Even when the Edmonton Oilers play out-of-town, there is a lot of interest in watching the game in their home arena at Orange Crush Road Game Watch parties – for Friday’s game, the $5 tickets were sold out, with the money going to charity.
However, it appears some are trying to resell those tickets for a profit online, and it’s a development the Oilers organization is not happy about.
The events are meant to be an affordable way for families to get to experience playoff hockey at Rogers Place, without paying big bucks.
On Saturday, seats to the watch party were sold out, for the first time. When tickets went on sale for Friday’s watch party, they were snatched up in half an hour.
Tickets originally sold for $5 with proceeds going to the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation, started showing up on resale websites such as Stubhub and Vivid Seats, with a pricetag of between $20 and $50.
“It is really for the kids so it is so sad that they’re doing that,” Ankia Polny said.
Meanwhile, the Oilers Entertainment Group is hoping to stop people from reselling those tickets.
“We’re going to act accordingly that families that want to come get protected, and the tickets get into the right hands,” Stew MacDonald with the Oilers Entertainment Group.
The organization said staff were searching third party sites and social media, to find people trying to resell those tickets for a profit, and warned there could be consequences.
“A high risk this is going to impact any future seats you’ve already purchased, we’ve got the ability to kill those barcodes for those seats and they’re going to face that risk,” MacDonald said.
On Friday, Stubhub pulled the tickets down from its site, and a spokesperson said the organization wasn’t aware the ticket sales were meant for charity.
“We were just made aware a little too late, so we apologize for any confusion there and will make sure we get any proceeds already made donated to the Oilers Community Foundation,” Cameron Papp with Stubhub said.
With files from Angela Jung
