Another Whitecaps Ticketing Problem Comes To Light

We’ll be glad when the season starts and we’re not having to deal with ticketing fuck ups by the Whitecaps front office. It’s getting all too predictable and is getting as tiresome for me writing about them as I’m sure it is for you reading about them!

After all of the away ticketing shenanigans from the last couple of weeks, the latest issue to come to light involves home fans and to be more precise, a large element of the Southsiders supporters group.

We’d heard the odd rumblings that there were possible problems ahead. We eluded to it on last week’s It’s Called Football after a couple of fans had gotten in touch with us re their Empire seating allocations.

Yesterday matters came to a head and AFTN received a number of calls, emails and private messages from angry fans about their seating at Empire.

The problems all seem to lie with the allocation of their BC Place seats into the differently configurated Empire Field and in particular the seats of those fans who bought their seats in green section 249.

Their Southside corner seats at BC Place, which they naturally expected to be in section 215 at Empire, have been allocated to the northside section of 230. A section directly beside the non alcohol family section and just a few feet away from the away section.

The poor, quiet families that find themselves in the middle of it all! Also it completely splits up the supporters section and has people not wanting to be near us put into an unfortunate position.

Now, we want to stress just now that we don’t know if this problem is affecting a few fans, many fans or the whole of the 249 section. Most fans haven’t been given their seating allocation yet. We can confirm though that there are a significant number of fans who have already been told they are in the northside.

Understandably the supporters affected are fuming. They want to be in the Southside at BOTH stadiums.

There’s been issues with some teal and aqua fans too but these appear to have been sorted out, not always to 100% satisfaction re positioning. One fan that spoke to the ticketing office yesterday was told that the whole Southside had been incorrectly allocated and that the teal and aqua sections had been sorted but not green.

It would be an understandable mistake to make in a way because the BC Place and Empire Field seating plans are back to front from each other in terms of southside and northside. Have got confused myself at times looking at sections. Then again, I’m not running the club!

We do wonder if all of this only came to light though after we brought to the Caps attention that the TFC fans had been allocated a section originally near the south side of the stadium and questioned a few issues.

AFTN contacted the Caps last night and to their admirable credit they started to look into the matter immediately and have said that they hope that errors in seating allocation will be addressed and corrected.

Any fans who have bought tickets for the southside at BC Place but have been placed in the northside at Empire Field should call Director of Sales, Roberto Cabrone, on 604 629 2247 or email him at rcabrone@whitecapsfc.com.

Those fans who have not yet been given their ticket allocation should speak to their ticket rep first to see if they also have a problem.

We plan to regularly update this story over the course of the day, so keep checking back for the latest info. We’ll add the updates in just below the first piece.

Hopefully this turns out to be a non issue and another administrative error will be to blame. We’ll keep you posted and would be grateful if you keep us posted with your own experiences too.

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UPDATE 1 – 9.15AM:

Had a call from a supporter to let me know that he’s been told that Roberto is currently in a meeting with the top brass to discuss the situation. The ticket reps have all had a meeting this morning about it.

Would see no benefit in currently calling until this meeting is over.

Good to see them listening and trying to solve these problems. Would much rather have a Club like that than one who just ignore us.

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UPDATE 2 – 11.00AM:

The Caps FO have said that there is a “small number” of people who have been incorrectly moved over from the Southside to the northside. They will be going through their lists to make sure that people are in the right section.

If you are worried that this may affect you, please call your ticket rep to see which section you have been allocated to and if there is a problem, let Roberto know.

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UPDATE 3 – 4.30PM:

Two members of the Southsiders executive board met with the Whitecaps FO this afternoon and they have conveyed the following information:

If you are an official Southside member, even if you have not paid your 2011 dues, AND your seats at BC Place are in Green-Aqua 248-254 your seating assignment at Empire will be checked by end of day today by the club to ensure that you are in the Southside. If you are NOT a member, or if the name on your Season tickets does NOT match out membership list, or if your tickets at BC Place are outside of the range listed above and want to be moved to the Southside then you will need to call Roberto ASAP. His number is 604.669.WAVE (9283) Extension: 2247