EDF duplicate tickets ... TWICE!

I attended the EDF with my 78 year old mother. We had seats in Section 117 Row 2. This was our third game at THF.

Fifteen minutes before kickoff four people show up and politely tell us that we are sitting in their seats. We compare tickets and we have the exact same seats. Great! Find a ticket person and she takes us to Client Services. There is a guy sitting there with a laptop and four people waiting in front of him. Great! The line is not moving ... and his latop is not working. So we all stand around for a couple minutes with the poor guy apologizing to us all about his computer not working.

Someone says something about the game starting in a couple minutes and can we please do something quick. The guy suggests we leave the stadium and go to the ticket box office outside the stadium. No one likes this idea since it would take 10 minutes just to get through the crowd and leaving the stadium with duplicate tickets also leaves us a little apprehensive. The guy asks one of his colleagues for a walkie-talkie and radios the ticket office.

Five minutes later we are given new (hand written) tickets. We are moved from Row 2 to Row 21. Not great but no big deal. We walk up 19 rows as the players are lining up for the kickoff and discover that our new seats already have people sitting in them. We check everyones tickets and once again ... we have duplicate tickets! Kickoff is seconds away. There are four empty seats near us and we decide we are going to take two of those seats and hope for the best. Surprising, the best does happens and we sit in those seats for the entire game.

No huge deal and things worked out well - we saw a GREAT game and the Ticats are going to the Grey Cup! I would just like to point out to the Ticats that they need to improve things at THF. Things that the team probably has little control over - how the stadium is run. I realize that this is a new stadium but it has been open for over 2 months now. Ticketing snafus, overcrowding in the concourses, lack of offices and phones and working computers for customer service, horribly inefficient concession stands with five employees standing around waiting for food to come out, and a sound system that for some games is too loud and for other games is too low. I realize that these are stadium growing pains but the Ticats have to realize that a poorly run stadium will negatively affect their fans. Someone needs to give a clue hammer to the people who run THF.

Please forgive my rant and the saddest thing is that the biggest mistake of the day was made by myself ... I forgot my $9 beer in the cupholder at my seat in Row 2!

Jeeze that sounds terrible!

Sounds like there was a software problem with the Ticketmaster software. It shouldn't be selling duplicate tix to the same seats. How does that happen.

I was talking to the ticket office guys in the mobile trailer last game and I asked when they would be in the permnanent ticket office. They said they could move in right now but it still has no internet so not until next year. Hopefully in the offseason and pre season game they will get ALL the kinks worked out and run a flawless show come July.

And leaving the beer in row 2! I'd be distraught!

Id notify someone from the cats. They may refund your tickets or at least the difference in price level from row 2 to row 21.

were the original tickets purchased from the ticats

I had to sort of laugh as I entered the stadium with my sister. They stopped her to feel her purse and then said go ahead and she then walked in right past the girl doing the scanning ( not even realizing she was walking past the person who scans the tickets). The girl doing the scanning somehow missed her too and did not say anything. I was behind her and the girl had to take three or four cracks at my ticket before it properly scanned mine - and my sister turned around with a shocked expression realizing she had walked right by the scanner without having her ticket looked at.

We joked about calling my brother to ask him if he wanted to come to the game (since we had a few empty seats near us) and I could have easily handed him the unscanned ticket through a gate but we decided not to. We easily could have though.

My two tickets were picked up at Will Call and were arranged by a Ticat player. The others guys tickets were season tickets.

I wondered about that too. How was I let into the stadium with my scanned ticket and then someone else was later let in with the same seat?

My ticket was the standard Ticketmaster ticket (beige & white, approx 6 inches by 2 inches). The other guys tickets were season tickets (black & gold, maybe 8 inches by 4 inches?).

I can only assume that the scanner simply reads the barcode and is not concerned with the actual seat itself. The barcodes on the two tickets must be different. I don’t know.

My buddy in Row 2 told me about this. He couldn't believe it either. We thought for sure you would have been given seats on the field (since most of those seats/tables are/were empty). [Kind of like a bump up to first class, since coach was full]

I hope your buddy, or someone else drank my $9 beer. I fear it went to waste. Beer is a terrible thing to waste!

I had two big decisions to make ...

  1. After kickoff I realized that my $9 beer was at my old seat. Do I inconvenience 15 people in Row 21 and 15 people in Row 2 by walking down to get my beer just after the game started? I did remember to bring my Angus Burger to my new seat and it was delicious!

  2. While in line at Client Services I thought of complaining a bit louder and possibly asking to speak to a manager about getting better seats than Row 21 but the game was about to begin in a couple minutes. Do I miss the start of the game while complaining? It was a close call but I decided to take my lumps and sit in Row 21.

Today I thought about sending an email of complaint to the Ticats about the duplicate tickets but my tickets were free from a Ticat player. Do I really want to cause any concerns for that Ticat player the week before the Grey Cup? He has other things to concentrate on this week! The Ticats won the game, are going to the Grey Cup and I feel that I took one for the team! The things that I do for this team!

I would email both the team and Ticketmaster custumer service about the SNAFU. FWIW, I do not believe the fault lies with either the team or the player. Ticketmaster issues ALL the tickets (and reaps the rewards of the ridiculously high fees) so the buck starts and ends with them.