocks of tickets for UFC 129 go on sale Thursday morning, and if you’re hoping to secure a seat at Rogers Centre April 30 you should do two things.

First, join the UFC’s Fight Club, where a $74.99 (U.S.) annual fee gives you a chance to buy up to eight tickets before they go on sale to the general public. Non-members must wait until Saturday morning to buy tickets.

Then you need to act fast.

To ensure the general public will still have seats to buy on Saturday the UFC will cap initial ticket sales to Fight Club members. With the most heavily hyped event in the UFC’s history approaching and nearly 20,000 people enrolled in the Fight Club, the UFC could easily sell all 40,000 seats without even opening sales to the general public.

Hence the cap on pre-sales. Tom Wright, the UFC’s director of Canadian operations, says that even for $75 your Fight Club membership doesn’t guarantee you a chance to buy tickets.

It just gives you a better place in line — as long as you line up early.

“I could say I wish they all went to Fight Club members because my goal is obviously to sell (the event) out,” Wright said. “But my real goal is to make sure it’s accessible to as many fans as possible. We will not allow the fight to be sold out just to Fight Club members.”

Wright wouldn’t specify Thursday’s sales limits but affirmed that tickets still available Saturday morning will number “in the thousands.”

But they still may total a small percentage of the available remaining seats.

Three years ago the UFC staged its first show in Montreal and broke existing records for attendance (21,390) and fastest sellout (five minutes). But the record for quickest sellout only counted the tickets that remained after the UFC sold roughly 20,000 seats to Fight Club members.

Ticket prices range from $50 in the Rogers Centre’s upper levels to $800 for seats closer to ringside, and organizers expect all of them to sell quickly.

When that happens Wright says the UFC and Rogers Centre are prepared to add more seats, which will be made available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Fight Club or not.