Ahem
At any rate, it did not take long for the UFC to announce a major MMA card here in Toronto. They wanted to break an attendance record for the fight and were careful to load the card with Canadian fighters, including the reigning welterweight champ, George St Pierre
UFC president, the urbane and erudite Dana White (that is so a joke, this guy has all the class and manners of a drunken 500 pound gorilla from the Ozarks and yes, that is an insult to people from the Ozarks) selected the Rogers Centre, formerly the Sky Dome as the venue, hoping to sell at least 40,000 seats. No, that is not a typo. Forty thousand seats
Collette and I wanted to go. Not just because we are fans of the sport but because we have been waiting for this for a long time. We've never before been able to see a big scale MMA event and we wanted in on this one And for once, we were in a position to grab really good seats, even with an announced price range from 800 dollars (ringside and close enough to identify which fighter's blood you have just been splashed with) to 50 dollars (in the upper 500 seats where you not only good nose bleeds but you are given free oxygen.
We knew these tickets would go quickly. MMA and the UFC are hugely popular here, Ontario regularly buys more UFC pay per view events than other location in the world. But this is also Toronto, where if something is new, if it's the first, people have to jump all over it, just to say they could. And if it costs money, like an inordinate amount of money, they have to get in on it, just prove they have more money than brains. That is like a badge of honour in this city.
So we knew we had a fight on our hands. But I never thought it was a fight that would make me feel as if I had just gone a round with the champ
OK, Mr St Pierre could make me cry with a stern look, but you get my point. One thing I did to gain an advantage was to join the UFC Fight Club, which would allow me pre buy tickets a few days before the general public for the oh so lovely low low price of almost 100 bucks. Yes. It's true. During this whole endeavour, I may have lost my mind
Or lost more of my mind
Or the rest of my mind
Or something
Now, for this pre sale, the only way to acquire tickets was online, via TicketMaster. You know TicketMaster, otherwise known as the Anti Christ. I hate Ticket Master. I have never had a satisfactory experience dealing with them. It always seems to me that no matter how diligent you are, jumping through the hoops they establish, I never get the seats that I want, seats that always seem for sale on the street the evening of the event. Whenever I can, I deal directly with the box office of the venue, but that option at this point was not available.
So there I go, my 100 dollar pre sale code in hand, at my computer right on time, hovering around the Ticket Master site as if it was going to do something miraculous, like part the Red Sea or turn my ponytail brown again ...
I connected with Ticket Master right away. Less than a minute after the tickets went on sale, the best I could do was the 200 section at the Dome. A minute after that, only 500 level seats were left. Five minutes after 10 am, no tickets were available ...
I know some people through this offer were able to get the floor seats I was yearning for. Part of the problem was that you were allowed to purchase 8 seats per order. I know for a fact that many people did this even though they did not have that many people in their party. So golly, we aren't much encouraging scalping are we?
At first "only" 40,000 seats were available. They were sold out by the time the public could purchase, a couple of days later. So they opened up the rest of the dome. For kicks, I went online again. Public tickets went onsale at 10 am. I was offered a couple of seats 10 seconds after 10 .. and only 500's were available
At first I was disapointed and certainly pissed off. All is not kosher here. There are lots of floor level seats available on Craiglist and sites known for scalping. There is no doubt in my mind that Ticket Master "loses" large blocks of tickets that show up for sale elsewhere
But I know many many many many people, who paid their 100 bucks and did their due dilligence were not able to get seats. And I know at least half a dozen people who "lost" their tickets in the electronic Hell that is Ticket Master
So I am not so much disapointed. Not pissed off, but I'm disgruntled. Hell, I'm almost always disgruntled. I think that is part of my charm.
Ahem. Shut up
But it actually does piss me off that one company can have such a monopoly. Who's policing it? Probably not police, there isn't a Summit to patrol and young women with soap bubbles to intimidate ... but I digress. Which is pretty much the point of this blog anyway
But for all my whining and moaning I did buy tickets. And for more money than what they are worth. And we will go see the fights. And buy the overpriced beer and fart out the overpriced food ... Will we go to see another? That remains to be seen
I'm going to start saving now. And waiting in line for my tickets
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