Hockey fans are eagerly waiting for their favorite Canadian Hockey League team to take the ice for another year as the Halifax Mooseheads hit the rink again in late September. However, many fans are opposed to the Scotiabank Centre’s new ticket system.
The Scotiabank Centre has adopted the widely-known ticket service, Ticketmaster, as their sales platform, hoping to create a better experience for the fans. Fans’ concerns with Ticketmaster include hidden fees, an inability to deal with bots and the unreliability of the service. The Scotiabank Centre wants to deliver a better service for the fans, but many are already debating passing on season tickets because of the new service’s issues.
Ticketmaster incentivizes reselling
Not only does Ticketmaster have many issues regarding bots and reselling, but it has become apparent that the service is huge for scalpers. This is due to the service’s inability to detect bots, which makes it extremely easy for scalpers to use bots to purchase tickets to an event, and resell them for absurd prices.
Recently, Ticketmaster’s bot problem caused issues at the Scotiabank Centre. The Pittsburgh Penguins are facing off against the Ottawa Senators in a preseason game at Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre. But due to the stadium’s adoption of Ticketmaster, many of the tickets have been scalped.
Upper bowl seats now start at $581.59 CAD and lower bowl seats at $2,632.50 from resale. The recent adoption of Ticketmaster is clearly a huge mistake. This situation foreshadows many more similar situations of absurd resales.
The lack of bot control lets the majority of tickets into the hands of scalpers. These issues caused an uproar last November when Taylor Swift’s tour tickets took off and the site crumbled as a result.
The Taylor Swift Ticketmaster Fiasco
Tickets for Taylor Swift’s long anticipated Eras Tour started being sold through Ticketmaster in November 2022. All the tickets sold quickly, although a problem immediately occurred when all the available tickets were sold on presale.
Presale is when only a select few get the first opportunity to purchase tickets for a concert, usually a week in advance of when the tickets are supposed to be available. There is a specific amount of tickets that are allowed to be sold for presale. That way, there will be tickets available for everyone to purchase.
Swifties were outraged when Ticketmaster sold every single one of the highly anticipated Eras Tour tickets on presale. Many did not even gain access to the presale since they were not among the lucky selected to do so. Ticketmaster’s inability to deal with bots became a massive issue culminating in tickets being resold for up to $20,000 USD. Fans were furious. Those who were not selected for presale had to pay those absurd prices, thanks to enormous issues caused by the service.
Ticketmaster is not ready for more customers
Ticketmaster doesn’t appear ready to take on more customers like the Scotiabank Centre. The service seems extremely unreliable. Many fans already try to avoid Ticketmaster because of its many issues.
The Scotiabank Centre’s previous service provider, Paciolan, was slower and had trouble loading tickets. Although, since the Taylor Swift Ticketmaster incident, fans are displeased with the lack of service and issues caused by Ticketmaster. Unless something changes, people will continue avoiding the service. People who have never used Ticketmaster like myself, now know the service is built for scalpers and scammers.
It’s sad the Scotiabank Centre made this move to Ticketmaster. I can relate to all sports fans in saying I am more on edge to purchase a ticket. Unless Ticketmaster changes something I am afraid the Scotiabank Centre may not sell as many season tickets for the Mooseheads as they had hoped.
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