I just spoke with a SKC staffer. He said sales are limited to the "areas around Kansas City." No more specific than that. But less than 20 minutes before sales open, the Ticketmaster page doesn't specify the geographical restrictions: "(venue name) is located in (city, state/province). Sales to this event will be restricted to residents of (geo-limited states/provinces or selected area). Residency will be based on credit card billing address. Orders by residents outside (geo-limited states/provinces or selected area) will be canceled without notice and refunds given. Delivery of all tickets will be delayed until 12/4/13 to allow for enforcement of 8 ticket limit." And no public statement about geographical sales restrictions on the MLS or SKC websites. Completely unprofessional and disrespectful of supporters.
Just change your billing address with your credit card to some place in Kansas City. That's what I'm doing.
Depending on TicketMaster's settings, that could cause the card to be rejected. Credit card merchants have the option to validate the Billing Zip given to them matches the one on file.
No, the one on file at the credit card company. So if your credit card company bills to 80202 and you put in 85260 at TicketMaster, TicketMaster will send 85260 as part of the credit card authorization and the credit card company will return a response that tells TicketMaster that 85260 doesn't match the zip code they have on file (80202). Then TicketMaster may reject the transaction. Now this only happens if TicketMaster has opted for zip code validation and if they've decided to reject zip codes that don't match.
Oh. That's what I did. I mean, I changed my billing zip code with my CC. Doesn't matter anyway, I'm not getting Ticketmaster to present me with the option to buy tickets.
Has anyone in the KC region been able to buy tickets on TM this morning? Is it possible the website is blocking via IP address? I get this message in Texas:
It really is pathetic how time and again, some big MLS game comes along, and nobody actually talks about the game, because there's some other off-the-field issue, always caused by MLS or team missteps, that captures everyone's attention.
Yeah, I will say that, as unpopular as I'm sure the opinion is, I understand why tickets purchased with the leaked code were cancelled, as the idea of SKC season ticket members being denied first refusal on their tickets because some one leaked a promocode really doesn't sit well with me, but limiting the public sale to the metro area is just wrong. Really wish they had set aside more tickets for RSL fans, say, 2,000, or ~10% capacity, and if that allotment didn't get completely purchased before, say, Wednesday, released those tickets to the general public on Thursday. Lots and lots of Kansas City folks upset they won't be able to get tickets as well. I think there's going to be one more release of Standing Room Only tickets and then it's off to StubHub for double or triple face value fun...
RSL already received their allocation of 1,000 tickets as required by established MLS policy. They chose to distribute most of them within the organization. My understanding is that only a couple hundred at most were made available to their STHs last week, and those sold out almost immediately. Why, exactly? It seems to me that SKC has every right to maximize home field advantage; that is one of the perks of hosting as the higher seed. In any case, I suspect that very few (if any) tickets were still left this morning after the three STM pre-sales, the last of which included SRO.
All discussions of whether or not seeding is actually meaningful with an unbalanced schedule, I feel like on a fundamental level, "General Public" should mean anyone and everyone. If they wanted to do a regional sale before General Public that'd be one thing, but limiting all general sale tickets to the area seems to go against the spirit. Honestly though, the only ones making us "look bad" are the scalpers, really annoying to see so many tickets being purcahsed solely for the purpose of flipping them.
Irrelevant in this case, since the rules were set before the season started. Something that can be debated further going forward, I suppose. Agree to disagree. Again, RSL received its allocation, and presumably MLS took some seats; but then the rest of the stadium belongs to SKC, and I would feel the same if it was any other team hosting. Annoying, but not surprising; the free enterprise system at work, supply and demand, etc. As others have noted, prices should drop as kickoff gets closer. Just for the record, I bought my two season ticket seats, and that was it.
And that is an improvement--yesterday's forecast said 23. Of course, we are talking about Kansas City, so it is bound to change again every day this week.
Especially because it effectively makes it impossible for some people to buy tickets to the game. Well, it would if so many season ticket holders weren't scalping their tickets. In my case, though, it holds because I can't afford the scalped price.
I wonder how many people are actively scalping and how many are planning on going but are letting it know they have a price... Dunno. Out of the dozens of soccer fans and semi-fans I know, not one would pass up the opportunity to go to this game (should be price be reasonable). It's hard for me to imagine tons of people invested as STHs deciding that a championship match right here is merely an opportunity for financial gain rather than something to be actively excited for. Feels a lot like demand way, way overpowered supply and expectations.
Could be both. If STH'ers could buy extra tickets, some could have purchased extra tickets with an eye towards scalping them. Or it could be a lot of scalpers with STH accounts to begin with. That is unfortunate about fans having to buy tickets perhaps way above face. But as far as the story goes, I would guess that the story that hits the mainstream will be more about the demand for tickets than the snafu with how they were allotted/distributed.