Mobile tickets have been causing more and more issues at sports games across the country, so essentially, Panthers fans were frustrated with the new ticket policy at the team’s first preseason home game over the weekend.
During the game on Friday night at Charlotte’s Bank of America stadium, officials were not accepting any paper tickets to embrace the new digital policy. However, many fans faced diffiulties at the gate, since many older people do not understand how to use their phones or access tickets. It also doesn’t help that part of the system was down Friday night. Usually, fans just have to downlaod the Panthers or Ticketmaster app to access tickets, but workers directed fans to access their seats through the web browser instead. Issues still arose as the connection speed was weak.
“The internet is a little rough out here,” fan Ty Allison told WBTV.
Other fans took to social media to express their trouble getting into the stadium:
Just talked to a Panthers fan who struggled to get into the game tonight, the first all-mobile ticket game at BoA. (Which is why the stadium looked like this at kickoff) pic.twitter.com/PMr9NaUmr0
— Tadd Haislop (@TaddHaislop) August 16, 2019
The scanners couldn’t scan phones or paper tickets. We were at the front of the first to go in and it took 20 minutes for the ticket scanner to scan us in after having to get 2 orange shirts and a supervisor to help us.
— Jeffrey Bunker Hill (@Bunkdog) August 16, 2019
Rough night for the Panthers. Off the field, fans couldn’t get tickets online because the site crashed. Then security ran out of bag tags, so @pastorofpain and I missed kickoff standing in line waiting and frying like eggs on the asphalt.
Let’s just try it again next week
— Kyle Bailey (@KyleBaileyWFNZ) August 17, 2019
System down and can’t receive transferred tickets. Gonna let everyone in for the bills preseason?
— Dylan Williams (@dylwilliams12) August 16, 2019
@Panthers the absolute worst fan experience possible with this mobile ticket debacle. Took forever to get in stadium and missed kickoff. Thanks! @NFL #mobileticketing #panthers
— Brandon Temple (@brandontunc) August 16, 2019
The Panthers, alike various other NFL, MLB, and NHL teams, have gone completely digital. This isn’t the first time fans have been annoyed with the process – many fans had issues with the Browns Mobile App during the team’s preseason game earlier this month, causing them to miss kick-off. The switch to mobile-only ticketing is an attempt to prevent fraud and make it harder to sell fake tickets, while also allowing faster entry into venues. Nonetheless, at nearly every game or concert venue, people are complaining about mobile tickets after their phone dies, connection is weak, or tickets won’t load.
A report from ThreatPost shows that e-tickets aren’t actually always as safe as they seem. Researchers from Wandera found that check-in links being sent by British Airlines were reportedly unencrypted, putting thousands of passengers’ personal information at risk. About 2.5 million connections were made over the past six months meaning that anyone on the same public Wi-Fi could access the link request and use it as their own. This simply poses that question: how safe are e-tickets?
It seems like sometimes, the hassle and risk does not quite equal simplicity.
Last Updated on August 19, 2019
4 Comments
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Olivia,
Great article. I enjoy reading your writing but you are failing to address the REAL reason that Ticketmaster and the leagues are going mobile. It has nothing to do with preventing fraud. It has everything to do with collecting data for purposes of their aggressive marketing strategy and selling it to other retailers for a profit. They are also using this data to systematically identify those who are reselling so they can take their tickets. What Ticketmaster and the leagues are failing to realize is that they aren’t just pissing off the brokers. They making it difficult for anyone to attend a game, transfer a ticket to a friend, or resell any tickets that may go unused. Unless of course you resell the ticket through their resell platform. Until legislation is passed to prevent Ticketmaster’s monopolistic approach to the ticketing space, this type of anti-resell tactics will continue, whether anyone likes it or not.
I know for a fact that ticket master & the NFL are organized ganster so they control the ticket & market its not a free market anymore,it’s called American Greed
Completely agree with Justin… everything Ticketmaster does is for their own benefit and profit. They really don’t care about “the fan”… they don’t care that it takes you half an hour to get in, while they have already gone home at 5 o’clock from their cushy jobs and you can’t get them on the phone to complain or get help…they are SELLING your email addresses, and the reason they don’t want you to sell your tickets yourself is because they WANT TO KNOW WHO THE BUYER IS: his email address etc… so they come up with this BS about making the transfer “safer” by doing the transfer through their website, so they can get MORE email addresses. They are not your friend. Plus, ever since the “mobile ticket” technology came about, they couldn’t care less about all those senior citizens who may have a flip phone, AT MOST… who cares about them… they’re going to die one of these days anyway, and we will be left with the younger generation who knows all about bar codes and scanning and mobile tickets, plus young folks pretty much all of them seem to be able to afford smart phones (usually with their daddy’s money), whereas seniors on fixed incomes can’t afford them, don’t need them, and don’t want them.
Can say more about what I think of Ticketmaster, but will keep it for the next time I’m mad.
Did you know that TicketMaster wines and dines legislators so as they will leave TM alone to do what they want? Part of the money you pay TM when you buy tickets and pay those huge fees for their “services” goes to lawyers and lobbyists, protecting their agenda and interests in DC.
We need a revolution against Ticketmaster.