February 25, 2007
New Ticket Exchange Policy
Rapids' introduce new "recycled" tickets?
The revised "Flexible" ticket exchange policy only affects season and partial-season ticket holders. Background: For the past umpteen years, we all could purchase season tickets, and had an unlimited free exchange policy.
Why? Because everyone misses a game now and again, so the Rapids would allow the ticket holder to turn in that unused ticket from a previous game for the current game. (i.e. bring a friend, you've got an extra ticket to exchange and give him or her).
They continued to advise that this was the case for this season, and that's the expectation under which everyone bought tickets.
This has changed.
The new Ticket Exchange Policy: Un-used tickets may only be exchanged for the following six games:
Sun, April 15 vs Fire
Thurs, May 10 vs Fake Salt Lake
Sun, July 8 vs Red Bulls
Sat, Aug 16 vs Revs
Sun, Sep 16 vs The Goats
Sun, Oct 7 vs Canucks
Other restrictions: only 8 tickets per game allowed, it remains free to exchange, and this is subject to availability.
Thoughts on this... First, we know exactly which 6 games the Rapids expect to have low attendance at, since they are willing to exchange tickets for the games. That's handy ;-)
Second, in response to questions, the Front Office says this is a "league-wide" policy change: somewhat unbelievable, and a pass-the-buck response. In reality, it is up to the Rapids, period. Their stadium, their policies.
Finally... This had to be expected if we'd thought it through. By definition, if the Rapids can actually manage to fill the stands, there's simply no way for them to exchange tickets for those nearly or sold-out games! That's reasonable, and makes sense.
Why couldn't the FO simply have said that?
Look. In exchange for having our own stadium, and the resulting increase in popularity of the Rapids and the resulting filling of the stadium, we as fans have to accept a different set of perks.
Trading off all that empty space for a packed house is worth it, even knowing that we have to give up conveniences like most ticket exchanges. Sure, we'd all like to have unused tickets exchanged for the Beckham game. But it is understandable when the FO wants to sell that out at the highest price instead.
However, there's usually a more flexible way to manage this. If the day's game isn't sold out, why would the Rapids deny us the ability to exchange tickets for it and beef up attendance for that game? And, if it is sold out... too bad, the rest of us will be inside rocking the house.
Makes sense, and hopefully the Rapids will see there's no reason to tighten the ticket noose too tightly.
Posted by BilFish at February 25, 2007 08:56 AM