Jays fans try to score tickets at face value for the World Series – and miss out
Toronto Blue Jays fans are facing an uphill battle even before the World Series begins against the Los Angeles Dodgers – trying to secure tickets to a home game.
On Wednesday, scores of Jays fans lined up at Ticketmaster to get tickets, which went on sale at 10 a.m. Eastern time. but face valuee admission was scAccording to fans, they soon faded away, leaving only expensive reissues in their place.
Greg Overmonds was one of them. He logged in at 9:45 a.m. to try to get a ticket, and when he got a spot in the queue, he was about 22,000th in the queue. He says at 10:25 a.m. he got a notice on his screen that said Ticket list was limited, And could reach the front of the line only by 10:40 am
By then, “they were all sold out and the only thing I got was a $1,600 resale ticket in the 500 tier,” he said, adding that it was out of his budget.
“It feels like we’re being shut out of something we’re so dedicated to,” Overmonds told CBC News. “To think that people … bought these tickets and immediately jacked them up, it’s very disappointing.”
If you’re in the mood to splurge, there are still plenty of tickets available through Ticketmaster’s verified resale for all four games in Toronto.
The cheapest tickets at home for Game 1 in Toronto, as of Wednesday afternoon, will be seated away from the field in a section of 500, which will runOver $1,300 each.
Prime real estate behind home base is more sparse, with tickets ranging in price from $3,600 to more than $8,000, depending on how far back you feel like sitting. And the most expensive seat in the house? Over $10,000 per ticketR Prime Seats.
Other ticketing sites like StubHub have similar offerings – nosebleed tickets for around $1,300, and better tickets in the $6,000 range.
some major companies
Vas Bednar, Managing Director The Canadian SHIELD Institute, a non-partisan think tank, says the situation highlights how much digitalThe L system has changed the landscape of ticket purchasing.
While the resale market on platforms like Ticketmaster hthereby helping buyers avoid scams, b.Ednar says it also means each ticket sale is brokeredyes big compAny.
And in the case where the company selling the tickets is also handling resale, it means it can “sell out.”I’ll take the same ticket twice … and all the associated fees,” Bednar told CBC News. “So who really wins?” The corporation that has formalized a shadowy, informal secondary market.”
While Ticketmaster has one face value exchange policy This may limit the price of resale tickets to the amount originally paid for them by buyers, artists You have to choose to use the policy. UK band Oasis option exercised For example, tickets for their recent tour had a maximum limit of $Before fees and taxes, 104 and $430 depending on their section.
Ticketmaster also has it Pledged to crack down on resellersPartly by not allowing users to have more than one account, which would allow them to obtain more than the allowed limit of four to six tickets at a time.Take the incident. The company also said it will no longer allow mass resale of concert tickets, CBC reported, but the rule will not apply to sports and theater tickets.
This change comes after the US Federal Trade Commission Ticketmaster sued In September, allegations were made that the platform and its parent company Live Nation coordinated among themselvesH Ticket brokers who bought tickets in the primary market and sold them at very high rates. (Company DisPresents those claims and plans to challenge them in court.)
Ticketmaster did not respond to CBC News’ request for comment.
lack of law
Stephen Selznick, partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP in Toronto, says some jurisdictions in Canada have regulations on ticket pricing, but they tto end up except bots Or require platforms to prove that resold tickets are authentic.
Quebec has rare jurisprudenceAction that limits resale prices.Again, merchants cannot list their tickets at a price higher than the original payment, Although the system is not free from flaws,
Ontarioio passed lawBy doing this the resale prices of the tickets would have been 50 percent higher than the original price, but It was abolished in 2019 Because according to then Consumer Services Minister Bill Walker it was “unenforceable”.
Asked on Wednesday what was the reason for that The government repealed that law in 2019 and may introduce more laws to limit prices if it wants, Ontario PRRich Doug Ford told the reportrs that waLooking into this.
Baseball fans are ready to bring their energy and their wallets to Toronto to watch the Blue Jays play the first two games of the World Series. CBC’s Marianne Deman and Megan Fitzpatrick report on how much tickets and merchandise are selling for.
“(companies) Tricking people. When you have one player in the market that controls the tickets, it’s not right for people, so we’re really reviewing that right now,” Ford said.
Selznick says the problem isn’t This is easy to solve because ticket prices are a finite commodity – there are only so many seats in a stadium, and demand usually exceeds supply.
Selznick said, “When you only have 50,000 tickets to sell, you’re really at the mercy of the seller when there’s demand for more.”
Bednar calls a policy that ca.PS Resale prices can help solve that problem. legislation that limits dynamic pricing (prices vary depending on market conditions, such as time of day), or that Require sites to disclose face value pricing She says options for purchasing tickets during the resale process have been adopted by other countries.
“Right now we’ve accepted it as a norm, and I think people are starting to push back and reject it and say it’s gotten a little out of control.”
