Nowani

Well how many SSH buy extra tickets in the exclusive period before public sales with the sole purpose of re-selling for a profit?

Thought y'all bought extras for friends.

 

OP bought a whole row to subsidize his season tickets? Whatever.

SSH pay full price at the pre-sale like everyone else which actually precludes making a profit.  For opening day this year, I bought a bunch of extra seats in anticipation of friends and customers wanting to go. I sell them for what they cost me. It's an extra service I offer as thanks for them being loyal customers. However, this year I had very little interest from my friends in going because it was just too expensive. I turned around and resold those on Stubhub and lost money. Deals are better on stubhub for any game even a high profile game like opening day, or Yankees, etc. Yesterday was another example. Angels price for my seats were $75. The highest price I sold any of my 14 in that section was  $64. I sold 2 for $45 about 2 hours before game time.

SSH full season seat discounts are significant compared to regular box office prices and that's what makes resell profitable.

Must be nice to see the Angels for free.

Well it's not quite free. It takes a lot of work to resell. It's like any other job. There is a website to maintain, tickets to detach, barcodes to enter and spreadsheets to maintain. Tickets to deliver to Stubhub LMS office, updates to check competitive pricing levels each week on stubhub. Also, I sell A LOT of tickets to friends (and their friends and their friends) who love the Angels and I'm able to pass my discount on to them. They buy mini-plans and individual games. They are very loyal because they know they are getting much better pricing than they would at the Angel Box. I also offer them free tickets when my tickets don't sell (about 15-20% of my games).

Each year it's about 100 hours of work and when I calculate profit it turns out I am earning around $30-40 an hour from the work put in ( depending on the year). It's a lot of work but it's fun actually. This is exactly what ticket brokers do but I do it on a very small level. 714 tickets around the corner does this on a very high level with paid employees much larger number of venues and tickets.

Howie has been consistently inconsistent so I say no and never will win one. He gets hot then real cold.  This year though he has avoided a huge slump but I think one is coming. Not being negative but a batters history usually tell you what's going to happen in the future and Howie has never even been close to a .330 hitter for a season so I don't expect him to finish this year even close to that. Ill take .300

Please. I'm glad you donate and help people out but on a macro level you also jack up the prices for the non season ticket holder by buying so many games for the sole purpose of making a profit. On top of that you think what you do is providing a service as if we should thank you and cheer you on against the big corporation. I have no problem with the Angels not helping you out as you are the type of ticket consumer they are trying to push back on. 

Can you elaborate how this jacks up the prices? Really seriously. That comment has no data or merit. For next weeks game tell me where you can buy a cheaper ticket in 427? Angel Box office/web site or StubHub? Let me save you the research. Angels $20, Stubhub $9.

For that matter even todays game against the Yankees. 427 seats are selling for $75 on the Angels website and I have my last two tickets on sale in 427 for $50 and they still have not sold. I did not sell one of my tickets for  over $75 as the market does not support that.

Are you against open free markets and people making profit through Entrepreneurship? or do you want the Angels to control (monopolize) the market and charge whatever they decide? What is your feeling on 714 tickets around the corner from the big A. Are they ticket scalpers and driving up the prices?

They have not accused you of it but they have correctly identified you as one. I don't actually have a problem with you doing this, but the fact that you think you are entitled to Angels helping you do this is pretty funny. Scalp away. Put them on craigslist, put an add in your local paper, stand outside the A with all the other scalpers, etc. They don't have to help you resell their product for a profit on a web-site they have a contract with. 

I think the Angels should be willing to move a group of people who have seats in an area that does not support disabled seating and realize they need it later if it will not affect the organization negatively.  Especially when we are asking to be moved to the outer vestiges of left field Pavilion where they will not sell those seats for a low priority game. If it were a game where there was a chance they would be moving us to seats that they would sell I would completely understand.

You think this is issue is about me asking the Angels for help reselling? Reread the thread. I have no problems selling my tickets on stubhub or a group of 30 friends who buy mini-plans and individual games. I also donate $1,000 in tickets to our little league.

You think it's funny that I have asked the Angels to help us make accommodations for a disabled person in our group (part of a little league donation).  Wow! that is  pretty callous.

Nowani, although I understand where you are coming from, you are making this more difficult that it needs to be. You have been offered a solution to your problem from somebody that works with the Angels in ticketing. Instead of thanking  and taking her up on the offer, you are being stubborn to force the issue with somebody else that closed the door on you. So you've been given a couple other easier solutions but insist on taking the most difficult path.

 

Angels fans are raising the middle finger not because of the ticket prices, but because of the results on the field. Wins put people in the seats, not the price of the ticket.

I already thanked Patti but declined her help because I don't want this to affect her job. I had already escalated this to the VP of sales and he was not willing to help me like Patti. In fact he was very contrite in saying that because I subsidize tickets he is not willing to help me relocate which is fine. He does not have to. He has the right to refuse this level of service I was asking.

In my job the last 10 years, I provide 24/7 IT support for the top 100 executives of a fortune 20 company that has a worldwide presence. I have seen many people fired on the spot for really insignificant things. I know how VP's and CEO's think and Patti should not go against the grain. It's not worth it.

Also, I have to disagree with you on your last statement. I think prices affect attendance as well even if a team is winning.

I'm not judging you and I don't think there is anything morally wrong with what you're doing, but I do understand the organization's viewpoint. They are not willing to help you because they are trying to discourage you from consistantly scalping your 16 other seats. They want to pocket the higher proceeds from their seats instead of you. Theoretically if there were no black market resold tickets, the Angels could charge a higher premium for their seats.

Once again I'm just playing the devil's advocate to show why your season seat representative probably wasn't as helpful as he/she could have been.

I know what the Angels position is on ticket resells. Believe me they did not complain about resells when the SSH base was around 33k. Now that the SSH base is probably around 26K they are not happy because they have a lot more tickets to sell that compete with stubhub and it's harder to sell those especially as the prices have gone higher in the last several years.

So their answer is to alienate the SSH base that resells to get them to give up their seats. I don't know how many people that is but between SSH that resell and SSH who are fed up with the team performance, I really expect the SSH base to fall below 20k next year. If this happens the Angels will have cornered the market because there will be significantly fewer seats for resale on Stubhub and your only choice for going to a game is to buy online at the Angels website  or at the stadium at prices the Angels set. I predict Angels fans will raise the middle finger to that and you will see low attendance numbers we haven't seen in 15 years or more. I hope I'm wrong but this is what my business sense tells me.

no kidding. I'm shocked the team didn't go out of their way to help you

 

and lol @ under 20,000 fans/game next year.

Lou,

So I take it in an ideal world you would like no one to resell their tickets and everyone should pay what the Angels box office offers. I also take it you are anti StubHub which offers thousands of seats well below Angels Box office for 80% or more of games.

I would love to know what your position is on stubhub and places that resell tickets. You make it sound like it's bad. Why is that Lou? Do you work for the Angels?

No offense to the OP but this is impression that I get as well. It's one thing to resell some of your 4 seats in order to help pay for the season, but it's quite another if you buy 16 more with the sole intent of reselling them. Not to mention that on the rare occasion that you are actually going to use them, you want them swapped out for different seats (although it sounds like it is for a good cause.)

Lawrence, your either a scalper or your not you can't have it both ways. If you resell a  few of your 4 seats to a stranger your a scalper period. Why does it make a difference when it comes to how many tickets you sell? If you see a guy in the parking lot at Angels stadium trying to sell his only two tickets he is a scalper. If you see another guy trying to sell 20 he is also a scalper. I hope you understand there is no difference.

I also use my 14 other seats to repay for the season. I have 2 club MVP seats that cost over 10k a year. Selling 427 seats reduced the loss of going to 30-40 games from 5k a year to break even. I can't afford to spend 5k on Angels games but I can afford to go for free and yes I choose to want to sit in Club MVP.

If I chose not to go to any games I would make around 4-5k which is tempting considering how bad this team is this year but I love my Angels and I will go and suffer with everyone else.

I don't feel bad for you, you are a scalper. 

This is exactly what the Angels have accused me of and everyone else who posts tickets for sale on Stub hub and Ticket Exchange. Yes it's true but I would rather live in a place of free markets than in a place where prices are controlled and regulated such as Cuba.

If it was not for us scalpers. There would not be thousands of tickets available for well below the high prices at the Angels box office. Of the 82 home games sold on Stubhub most games are sold below Angels pricing. There are some incredible deals happening on Stub hub and anyone with such a good experience feel free to chime in and tell them the great deal you got from a scalper on Stubhub. Why is this possible. It's the Season Ticket holders (AKA scalpers) who are passing along their discount and in many cases losing money on games.

Scalpers in the old days had  a bad rap because they would buy all the tickets for an event then jack up the prices and control the market so you ended up paying 5 to 10 times the face value of the ticket. That is no longer the case these days thanks to the internet and the ability of free markets to regulate this. Many scalpers these days like me can't afford to go to 30-40 angels games a year so we subsidize our season tickets by purchasing other season  tickets to sell. It basically allows us to go for free to all these games although it's a lot of work selling. I look at it as a second job to feed my Angel craze.

But see, this is one of those situations that my boss is TRYING to fix.  YES, the BIG BOSS is Robert Alvarado. But MY direct boss is Johnny. He was hired to make customer service a priority in our office.  And there are those of us in the windows that try to help as much as we can.  Some people have been there forever, and, to me, at least, are just there for the hourly wage, and they don't care anymore. For me, it goes back to working at Disney and trying to "make magic".  No, I can't work miracles.  But within our rules, I can do some things.  I exchange tickets for people on a daily basis.  I had a customer yesterday that came with 4 tickets to one of these Yankee games, and she needed to exchange them. She had Sunday tickets, but needed Friday tickets because her son was going to be in a tournament.  Her tickets FACE VALUE was $85 each.. I got her the same TYPE of tickets (she was in 132, I put her in 131)- AND she had an extra $100.. since there are no refunds, I asked her if she would like tickets to another game, so she didn't have to lose that money.  She ended up with more tickets, and only lost $4 from the original cost of her 4 tickets. 

Patti, It starts with the big boss. If they don't support and promote a high level of customer service then the end result is a very inconsistent delivery of customer service. this is what I see. If the core values that you and your team display were promoted from the top then this exact issue I ran into would have been handled very differently. Unfortunately, I learned the reality of what is promoted from the top the last few days.

It really makes me sad because I love the Angels and I have always loved the organization at it's very top level when you think of Gene Autry and now Arte Moreno. I think the Angels have been blessed to have had two of the greatest owners in the last 50 years. When I see the things happening now in different areas of the organization in many ways I feel bad for Arte because I know he has very high standards yet certain people in his organization are not meeting those same high standards yet he continues to trust them. Probably because he is just a really nice guy.

Go to the stadium ticket lobby (that green door next to the home plate entrance), and my fellow employees in the regular ticket office can help you and we will switch the seats for you to something where all can go together. Can give you 4 in the actual "wheelchair row" and the rest in the row in front if they are available. 

By the way Patti this is exactly what I asked in my first communication to my SSH rep and I did this many days in advance so as to not hit up the front lobby with this on game day as I know they would be busy. I also asked to purchase 10-15 additional tickets from the angels directly instead of on the secondary market where I know I could get them cheaper. In the last few days my SSH, and I assume this is supported all the way to the top, has done everything in their power to block this including my suggestion to allow us to eat in the knothole and then have half the group leave and go sit in my season seats.

So now I will just buy the rest on the secondary Market and I do my best to get this handicapped father include in our activities.

THIS is where MY department is better than the SSH reps.. we can fix stuff like that because my boss believes in giving EXCELLENT customer service..  Nowani, PLEASE let us fix this for you..  Anybody in the office can actually do it. If I was there in a window, I could get it fixed for you, but I'm off all weekend..

Patti, I appreciate this but I took this all the way to the top (VP of Sales). God I hope that is not your boss (R.A) His response to me was they would not move my seats and I would have to purchase new ones for the whole group of 25. I definitely don't want to get you in trouble so please don't  help with this. If a direct report to Arte is supporting this policy then do not do something different than what they dictate.

His response to me focused on the risk I take as a SSH whom purchases extra seats in order to subsidize another location (which is exactly what I do). I could tell by his response that the Angles really frown on this so he was willing to do zero to help me. If I was a season ticket holder with 4 seats I'm sure it would be different but because I have 16 seats I am looked upon as competing with Angels Sales since I resell 14 of them.

Thanks anyway but please do not help me as I value your kindness for reaching out and I don't want to jeopardize your job.

I still sell my seats on Stubhub, just sucks not being able to do it last second. Although this year I haven't eaten one game that I couldn't attend. I include the parking pass since I send UPS and maybe that's why they sell better. The Ticket Exchange is horrible, not user friendly at all like stubhub was with its tools to see whats selling when where and how much.

 

I've had 3 different reps in 6 years and never had a bad experience dealing with any of them. Even asked about field passes for the Saturday concerts and gotten some for free, at the time I asked I had no clue you could buy them, I just asked how to get them and got a reply that they're under your name at will-call. They've always responded fast to my questions since I've had tickets.

Nice! Well I'm convinced my season ticket rep just hates me. We just had another interesting exchange today, Since they won't swap out my 14 seats for nosebleeds that include handicap access, I asked if I can bring a group of 25 to the knothole restaurant. She said no we can't do that. I asked her if 4 families on their own (in my group) can make reservations for 6 and we just end up sitting wherever she said no we can't do that. This is what she emailed me verbatim

 

"No, I cannot give you a pass for 25 people, nor can I give you multiple passes for smaller amounts of people.  Knothole Club pass requests are only available to Season Seat Holders, not to the general public.  Having your families call to make pass requests and reservations individually would not be permitted.  I understand you are a Season Seat Holder, and you are more than welcome to request a pass, but not for 25 people.

 

The only solution at this point is to buy a reduced price group, or to sit in your season seats separately and purchase the additional you need.

 

Please let me know if you would like me to help you with the group purchase. "

 

Again we are not sitting in my seats as a group in order to accommodate a handicap father on our little league team as 427 has no handicap access. I am really dismayed how this is being handled.

There are really two camps on this. there are baseball fans who love the game and can appreciate seeing one of the greatest pitchers of our generation and honoring him out of respect.

And there are the pure Angels fans who are not necessarily fans of the game of baseball.

If you are the later you will never appreciate the accomlishments of HOF type players from other teams. It's only about your team.

That's fine but that is reality. There are Angels fans that are in both camps and one wont convince the other about why we should clap or boo Mo.

Just posting to get other peoples impression of the Season Ticket customer service that  others are receiving.

My own impressions is that there has been a big degradation in customer service the last few years. I used to have Matt Swanson as my rep and he was awesome.I was shocked when I found out he was let go last year because of down sizing. I have had bad experiences with my new season ticket rep and I complained to a VP within the organization and was very surprised that there really is no effort at the higher levels to work out issues for customers like me. Her resonse of we can't help you is actually perpetuated from the top based on his reply.

Previously, I have had issues with ticket exchange as I can't list all my tickets together. One shows as a single and the other 4 are grouped. I tried to get all 5 grouped together as they are consecutive seats and should be sold that way. Asked if I can get help the answers is  no because I added a single seat to my account this year and it can't be group with my other 4 from last year. Made no sense but since TicketExchange is a bust anyway so I didnt persue it.

What really took me over the edge was my latest issue. I have a group of 14 seats that I sell to help pay for my club seats. For low priority games I often give these away. Next week I wanted to give the tickets away to the kids on my sons little league team. We are going to get the parents and kids together for this. My 14 seats are in the third level section 427. One of the Fathers is wheelchair bound and there is no handicap seating in the upper levels.I contacted my season rep and asked if I can swap them for seats in the top level of the family section (P258) near the wheelchair access only so we can include this father. It's a low priority game and currently there are hundreds of seats available out there. She said it's not possible to do that and I would have to purchase tickets out there but in fairness did offer me group rates. I emailed a VP and got the same response. His answer was this "we do not extend special benefits, such as exchanges,to these customers for risk of alienating the balance of our base.". He is talking about people like me who carry extra tickets to "subsidize" other seats.

Anyway, I probably over reacted to this and maybe it's fair for the Angels to do this but I do get one clear message in that response, the Angels do not want customers like me and it was very clear in the way he responded to my email. They want to kill the secondary market. I have no doubts they will have succedded in doing that next year.

A sports season ticket in someway is like a stock. There is value in it for resale that changes over time. Next year that will no longer be the case with the Angels and there probably will be a mass exedous of Season ticket holder who resale and also those who are dissapointed in this years performance. That will leave the Angels with a lot of seats to sell on their own market at their price. Question is will people pay those prices or we will we see all time low attendance at the Big A next year (Below 20k?).

I commented to the VP that I though you would be doing everyhing in your power to try and keep season ticket holder happy but I got no response on that. I am very dissapointed in how this organization is now being run at all levels.

Back in the day I really wish I could have seen Clemens and Piazza go toe to toe.

I dunno, I guess that the simple fact is that NOBODY here knows the answer and this rampant speculation only serves to cast negative lights upon everybody in the organization, completely devoid of facts or logic.  All of the negativity gets really tiring and I wonder about the ultimate purpose or benefit of this incessant collective negative narrative.

 

Maybe we shouldn't watch anymore. 

Most humans have a natural tendancy to want to vent frustration. You see it everywhere. It's healthy. It's a way to relieve stress. It's the few humans who don't vent and keep everything inside that can end up causing a lot of issues in society. Venting and complaining is also bonding.

I give Dipotto an "A" for building an offense but a "D" in building a pitching staff. As unexiting as many think pitching is, it's what every team who makes the playoffs has. No one makes the playoffs with a dominating offense and no pitching. Lots of teams make the playoffs with excellent pitching and no offense.

^{"Noww... Calling all angels... Nowwwww". Maybe our 1 highlight on next years angels  video}

Winning

I went last night because my tickets did not sell. the combination of a May weekday (kids in school), boring team (Astros), losing Team (Angels) and no promotion (unless you count the drawstring bag which unfortunately would not fit over my head) this was the perfect storm for keeping people away. Also, an NBA game 7 was probably more interesting in watching at home than coming to the ball park.

I was commenting to my buddy that this was the most empty I have seen the stadium in over 10 years for the first 3 innings of a game. I estimate 20k.  I go to around 20 games per year and usually the low attendance ones because those are the games that don't sell. From my Club 335 Seats (even with first base) you could clearly hear the umpire calling strikes. Usually there is enough background noise to drown out the umpires calls. On the flip side  Since it was a close game pretty much everyone stayed to the end but still had no problems getting out of the parking lot.

Not a good sign for the front office. Not all of this is from a bad team performance. I think the front office is beginning to price out individuals who would go on a regular basis and as a season ticket holder I am feeling more alienated the last few years with the combination of increasing prices and  policies towards reselling.

I would not get too down over these losses. Sometimes poor teams have good teams numbers. last year Texas was basically .500 against Seattle. Its simply a freak streak..

Yes .500 against Seattle. At this point I would accept .500 but we are no where closeto that with the Astros.

This team is brutal, absolutely brutal but I will keep watching and continue to attend games. Call me crazy but I still love my Angels.

My sentiment exatly. This was a pivotal loss. This is were I have given up as a fan of the team and now will give them my love but expect nothing in return. A 4 game sweep by Houston is irrecoverable and shows the lack of heart of the players but I still love them and support them but if I were in a close door meeting with them I would be telling them how ****ing pathetic they are.

I have noticed a trend lately on StubHub where I am seeing more and more tickets listed as"Electronic". They are not UPS (which most of us Season Ticket Holders have to use), or Instant Download (which is available if you bought tickets online or forward tickets to yourself).

What is surprising in the quantity of tickets. For example, on the Mike Trout hat give away (June 18th) in the LowerView MVP section, 60% of the tickets are Electronic.

Does anyone know details about this and who is selling these. It's obviously not Season Ticket holders. Since the Angels cancelled the deal with StubHub I thought there was no way to do Electronic purchases from Stubhub.

Has anyone bought "Electronic" Tickets? Versus UPS, LMS or Instant Download?