[News] Flames introduce paperless tickets

[Lanny'sDaMan]

Originally Posted by Dion

Laminated tickets are the best

If ever you want to offload those remember Lanny'sDaMan would ya?

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

It says on the link in the email that flames customer service will print your tickets, I would assume they would be basic ticketmaster style tickets with no fancy designs. It says there is no charge this season for this but that it would change down the road. It doesn't explain whether or not this voids your card or if you can still email tickets to people if you have had then printed.

It is implied that if you get paper tickets, your card will be voided. They aren't going to allow the same seat to have two active tickets.

I do lol at the complaints about how we should get some sort of discount for this. I agree with the sentiment, but it is one that is completely disconnected with how the real world works.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Kev

They should have just made them available to be scanned from your phone...

I really don't see why you couldn't; from a technological standpoint. Might be worth going early to some pre-season games and putting it to the test. If the ushers won't scan your phone, then go down to customer service and complain.

The other thing that I think would have been better is if they let you have more than 1 card per seat, and then you can load up each card with tickets. So if there are 4 of you sharing a pair of seats, you get 4 cards. Then after your ticket draft you load up the cards with each person's respective games.

Are there enough of us that split tickets that way to justify the Flames looking at that?

[browna]

Originally Posted by Jer Bu

The fact they said there was "positive response". That is exactly opposite of reality. 90% of the people at the last Ken King event I went to voted with their hands for having printed tickets. What a load of crap.

....

For once I would like to see the Flames ADD more value for their season ticket holder base. Every year since I started, something has gotten worse. As a friend of mine just told me, in all it seems they are trying to push out the middle class working fan, in favor of the corporate money bag.

/rant.

The salesmanship that goes on in those STH meetings aside, no doubt the positive response % was a combo of the phrasing of the "Wouldn't it be convieint to not have to hassle with paper tickets and just carry one card?", and the fact that this is a Ticketmaster-driven venture as well.

TM are also the ones that collected the reprinting and forwarding fee, not the Flames. To the Flames credit, when I've brought up how large a % the fee was considering our price level of tickets two years back, they said they would print them off at the office for free whenever needed...but given that then someone from our group or outside the group has to go to will call, as opposed to just last minute email with them attached, it didn't make logisitical sense. So the Flames are held captive to the Ticketmaster machine, to a point.

Also, not sure where the Flames fan "class structure" gets dragged into this, and certainly in this issue, with the corporate side. The corporate side, a side that paid a lot of the bills in the late 90's and early 2000's, is just as affected. Those are the multiple seats that a company holds, that are given away to clients and different employees within the company game by game, and as such, paper tickets are a lot more easier to distribute.

Bottom line, the one hard card per seat program should be to opt in or opt out, and the transfer and reprint option should be (remain) free.

[bizaro86]

I was going to take advantage of the only pro to this, (the free forwarding), but it won't let me select the tickets in my account to forward. (They show up, but I can't click them)

Can anyone confirm whether their account will let them select a game to forward? I called the office, but it was busy, probably with all the people requesting paper tickets...

[Sec218]

You'll be able to start forwarding tickets as of September 4th.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by browna

Also, not sure where the Flames fan "class structure" gets dragged into this, and certainly in this issue, with the corporate side. The corporate side, a side that paid a lot of the bills in the late 90's and early 2000's, is just as affected. Those are the multiple seats that a company holds, that are given away to clients and different employees within the company game by game, and as such, paper tickets are a lot more easier to distribute.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of this, but that complaint didn't make sense. The corporate tickets are who is most affected by this, since they probably have 45 different people going to games each year. It's way easier for the person dealing with that to distribute the paper tickets to each recipient than use the Flames account to email the tickets to everyone. And giving out and getting back the card 45 times is a terrible idea, especially if you're giving the tickets out to clients/charities/raffles etc.

[browna]

Originally Posted by ken0042

The other thing that I think would have been better is if they let you have more than 1 card per seat, and then you can load up each card with tickets. So if there are 4 of you sharing a pair of seats, you get 4 cards. Then after your ticket draft you load up the cards with each person's respective games.

Are there enough of us that split tickets that way to justify the Flames looking at that?

Too many logistical issues with that. In our group after the draft, sometimes we have each seat taken by an individual. Some games, one guy drafts two of the seats and brings a buddy or the wife. Sometimes, one guy has all 3 seats to a game.

Then of course last minute changes, someone from the group who has a card, now can't go and their replacement person (within the card carrying group or outside it) needs a ticket.

In those cases, you'd need one guy to manage the shuffling of games over the 4+ cards, and even that, that would only really work if you could put multiple seats to the same game, on one card,...so that my wife can come to a game when one of the others in our group who has a card, can't make it last minute, and that ticket has to be transferred from their card to mine.

[ken0042]

I was thinking more of having the card and being able to reprint and/or email tickets.

[Laner99]

Originally Posted by Drury18

Call (403) 777-4646, Option 1, tell the nice girl whose taken about 100 calls already today that you would like printed tickets as well.

When I called she said she has done nothing but answered calls with people asking for printed tickets for the last couple of hours. The email went out and people started calling asking for proper tickets.

I just talked to my ticket rep. She said they can give you the old school tickets for this year at no charge, if you request it, but future years there will be a fee to get the old school tickets. BOOOOO!!!!!!

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I really don't see why you couldn't; from a technological standpoint. Might be worth going early to some pre-season games and putting it to the test. If the ushers won't scan your phone, then go down to customer service and complain.

The other thing that I think would have been better is if they let you have more than 1 card per seat, and then you can load up each card with tickets. So if there are 4 of you sharing a pair of seats, you get 4 cards. Then after your ticket draft you load up the cards with each person's respective games.

Are there enough of us that split tickets that way to justify the Flames looking at that?

That's what the European membership based fan card is like. The demand for tickets isn't quite as crazy here as it for some of the big European sides, but basically after you pay a membership feee any ticket purchased from the club are put directly on your card. They're able to do this as being a member gives you first crack at all tickets before they're on general sale...I think the Hot House offers(ed) something like this.

I believe some clubs are introducing something similar as they now have "official secondary ticket partners" so some money flows through the club as well, so it's no surprise this is making it's way across the Atlantic.

[Southside]

I see this card having other applications down the road. Already used for fanattic discount, is that tracked? Maybe a cash component to it eventually. How much you spend on concession, beer and merchandise all tracked. When you typically arrive and at what entrance tracked. Not suggesting any big brother conspiracy, just that type of information could prove useful to Flames marketing and identifying the dollar value of the individual relationships with season ticket holders.

[hayduke's dad]

Not a 100% sold on this idea. It is good for someone who goes to a good majority of the games. Not good for groups or for businesses. It is easy to email tickets but some people just aren't comfortable with printed off tickets.

The guy I share tickets with uses them for business tickets as well so we will have to email alot as it will be a pain to chase the cards down after every game.

The Jets did this last year and my buddy was told he would have to pay $50 per seat to have them printed off hard copies for him. Could see the Flames doing the same thing

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by Laner99

I hate this change. As a guy who uses a lot of tickets for work and gives a lot of tickets to clients I now have to either print out paper copies or deal with emailing tickets. I'd rather still be able to hand a customer a nice looking official ticket. Called me old fashion I guess.

I had to deal with this crap last year with my work for Oilers tix it made it impossible to follow and we actually gave out the same tickets to different people. It was not good phone call when a guy and his son came down from Slave lake to see a game and had their tix from my company were declined as he is standing out side the rink calling me.

[iggy_oi]

Does anyone who has spoken to a ticket rep know when hard copy tickets can be picked up?

[MrCallahan]

I know there's a lot of hate for these cards, but I for one, love this idea! Don't need to worry about remembering my paper tickets, transfer fees are waived, I have nothing to complain about.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Lanny'sDaMan

If ever you want to offload those remember Lanny'sDaMan would ya?

I will keep you in my mind I decide to sell it

[Laner99]

Originally Posted by SeeBass

I had to deal with this crap last year with my work for Oilers tix it made it impossible to follow and we actually gave out the same tickets to different people. It was not good phone call when a guy and his son came down from Slave lake to see a game and had their tix from my company were declined as he is standing out side the rink calling me.

Ya, I can totally see this happening and when I talked to my rep on the phone I told her things like this have a much greater chance of happening with the new system. I for one will be getting my tickets sent to me the old fashioned way.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by N-E-B

I prefer paper tickets. That way, you can divide the tickets up amongst family/friends, and if you lose a set of tickets it's no big deal, but if you lose that card you lose everything. Thankfully the option for paper tickets is still available.

Yes I'm sure that if you lose the card, you lose everything. I'm quite sure there will be nothing set up where by if this happens, you can call the Flames and say I've lost the card, and they void the old card and get you a new one. There's no way that will be a possibility, they definitely won't have thought of that.

Its like when you lose a credit card and Visa tells you, wow that sucks, now someone else might have it, and they might use it and there's nothing we can do and you'll just have to wait until your card expires and we send you a new one.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by MrCallahan

I know there's a lot of hate for these cards, but I for one, love this idea! Don't need to worry about remembering my paper tickets, transfer fees are waived, I have nothing to complain about.

Held tickets got about a decade, never had to worry about forgetting them on game night. Transfer fees waived is a plus, can't dispute that. But the 8.5 x 11 reprinted tickets are lousy souvenirs.