Mayhem Monday ....

kingmo19.1

Well-Known Member
Thread starter #1
What a day! Respect to all keyboard warriors who were in the trenches trying to secure tickets for the Playoff Finals and the CC Cup Final within a few hours of each other!

Lessons learned ....

1. EIHL/Motorpoint need to allocate a minimum of 2 complete blocks to Cardiff from now on - we're one of the big boys.
2. CardiffDevils.com should look to outsource the online booking system - what a disaster today was.
3. Instead of offering a ton of tickets to the General Public, maybe the club should look at some loyalty scheme, ie, did you attend 2/3 previous CC Games? If so, you get a preference.

I foresee the next 'Ticket Rush' being the game that is likely to secure the title for us!
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
#2
Here’s a lesson: how about either

A) season ticket holders shouldn’t get preference
Or
B) season ticket holders get a max of 1day to buy their tickets & following day they go on general sale.
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#5
Season ticket holders put their money up front, and before anyone says they can’t make every game, then neither can I and I miss a fair few, also when I don’t go, my wife don’t go, but I am contributing and committing to our club, so that’s cool. But take away the very few benefits and that’s a bad call. Jesus if you want to moan about season ticket holders, then moan about bloody Sheffield they have preference on play off tickets for God’s sake.
 

BostonBart22

Well-Known Member
#6
Here’s a lesson: how about either

A) season ticket holders shouldn’t get preference
Or
B) season ticket holders get a max of 1day to buy their tickets & following day they go on general sale.
If your a season ticket holder then you should be entitled to first come first served basis like other sports, buy a season ticket and you will reap the rewards...end of...
 

Imp

Active Member
#7
I found the predictability of it all a bit depressing.

I don’t know why they opted for an online free-for-all. When you’ve just sold 3000 tickets, for a mid-week fixture, with the team going in 4 goals down... it didn’t seem a huge leap of logic that demand for Cup Final tickets was going to MASSIVELY exceed supply.

I quite liked last year’s system: put down a couple of quid as a deposit and we’ll contact you if a ticket becomes available. I assume it was a bit labour intensive, but the experience wasn’t unpleasant and I imagined we’d be facing something similar this year.

Today the experience was awful. I was briefly delighted to have ‘secured’ the same seats I had for the semi-final, only for the payment system to crash. The biggest surprise? That I got THAT far into the process before the wheels fell off.

I fully support season ticket holders taking priority on tickets. As much as I’d love to join their ranks, geography and work make it impractical. I get to 100% of the games I can get to and I don’t come close to justifying the outlay for a season ticket. Putting season ticket holders at the front of the queue for ‘extra fixtures’ seems perfectly natural and perhaps the least they should expect.

Beyond that, I would actually prefer a lottery... because that is all today was and all any situation where demand exceeds supply will ever be (even in the highly unlikely event that the servers can cope).

For last year’s cup final, I filled in a form and hoped.

This year, with POFW18 tickets as well, I spent over two nerve shredding hours at a keyboard.
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
#8
Season ticket holders put their money up front, and before anyone says they can’t make every game, then neither can I and I miss a fair few, also when I don’t go, my wife don’t go, but I am contributing and committing to our club, so that’s cool. But take away the very few benefits and that’s a bad call. Jesus if you want to moan about season ticket holders, then moan about bloody Sheffield they have preference on play off tickets for God’s sake.
You get overall cheaper tickets throughout the season that’s a pretty good benefit . Plenty of season ticket holders haven’t bothered with the cup games due to the extra cost (piles of empty seats in the usual areas) but you betcha they’ll be at the final. So for people like me who have been to every game it’s a big shame to end up with a shambles like yesterday on the ticketing system, I’m not against benefits for ST holders, heck if the club said tickets go online a bit earlier for ST holders or something like that I’d say hey that’s not unreasonable. But at least give us non-st holdersfighting chance to get tickets. Turns out there was only 500 tickets in sale yesterday and ST holders have until Thursday to book theirs.

If you ST holders had seen what we had to go through yesterday I think you’d have some sympathy.
 

d20

Active Member
#9
Cant believe some people moaning about season ticket holders getting a priority...why the hell not !!...I pay over £1000 for 4 tickets for my family and sometimes cant make games due to my 2 sons playing for the junior devils (which is also a huge cost) but I give them to friends to use for those games.
I've seen people moan they cant afford one and they are sometimes a single person ...pretty simple buy one at £300 plus then whatever games you cant go to give them to friends ,sell them or let the club buy them back off you ,there is no excuse ,ST holders cant make every game but like me I know they give them to friends,its always the same that people who dont have them always moan the most when they cant get a ticket .I've bought my CC FINAL tickets and yesterday spent ages trying to get POFW tickets and finally did again another expense and ST holders didnt get priority for that !!
 

Temme

Well-Known Member
#10
I was on the fence with this one last year and i'm still kind of on the fence now.

CC is a stand alone event, why should season tickets get a priority?

Ideally the CC final is held in a rink a little bigger, but not too big, as a half sold rink is awful.

But given that we are lucky enough to have it in our home & I, like most above, spend money upfront as a commitment to the club year on year, I think it's nice that we do get this extra little 'benefit'.

...

The POFW is a different story. To this day you can still buy tickets in Sheff/Nottingham/pretty much ANY TEAM apart from Cardiff.

We sold out within an hour.

If that isn't a clear indicator that Sheff/Nott are over-allocated and we are under then i don't know what is.
 

James

Administrator
#11
Season tickets are guaranteed income and allow the club to budget for the upcoming year and hence very important for the club. I know last year was a complete ballache to organise and they still got hassle. There are still Sheffield fans moaning about the way it was organised today on Steeltalk, and the steelers didn't even get close to selling their allocated portion. I do sympathise ,it's stressful trying to get tickets online, especially with both events going on sale the same day, and the Devils ticketing provider not really being up to the task of rush sales. I think the site they use for sales is tied to their till system so they will be limited in some respects as to how they can improve that. Todd mentioned in the last fan council meeting hes a strong advocate of allocated day sales per team as others have suggested so you're only battling to get tickets against other fans from your team. Hopefully that will be addressed next year as once again the POFW tickets appear to have gone less than swimmingly.
 

Kal

Active Member
#12
A STH only needs to miss 5 games to make their discount null, if they miss a 6th they're paying 65p more per game than a single ticket. I'd happily pay extra when i bought my ST for the CC final and i'd go if we were there or not.

With POFW i think all teams should have the same deal as Panthers and Steelers. STH's get to book with their respective clubs before tickets go on general sale and allocations could be worked out from that.
 

bdevil

Active Member
#14
Issue with a bigger rink is it would be somewhere other than Cardiff. I genuinely don't think we'd take 2,500 to a game that isn't in Cardiff.
 

Temme

Well-Known Member
#15
Issue with a bigger rink is it would be somewhere other than Cardiff. I genuinely don't think we'd take 2,500 to a game that isn't in Cardiff.
That pretty much sums up the problem.

If it was held in Sheffield/Nottingham, they wouldn't be able to sell out their own half of the rink let alone us selling out ours.
The half full CC final in Sheffield (you know....the one we won ;) ) summed that up perfectly.

The only arena at approximately the right size is, i guess Belfast, but as luck would have it it's also the least accessible.

I think we're very fortunate to have it in our doorstep & i count myself lucky to purchase a regular Season ticket with the Devils each season that guarantees me a ticket.

With the cup final being such a massive appeal to ALL Devils fans, casuals, die hard, one-a-season alike, it certainly adds appeal to forking out the ~£500 at the start of the year given that the Devils are proving to make the final time and time again in a game that simply nobody wants to miss.
 

Have Hope#35

Well-Known Member
#16
You get overall cheaper tickets throughout the season that’s a pretty good benefit . Plenty of season ticket holders haven’t bothered with the cup games due to the extra cost (piles of empty seats in the usual areas) but you betcha they’ll be at the final. So for people like me who have been to every game it’s a big shame to end up with a shambles like yesterday on the ticketing system, I’m not against benefits for ST holders, heck if the club said tickets go online a bit earlier for ST holders or something like that I’d say hey that’s not unreasonable. But at least give us non-st holdersfighting chance to get tickets. Turns out there was only 500 tickets in sale yesterday and ST holders have until Thursday to book theirs.

If you ST holders had seen what we had to go through yesterday I think you’d have some sympathy.
FWIW... Season Ticket Holders could pre-purchase on Sunday before General Sale on Monday! Yes they're holding the seats until Thursday but a big majority (1000) of Season Ticket Holders bought there's in person less that 24hrs before General Sale so I guess you accept that? I am a Season Ticket holder, in fact I have 3 and I attended every Cup Game so knowing that I have my 3 Tickets for the Final feels justified.
I also know what you went through as I was trying to help 2 Friends who have been to almost every game this season get their Tickets for the Final... I crashed out at Payment twice but eventually got them their 2 Tickets! Not ideal but it's the luck of the draw.
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
#17
FWIW... Season Ticket Holders could pre-purchase on Sunday before General Sale on Monday! Yes they're holding the seats until Thursday but a big majority (1000) of Season Ticket Holders bought there's in person less that 24hrs before General Sale so I guess you accept that? I am a Season Ticket holder, in fact I have 3 and I attended every Cup Game so knowing that I have my 3 Tickets for the Final feels justified.
I also know what you went through as I was trying to help 2 Friends who have been to almost every game this season get their Tickets for the Final... I crashed out at Payment twice but eventually got them their 2 Tickets! Not ideal but it's the luck of the draw.
I accept them going on sale for ST holders early - like you said they were released on Sunday for ST holders but 2 give Belfast fans 2 days to buy theirs and then ST holders get 5 days in my view is excessive.
 

ASHIPP

Well-Known Member
#18
There could be bigger issues in the future if the CC Final is held at IAW : massive demand outstripping availability of tickets, short notice between semi final qualification to commit to tickets or organise travel, accessibility for some teams' fans (Scottish/Belfast) and holding it on a Sunday (with school/work the following day?).

It's fantastic for many reasons that the Final happens to be held in our home arena at the moment but got to sympathise a bit with the Giants' organisation and their fans this year in terms of timing and accessibility/distance. I am sure many more of their fans would have wanted to cheer on their team but have been restricted for the reasons above.

Imagine if the situation was reversed, I doubt many Devils' fans would be too happy. And this is not a final over two legs either.
 
Last edited:

kingmo19.1

Well-Known Member
Thread starter #19
There could be bigger issues in the future if the CC Final is held at IAW : massive demand outstripping availability of tickets, short notice between semi final qualification to commit to tickets or organise travel, accessibility for some teams' fans (Scottish/Belfast) and holding it on a Sunday (with school/work the following day?).

It's fantastic for many reasons that the Final happens to be held in our home arena at the moment but got to sympathise a bit with the Giants' organisation and their fans this year in terms of timing and accessibility/distance. I am sure many more of their fans would have wanted to cheer on their team but have been restricted for the reasons above.

Imagine if the situation was reversed, I doubt many Devils' fans would be too happy. And this is not a final over two legs either.
Agree with you 100% there - IAW is too small for a final (especially if we are in it!) Needs to be looked at for next season. I’d like to see it rotated if possible between Nottingham, Sheffield and Belfast.
 
Top