Season ticket holder no more

[Boris Zubov]

I have had the opposite experience. I have had crazy, aggressively drunk opposing fans in my section that have tried hard to ruin everyone's time. Blackhawks, Sharks, Flyers, Capitals, and Kings fans have been the worst. Only problem I have with Knights fans is they don't have hockey etiquette. Always getting up during play with no regard for their fellow fans.

I said for the most part. I wasn't there for either Flyer game but I heard the one last February was awful. It was a week after the Super Bowl, so they were extra fired up. The SCF game I went to was obnoxious from both sides, just a complete drunken shit show.

I prefer to go to the games with the Canadian teams. Their fans are always good natured & self deprecating when their teams stink. Just really good people.

 

[CBJ VGK]

I said for the most part. I wasn't there for either Flyer game but I heard the one last February was awful. It was a week after the Super Bowl, so they were extra fired up. The SCF game I went to was obnoxious from both sides, just a complete drunken **** show.

I prefer to go to the games with the Canadian teams. Their fans are always good natured & self deprecating when their teams stink. Just really good people.

Totally agree...Canadian fans are the best. The only problem ones I've encountered were St. Louis and Philly.

 

[IceNeophyte]

Totally agree...Canadian fans are the best. The only problem ones I've encountered were St. Louis and Philly.

Looks like there's universal agreement on Philly.

 

[BattleBorn]

Looks like there's universal agreement on Philly.

Philly was definitely the worst that I attended, though I missed St. Louis.

Winnipeg was a group of lowkey assholes. Tonight's game and the situation that developed in the playoffs didn't change my opinion. They were cool in the playoffs since there weren't many of them in the WCF. In groups during the regular season, they were awful.

 

[frezco87]

I got yanked as well. Section 204
Sign up for 5 years and received an email stating i was selling tickets on the secondary market ,which is the Flash seats system. I mean what da hell?? i cannot used their system? Sold 23 games on flash seats and transfer the rest to friends ,family and donations. I call in to talk to my rep Dillon , and i ask him "what do you mean secondary market ,I've been following all your rules" He just told me that im making profit from the team and that's a No No and plus that im a out of town season tickets holder.." I ask well what is the % to attend games in that case? , He reply by saying that ,that's an internal between them and cannot be discuss or answer..The rep was not talking much .
I mean ,yes im out of town ,i cannot attend every game but put it in the Freaking description what is the % to attend games. Also ,i believed that when the sign up came up for the deposit, they should have put a zip code restrictions for season tickets holders. If that was the case i was never going to sign up .From what im reading online and a few forums is that they are taken off season tickets from out of town people.
Anyhow it was great attending the Stanley cup finals, first time ever in my life and met great friends .Great attending the Opener. Love the city ,the atmosphere. Wish i can relocate one day.

 

[mundyc3]

I got yanked as well. Section 204
Sign up for 5 years and received an email stating i was selling tickets on the secondary market ,which is the Flash seats system. I mean what da hell?? i cannot used their system? Sold 23 games on flash seats and transfer the rest to friends ,family and donations. I call in to talk to my rep Dillon , and i ask him "what do you mean secondary market ,I've been following all your rules" He just told me that im making profit from the team and that's a No No and plus that im a out of town season tickets holder.." I ask well what is the % to attend games in that case? , He reply by saying that ,that's an internal between them and cannot be discuss or answer..The rep was not talking much .
I mean ,yes im out of town ,i cannot attend every game but put it in the Freaking description what is the % to attend games. Also ,i believed that when the sign up came up for the deposit, they should have put a zip code restrictions for season tickets holders. If that was the case i was never going to sign up .From what im reading online and a few forums is that they are taken off season tickets from out of town people.
Anyhow it was great attending the Stanley cup finals, first time ever in my life and met great friends .Great attending the Opener. Love the city ,the atmosphere. Wish i can relocate one day.

Sorry to hear. Out of curiosity where in 204? Seen a huge increase of randoms in the section and I am wondering if they are doing this to a lot of people in the section.

 

[frezco87]

Sorry to hear. Out of curiosity where in 204? Seen a huge increase of randoms in the section and I am wondering if they are doing this to a lot of people in the section.

204 row D

 

[mundyc3]

204 row D

Row E. Sorry to hear.

 

[willy702]

The other thing a lot of people conveniently overlook is what if the team was bad? Those who made the team happen by putting down deposits without even an assurance there would be a team, how much tickets would cost or what the views would be like are getting cut off. We were forced to make a commitment to buy multiple seasons and here we are living up to our commitment. This was an expansion team it could have quite easily been a disaster by now. I was very leery about the third year and for those who had to take 5 years I would have been fearing the worst. Everyone knew year one would be fine and maybe year two could be ok but if they were as bad as most expansion teams the market could be getting a bit thin by year 3 unless the team was making a quick rise and living up to the playoffs in 3 pledge. Easy to act like those who don't go to every game were looking to profit now, but it overlooks the true risk we took to make hockey happen in Vegas. And for that we get called out as being bad for the team. Whatever

 

[Boris Zubov]

The other thing a lot of people conveniently overlook is what if the team was bad? Those who made the team happen by putting down deposits without even an assurance there would be a team, how much tickets would cost or what the views would be like are getting cut off. We were forced to make a commitment to buy multiple seasons and here we are living up to our commitment. This was an expansion team it could have quite easily been a disaster by now. I was very leery about the third year and for those who had to take 5 years I would have been fearing the worst. Everyone knew year one would be fine and maybe year two could be ok but if they were as bad as most expansion teams the market could be getting a bit thin by year 3 unless the team was making a quick rise and living up to the playoffs in 3 pledge. Easy to act like those who don't go to every game were looking to profit now, but it overlooks the true risk we took to make hockey happen in Vegas. And for that we get called out as being bad for the team. Whatever

Couldn't agree more. Which is why I cannot believe how short sighted they are acting in this transient town. No offense to anyone personally, but the major cities in the Southwest of the USA have proven year in & year out that their sports teams only get hardcore fan support when their teams are competing for championships. Even the Dodgers & Lakers aren't immune to fickle attendance numbers.

When I lived in SoCal 10 years ago, it was so dirt cheap to walk into any sporting event in either LA or San Diego. I don't watch or follow the NBA, so I imagine an NBA Finals ticket can be tough to come by, but on the other hand in 2014 I drove down from Vegas to see the Rangers in Game 1 of the SCFs & walked in for face value.

In Phoenix, even NFL tickets are cheap as hell unless the Bears or Cowboys are in town. Not to mention how ridiculously low priced MLB & NHL tickets are on the secondary markets. I can't imagine anyone being a season subscriber for any of those teams when you can regularly walk in on the day of the game for less than $15.

From the beginning signing up as a VGK season ticket was a giant crap shoot unless you planned to attend 41 games a season. We could've easily been Phoenix on the ice, even though the tourist market was a safe bet against a ton of empty seats like the Coyotes have. Regardless, the team should've set these conditions about out of town ownership & attending a certain percentage of games BEFORE agreeing to terms with their STHs. Not to mention the multiple sales pitches I, & many others I've spoken to, received on the phone & in person during their Open House, about how easy it would be to sell our seats for the games we couldn't attend, without a word of any restrictions. Pretty ironic when you think about how utterly useless Flashseats & the VGK exchange both are. I digress...

 

[Vegan Knight]

Don't sell over half your tickets. I'm fine with them being hard as soon as people sell their 22nd ticket. That's already making a pretty penny off of the team.

Also no one here "made this team happen." There is a lot of entitlement in these comments. It isn't reasonable to expect to get free tickets and make a profit off of a product you have nothing to do with. This won't hurt the team, it will grow the local fanbase and help the team.

 

[willy702]

Don't sell over half your tickets. I'm fine with them being hard as soon as people sell their 22nd ticket. That's already making a pretty penny off of the team.

Also no one here "made this team happen." There is a lot of entitlement in these comments. It isn't reasonable to expect to get free tickets and make a profit off of a product you have nothing to do with. This won't hurt the team, it will grow the local fanbase and help the team.

When could I have expected free tickets? They sure didn't feel free when I had to commit over $3000 before a single game had ever been played because you see we started paying for the tickets over 9 months before the first event. And fine we didn't make this team happen, but that's what we were told when the ticket drive was started. Should we have ignored the NHL's comments that they would decide if there was a team only if enough people put up real money to commit to season, not partial or single game, tickets?

 

[KnishOfTheCrease]

I’m done with them after this season. I should have pulled the plug over the summer when they jacked me around with ticket packages and raised me $22 a ticket. I had people that wanted to partner with me so I got them. I thought I’d get over it but I’m still bitter about it.

 

[Vegan Knight]

When could I have expected free tickets? They sure didn't feel free when I had to commit over $3000 before a single game had ever been played because you see we started paying for the tickets over 9 months before the first event. And fine we didn't make this team happen, but that's what we were told when the ticket drive was started. Should we have ignored the NHL's comments that they would decide if there was a team only if enough people put up real money to commit to season, not partial or single game, tickets?

A lot of people have dropped money on this team without getting any of it recouped back. You didn't buy a higher tier of fandom that makes you better than others by being part of the initial drive.

It wasn't an investment, you were purchasing a product. They've put on that product (and a much better one than expected) and you could have gotten in to all those games by virtue of your payment.

They've even given the opportunity for profit by reselling their product at a higher price but if they decide there is only so much they will allow that is not only their prerogative but it is perfectly reasonable.

 

[sting13]

I got yanked as well. Section 204
Sign up for 5 years and received an email stating i was selling tickets on the secondary market ,which is the Flash seats system. I mean what da hell?? i cannot used their system? Sold 23 games on flash seats and transfer the rest to friends ,family and donations. I call in to talk to my rep Dillon , and i ask him "what do you mean secondary market ,I've been following all your rules" He just told me that im making profit from the team and that's a No No and plus that im a out of town season tickets holder.." I ask well what is the % to attend games in that case? , He reply by saying that ,that's an internal between them and cannot be discuss or answer..The rep was not talking much .
I mean ,yes im out of town ,i cannot attend every game but put it in the Freaking description what is the % to attend games. Also ,i believed that when the sign up came up for the deposit, they should have put a zip code restrictions for season tickets holders. If that was the case i was never going to sign up .From what im reading online and a few forums is that they are taken off season tickets from out of town people.
Anyhow it was great attending the Stanley cup finals, first time ever in my life and met great friends .Great attending the Opener. Love the city ,the atmosphere. Wish i can relocate one day.

Ok I understand why the Knights are cracking down on this kind of thing. The same kind of thing happened with the Winnipeg Jets. People from out of town started selling the tickets for a profit and driving up the price of tickets on the secondary market. People started to feel tickets were getting to expensive and stopped buying on the secondary market and now regular season ticket holders who can't make a few games a year for legit reasons can't sell the tickets even at cost. When that started to occur, some season ticket holders started dropping their season tickets. So the club is starting to lose ticket holders over this reason. The Jets are in year 8 and still have a wait list but it has shrunk and more and more people are dropping out because they can't sell a few tickets each year that they need to, So I get why the Knights need to protect themselves from this happening in the future.

 

[CupInSIX]

I’m done with them after this season. I should have pulled the plug over the summer when they jacked me around with ticket packages and raised me $22 a ticket. I had people that wanted to partner with me so I got them. I thought I’d get over it but I’m still bitter about it.

I get what you're saying but it's a pretty common thing to see ticket prices increase when a team does substantially better than expected. And merch is through the roof. And ratings...

 

[KnishOfTheCrease]

I get what you're saying but it's a pretty common thing to see ticket prices increase when a team does substantially better than expected. And merch is through the roof. And ratings...

But....they eliminated the 1/2 Package due to the popularity. Thus negating my discount and offered me a 1/4 Season. 3 days after I purchased the 1/4 season they all of a sudden had extra 1/4 Season packages available at full price of course. Jacking my seats up to $73 & $78 from the $50 they were last year. I’m aware that I didn’t have to buy them but I made the decision so one of my buddies could get in on the package.

 

[Esteban Tornado]

I don’t see the problem. I sell my tickets for the average of what I paid for them. I told my agent this is what I’m gonna do, he said no problem.

 

[BattleBorn]

I don’t see the problem. I sell my tickets for the average of what I paid for them. I told my agent this is what I’m gonna do, he said no problem.

I do the same. No drama yet, but I’ve only ever listed two tickets.

Didn’t know I was going to live out of state when I got the tickets, but here I am. The ultimate goal is to return to Vegas, so we’ll keep the tickets as long as they’ll let us. Hopefully forever.

 

[NucksRuleYep]

Vegas ownership will regret this one day. Besides, they are doing it all wrong.

If I ran an NHL team and I wanted to avoid all scalping, that's how I would do it. Each STH would be issued a debit card with all their games on it. That's it. There would be NO other way to use tickets, you must present the physical debit card and swipe it at the game. No mobile tickets, no PDF tickets, etc.

BUT, if you can't attend a game, you can "resell" those tickets back to the Vegas Knights for a credit on your account of exactly what you paid, with 48 hours notice. You can resell up to 21 games back to them per season, meaning, you must go to at least 21 games (or eat the cost).

That would work for Vegas because they would get the tickets back to sell themselves for profit. And it would be UP FRONT about it, not some shady deal.

Too bad it sounds like idiots work for Vegas.

 

[BattleBorn]

Vegas ownership will regret this one day. Besides, they are doing it all wrong.

If I ran an NHL team and I wanted to avoid all scalping, that's how I would do it. Each STH would be issued a debit card with all their games on it. That's it. There would be NO other way to use tickets, you must present the physical debit card and swipe it at the game. No mobile tickets, no PDF tickets, etc.

BUT, if you can't attend a game, you can "resell" those tickets back to the Vegas Knights for a credit on your account of exactly what you paid, with 48 hours notice. You can resell up to 21 games back to them per season, meaning, you must go to at least 21 games (or eat the cost).

That would work for Vegas because they would get the tickets back to sell themselves for profit. And it would be UP FRONT about it, not some shady deal.

Too bad it sounds like idiots work for Vegas.

Teams kind of used to do something like that, they'd just mail you physical tickets. However, they decided they'd rather save some printing costs and gain a little extra control over knowing who's using the tickets so they made them electronic. Teams today have more control than they ever had over who uses the tickets they sell them, and this whole thing is a result.

I suppose it comes down to what you consider the product is that's getting solid. Is it the performance on the ice, or is it tickets to see the performance?

Either way, debit cards wouldn't really work for a lot of your high dollar situations. Most of the great seats I've ever used to attend games were given to me by some corporation that uses their season tickets as customer perks. Hell, I got some tickets for a Seahawks game last month and sat in seats that I'm almost positive have never had the actual owners sit in them. The company that owns them even had a little plaque on the seat, yet there I was.

Season tickets are consistent income for the team, in some cases they're consistent income over seasons. Every potential game in a seat sold to a STH is sold prior to the season starting and some of them have long term commitments. As far as I'm concerned, you either want that consistent income or you want to fleece when you can. In the VGK's case, they sold a lot of those tickets during the ticket drive with the understanding that Vegas would pay above average prices for expansion team hockey and they did it prior to the team even being solid to get awarded. People can say what they want about how crappy it is that early STH deposit people think we're some different level of customer that deserves a little more respect than you're average customer, but I've yet to hear a valid argument against it. The ticket drive that brought the team to Las Vegas was open to everyone, some people put their money down and others didn't. That's all there is to it as far as I can see. Glad to have the city on board, but the people that threw money in on the dream deserve to get treated well.

 

[Jett Jagaar]

I am going to through my 2 cents in here...

I rarely post (like never) but do lurk a lot and after reading the posts, I wanted to add a different perspective.

First of all, I do believe that those of us who committed to season tickets during the initial drive absolutely helped bring the team here. If commitments had flattened out at less than 10k, I really believe we wouldn't have a team. In fact, the first time I talked with my rep, she said almost exactly the same thing. Also, when my cousin and I first discussed purchasing the tickets, we knew we would have to sell some games so our best hope was that we would maybe make back $500 of our total paid. We did not purchase the tickets to make money.

Like many STH, I live in Utah. Not a long drive but still far enough away that going to a game is an all day commitment. When talking to my rep before the first season began, I asked if me being out of town was a problem. Nope! Absolutely not! When I asked if the team was okay with me selling some games she assured me that the team knew it would happen and they had a system in place for selling games. The team initially used this as a selling point!

So, the season finally begins and everything is great. Way exceeding expectations. The arena, the atmosphere, the team. All fantastic. Then, when I started to sell some games, wow, I actually made a bit of money. How cool is that!

Then, like others here, my work situation changed. With a third of the season remaining, I wasn't able to go to anymore games. So in total, I sold just over half the games to last season. I also knew that I would not be able to attend hardly any games at all this season and probably next.

When the ticket controversy started, I followed all the rules the team demanded of us for selling tickets. I emailed my rep a few times trying to get clarification of what the team expected and each time her reply was very terse and very vague. I finally talked to her in December and offered to give up my final year if the team didn't want me as a STH any longer. I explained that I wasn't in this to make a profit and if the team wanted my seats to go to someone local, then great. I always try to be as calm and kind when dealing with costumer service people. I did that job myself once and know how shit it is so I wasn't combative at all. She replied (quite pointedly) that I was committed to 3 years and the team was not about to let people just walk away from their commitments. I don't remember her exact words but you get the idea. I actually don't blame her for being a bit angry with me. I am sure that she had more than one angry call from other STH so I understand her being defensive.

Anyway, okay, fine, I will keep my tickets, stay within their rules and continue to sell the games for one more year.

So imagine my surprise when my statement for next year came and they literally more than doubled the price. So much for honoring commitments. I decided to opt out of the final year which is what I offered to do in the first place. I am sad that I won't be a STH any longer but am fine with those seats going to someone local. The extra money I made by selling the games was nice but its not like I was able to buy a new car or something with it.

One thing I will do however is contact my credit card company and make sure that I am not 'accidentally' charged for next season anyway. After seeing how secretive and vague the team is with their customers, it wouldn't surprise me if they still tried to bill me.

One final thing that kinda bugs me. Apparently it isn't enough for a billionaire to make all the money. He has to make sure that no one else makes any money as well. Disappointing.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Thanks for posting your experience with the VGK ticket department. It just validates what has already been said here & other places. From the day the Knights introduced their electronic ticketing policy giving them the ability to track who uses the seats & full control over what the STHs can do with the tickets, I knew this is what they had in mind.

Frankly I'm unsure what I want to do for the 19-20 season, but I know for certain I won't be renewing past that. They're leaving a bad taste in many peoples' mouths. For prices to rise this high this fast, they must think the sky is the limit. I'm curious if & when they will level off.

 

[willy702]

I am going to through my 2 cents in here...

I rarely post (like never) but do lurk a lot and after reading the posts, I wanted to add a different perspective.

First of all, I do believe that those of us who committed to season tickets during the initial drive absolutely helped bring the team here. If commitments had flattened out at less than 10k, I really believe we wouldn't have a team. In fact, the first time I talked with my rep, she said almost exactly the same thing. Also, when my cousin and I first discussed purchasing the tickets, we knew we would have to sell some games so our best hope was that we would maybe make back $500 of our total paid. We did not purchase the tickets to make money.

Like many STH, I live in Utah. Not a long drive but still far enough away that going to a game is an all day commitment. When talking to my rep before the first season began, I asked if me being out of town was a problem. Nope! Absolutely not! When I asked if the team was okay with me selling some games she assured me that the team knew it would happen and they had a system in place for selling games. The team initially used this as a selling point!

So, the season finally begins and everything is great. Way exceeding expectations. The arena, the atmosphere, the team. All fantastic. Then, when I started to sell some games, wow, I actually made a bit of money. How cool is that!

Then, like others here, my work situation changed. With a third of the season remaining, I wasn't able to go to anymore games. So in total, I sold just over half the games to last season. I also knew that I would not be able to attend hardly any games at all this season and probably next.

When the ticket controversy started, I followed all the rules the team demanded of us for selling tickets. I emailed my rep a few times trying to get clarification of what the team expected and each time her reply was very terse and very vague. I finally talked to her in December and offered to give up my final year if the team didn't want me as a STH any longer. I explained that I wasn't in this to make a profit and if the team wanted my seats to go to someone local, then great. I always try to be as calm and kind when dealing with costumer service people. I did that job myself once and know how **** it is so I wasn't combative at all. She replied (quite pointedly) that I was committed to 3 years and the team was not about to let people just walk away from their commitments. I don't remember her exact words but you get the idea. I actually don't blame her for being a bit angry with me. I am sure that she had more than one angry call from other STH so I understand her being defensive.

Anyway, okay, fine, I will keep my tickets, stay within their rules and continue to sell the games for one more year.

So imagine my surprise when my statement for next year came and they literally more than doubled the price. So much for honoring commitments. I decided to opt out of the final year which is what I offered to do in the first place. I am sad that I won't be a STH any longer but am fine with those seats going to someone local. The extra money I made by selling the games was nice but its not like I was able to buy a new car or something with it.

One thing I will do however is contact my credit card company and make sure that I am not 'accidentally' charged for next season anyway. After seeing how secretive and vague the team is with their customers, it wouldn't surprise me if they still tried to bill me.

One final thing that kinda bugs me. Apparently it isn't enough for a billionaire to make all the money. He has to make sure that no one else makes any money as well. Disappointing.

Wow exactly what happened to me before the first games. We had to sign a document saying we were not ticket brokers. Called the rep to get confirmation that I wasn't violating this by selling most of my tickets and she said as long as you attend some games it's fine they just want to weed out people who sell all the games like a broker would. Then in year two the time changed and we get the implied rule you go to half the games. There's a line between concern for the fan atmosphere and just a money grab and I think most of us are concluding what this is.

 

[LadyStanley]

Definitely an opportunity to "corner" the secondary market by creating their own resale site (and get a portion of the profits by the resale fees).

Definitely some changed expectations of STH resale. And it sounds like VGK was not good at sharing those expectations. Could be grounds for a lawsuit or few.