Scotiabank Centre moving to Ticketmaster

[Jacques Strap]

Great! Not a fan of this move. Probably price gouging for tickets fees.


Below is the text from the email I received.




A Letter to Our Fans...

For 45 years, Scotiabank Centre has been proud to deliver an amazing lineup of events and the very best fan experience for our community and fans. As the hub of major sports and entertainment events in Atlantic Canada, the home of the Halifax Mooseheads and the Halifax Thunderbirds, and the place where so many memories have been made, we have always strived to be the best.

To be the best, we have to work with the best.

That’s why we are proud to announce our new partnership with Ticketmaster, which will become our new exclusive ticketing provider for Scotiabank Centre. As the leader in the marketplace, Ticketmaster will give our fans – you – access to the best technology in the industry to buy and manage your tickets. With an easy-to-use system, premium security, safety and fan engagement features, Ticketmaster will help us to create an even better fan experience at Scotiabank Centre.

Our experienced box office team will continue to provide customer service and support your ticketing needs using all the features that Ticketmaster offers. This transition will take place over the coming weeks, and we will be in touch with you if there are impacts to your existing tickets.

We have an amazing lineup of events this year and we can’t wait to welcome you to Scotiabank Centre.

-Scotiabank Centre Team



FAQ

Why is Scotiabank Centre moving to Ticketmaster?
Ticketmaster is the leader in the ticketing industry, with the most advanced technology and resources to deliver a trusted, reliable ticketing service. Using Ticketmaster will allow us to continue to deliver on our fan experience vision for Scotiabank Centre.

Scotiabank Centre completed a full procurement process and business analysis for our ticketing services and as a result, we are entering into a long-term partnership with Ticketmaster as the exclusive provider of ticketing services for the venue.

This will allow us to provide enhanced services and safety features, and access to the secondary market, with Ticketmaster’s easy-to-use, continuously evolving platform.

I have tickets for an upcoming event, what happens now?
Right now, there are no changes. We’ll be in touch if there are changes to your tickets.

[Reesor]

Knew this was coming when the Mooseheads announced a couple months ago that there was a new season ticket benefit coming where you could buy/sell unused tickets with a verified server.

The fees aren't bad for typical events. I went to a Moose game in Moncton this year and purchased my tickets through Ticketmaster. The fees were less than if I were to purchase tickets to a Moose game. It's when your tickets start getting more expensive that the Ticketmaster fees start getting up there. And, the dynamic fees are an absolute joke. I've seen the examples of people selling tickets for less than retail value, and ticket master adding extra fees to put the price up to retail value. When you look at two tickets for the same event in the same section side-by-side, and one has more fees than the other, that's when people start losing trust in a company.

[Jack Bauer]

We should always prefer to avoid these huge companies who just leech off smaller markets and ultimately end up with local people losing jobs. Especially when we know our markets are not the ones ticketmaster will make a lot of money off of in the resale market as we rarely have those events.

But from just a junior hockey perspective there's some advantages in the ticketmaster setup. Buying and selling tickets more securely is never a bad thing.

Some people don't like "virtual" tickets. And for that 1 time you see your favorite music artist and want the keepsake...I get it. For 34 home games of a hockey team? Much easier to scan my phone in/out. No longer a need to physically meet with someone giving you tickets or vice versa.

Another upside is also more bandwidth to handle huge demand where we've all seen local ticketing sites crash and be forced to play the luck game in terms of being the first back in to get through the checkout process before another failure. You probably won't see much of that with ticketmaster but that also forces more people to look to presales to get their tickets ahead of general sales. But those are 2-3x per year things in our markets.

Older people will hate it as its another move to a digital world that they don't like. But its not all bad. And I doubt it really costs fans much more then things will cost anyway. Its not like tickets would be $15 without ticket master and $25 with it. We're still looking at generally the same cost.