Minor vent/rant re buying tickets to Civic Center event....

[SoonerDave]

Okay, I'll admit up front I'm a little miffed, battling a head cold, but my experience in the last few hours dealing with something as simple as a ticket purchase for a future event at the Civic Center has me frustrated - or at least spoiled with how other organizations handle ticket sales in 2016....

So I'm wanting to get my daughter two tickets to the Lion King in May for her birthday. I'd like to have them in-hand so I can give them to her, so I'm willing to go to the box office downtown, so go to their website, get the number, and call them *specifically* to ask if the OKC box office is open on Jan 2. They say yes, it is, no special hours for today, so I drive from far SW OKC to go downtown and buy tickets...

..Except the box office, after all, ISN'T really open, and I've just wasted my drive and my time....

So I go back home, resigned that I won't have the tickets in hand, and will just buy them online....

I go to the website, pick out some tickets, and after seeing the $10-plus "convenience charge" I find out that my *ONLY* delivery option is "Mail" for still *$3 more*. And the only guarantee I get about delivery is that USPS will have them for me "no later than two days before the event." The event is still five months away, and the idea of reposing the trust in the ticket delivery to USPS doesn't warm the cockles of my heart.

What irks me is that there's no print-at-home option, no will-call option, no smartphone/barcode ticket option, not even a pick-up at box office option. I've gotten so spoiled/accustomed to virtually every other kind of venue these days taking some form of electronic ticket media, *and* I'm paying a $25 premium for the privilege on top of the event itself. Something's out of whack here.

Between the wrong information about the box office and the lack of customer-friendly ticketing options, I'm a little bit frustrated. Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but I think customers deserve and should expect more alternatives.

Rant off. It's time for some more cough syrup and decongestant.

[kevinpate]

Preach!

and, feel better soon.

[SoonerDave]

Preach!

and, feel better soon.

Thanks Hadn't planned to start off 2017 blowing and coughing....alas..

[Thomas Vu]

I had a similar experience when buying tickets to see Seinfeld.

[sooner88]

Interesting. I've bought multiple tickets that are e-tickets, must depend on the show. That's pretty bad. The box office has also been very good for me, hopefully that's an isolated incident.

[Celebrator]

My experience with them is that they will mail those tickets to you very soon.

[ljbab728]

Interesting. I've bought multiple tickets that are e-tickets, must depend on the show. That's pretty bad. The box office has also been very good for me, hopefully that's an isolated incident.

I agree. I've bought on line tickets for shows at the Civic Center for years and always had "print at home" or "box office pick up". I've never had an issue. I even had an occasion once where I bought tickets on line for the wrong date. When I arrived at the box office to pick up the tickets, they were very accommodating about exchanging the tickets so I could go on the date that I showed up at the theater.

[Timshel]

Didn't the Civic Center recently switch from Celebrity Attractions to a new company for the traveling Broadway shows? I wonder if it has something to do with that?

[warreng88]

Didn't the Civic Center recently switch from Celebrity Attractions to a new company for the traveling Broadway shows? I wonder if it has something to do with that?

Yes, the Nederlander's are taking over for Celebrity Attractions and their first show was Elf that ran the week between Christmas and New Years. My wife works at Lyric (who uses the Civic Center during the summer for four shows) and the civic center employees their own people to run the box office but the other organizations who come in to use the space have some of their people there as well. I would call again today and if you can, talk to Carolyn and she could run you through your best options.

[FritterGirl]

Hi Dave,

If you want to email us (you can copy and past this) at ccmhinfo@okc.gov, I'll be happy to forward to our Box Office folks and have someone call you.

Okay, I'll admit up front I'm a little miffed, battling a head cold, but my experience in the last few hours dealing with something as simple as a ticket purchase for a future event at the Civic Center has me frustrated - or at least spoiled with how other organizations handle ticket sales in 2016....

So I'm wanting to get my daughter two tickets to the Lion King in May for her birthday. I'd like to have them in-hand so I can give them to her, so I'm willing to go to the box office downtown, so go to their website, get the number, and call them *specifically* to ask if the OKC box office is open on Jan 2. They say yes, it is, no special hours for today, so I drive from far SW OKC to go downtown and buy tickets...

..Except the box office, after all, ISN'T really open, and I've just wasted my drive and my time....

So I go back home, resigned that I won't have the tickets in hand, and will just buy them online....

I go to the website, pick out some tickets, and after seeing the $10-plus "convenience charge" I find out that my *ONLY* delivery option is "Mail" for still *$3 more*. And the only guarantee I get about delivery is that USPS will have them for me "no later than two days before the event." The event is still five months away, and the idea of reposing the trust in the ticket delivery to USPS doesn't warm the cockles of my heart.

What irks me is that there's no print-at-home option, no will-call option, no smartphone/barcode ticket option, not even a pick-up at box office option. I've gotten so spoiled/accustomed to virtually every other kind of venue these days taking some form of electronic ticket media, *and* I'm paying a $25 premium for the privilege on top of the event itself. Something's out of whack here.

Between the wrong information about the box office and the lack of customer-friendly ticketing options, I'm a little bit frustrated. Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but I think customers deserve and should expect more alternatives.

Rant off. It's time for some more cough syrup and decongestant.

[traxx]

I had a similar experience when buying tickets to see Seinfeld.

You don't need to buy tickets for that. It's on TBS practically every day.

Seriously though, I had a bad experience with them a few years ago trying to buy Les Mis tickets. I think I may have even posted a rant about it on here somewhere.

[rezman]

We went to see the Nutcracker right before Christmas, and my wife put the tickets on her phone. The only issue was that the scanner had difficulty reading the code, so my wife had to open each one up individually, and have them scanned one at a time, but otherwise it was a breeze.

[SoonerDave]

Hi Dave,

If you want to email us (you can copy and past this) at ccmhinfo@okc.gov, I'll be happy to forward to our Box Office folks and have someone call you.

Thanks, FritterGirl! I appreciate it!