Ace Tickets

Amanda Andreas woke up early and stood in the cold for hours hoping to score tickets to the Taylor Swift concert for her little sister and two nieces.

"This is something I know they want for Christmas and something no one else is going to get them," she said.

She showed up outside Intrust Bank Arena shortly after 6 a.m. and was fifth in a line that grew to more than 150 by the time tickets went on sale at 10 a.m.

But because of the lottery system used for in-person ticket sales — the line started with the holder of ticket No. 140 — Andreas ended up near the back and walked away in tears when the show sold out.

She never made it in the door.

Untold numbers of others — scalpers, brokers and fans — sat at their computers shortly before 10 a.m. with their browsers aimed at www.selectaseat.com. When it was all over, many in Sedgwick County were left empty- handed.

The show sold out in minutes while many were stuck in the "virtual waiting room" for more than a half-hour, only to be disappointed.

They voiced outrage in calls and e-mails to The Eagle.

Chris Presson, general manager with arena management company, SMG, won't say how many tickets were available or how many were sold in a presale to American Express card holders and fan club members.

WTVF, a Nashville news station, reported that "internal ticketing documents show that, out of more than 13,000 seats at (Swift's) Nashville show, there were really only 1,600 set aside for sale to the general public." The rest went to American Express cardholders.

Presson said presales are up to the event promoter and that it would be inappropriate for a reporter to contact them.

The Eagle tried but didn't get calls back from the Messina Group's Houston office, where snow forced many to stay home Friday.

Presson also said the Web site worked fine.

"Our system functions properly," Presson said of Select-A-Seat's site. "It's the quickest sellout we've had. I would say the ticket system performed accurately and as it should. We certainly couldn't have sold out that quick if we were having issues."

Scalping

It's unclear how many tickets sold online, but thousands of tickets showed up on ticket marketplaces, such as stubhub.com, and on ticket broker Web sites at prices of up to $5,000 virtually at the same time.

Stubhub.com, for example, is a user-to-user marketplace owned by eBay where someone who gets a ticket can sell it at whatever price they choose.

It's up to the seller to make sure they comply with laws governing online resale, Joellen Ferrer, an corporate communications manager with StubHub, wrote in an e-mail.

Ferrer said it's unclear who bought tickets to the Swift show in Wichita live in Kansas, but she referenced the story by a Nashville TV station showing only 12 percent of tickets were available to the general public.

"This begs the question as to whether or not the same percentage of tickets were made available for the on-sale today (in Wichita)," Ferrer wrote.

Meanwhile, brokers, such as acesportsandtickets.com, buy tickets from people and resell them at higher costs.

Hal Wagner, president of owner of Ace Sports and Tickets at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, defended the service.

He has 757 tickets for sale and said he didn't buy any of them at the advertised price. He had to buy them for more and takes the risk that he won't be able to sell them for yet more and turn a profit.

"We got shut out just like everybody else," he said of the online sale site.

Wagner paid up to $630 per ticket for the Taylor Swift concert in Wichita.

At the same time, he's taking losses on Kansas City Chiefs tickets, he said.

It comes down to demand. After 21 years in the business, Wagner said he blames promoters.

If they know it's going to sell out in minutes, they should put on a second show at the same venue, he said.

To shut down people who may be buying tickets just to turn a profit would also mean banning anyone who buys more tickets than they need from re-selling them, he said.

"It's not just a broker issue," he said. "There are private people all over America that buy and sell tickets for a profit. There's no law you're going to put out there that's going to stop that."

Kansas law defers to cities to decide how to control scalping.

Wichita requires anyone selling tickets above the advertised price to get a $200-a-year license.

Not one has been issued.

"It is not something that the City has aggressively enforced but if there is a complaint it would be investigated and prosecuted where appropriate," Deputy City Attorney Joe Lang said in an e-mail.

Lang also noted that the city would have to prove the sale happened in the city.

That might be difficult since online transactions are often facilitated by companies that operate in different cities and states.

Disappointed fans

Randy White of Derby tried to buy tickets online at 10 a.m. Friday. After languishing in Select-a-Seat's "virtual waiting room" for several minutes, he drove to the Dillons at Central and Rock Road, where he was told the concert was sold out.

"My concern is the taxpayers in this area subsidize that arena, but people all over the country are able to get the tickets first," White said.

He was trying to buy tickets for his 19-year-old daughter and his girlfriend's 8-year-old daughter.

"There's some rich guy in L.A. right now with a handful of these tickets, and the little girls around here who are Taylor Swift fans don't have a chance," he said.

Marvin Millard said he was upset that tickets were available online from brokers at well above face value even before they went on sale in Wichita.

"Our tax money paid for that arena, and the whole idea is that we're supposed to be able to go to concerts at a reasonable price," he said.

Rebecca Espinosa of Wichita said she was stuck in the online waiting room for more than 45 minutes and also was on the phone trying to buy tickets.

She wanted tickets for herself, her daughter and her daughter's best friend.

"I'm extremely peeved about this whole situation," she said. "They'll be lucky if I ever attend an event at that arena."

Got tickets

Others were pleased with the way things worked at the arena box office — or at least with their luck or ticket line strategy.

Lindy White of Wichita kept refreshing her browser and finally got in to buy a ticket.

She landed tickets for herself, an employee and her employee's sister. They'll be in Section 210 — straight back and way farther away than they wanted.

"That's all right," she said. "Tickets are tickets."

Azure Winter waited in line more than two hours but because of the lottery would have been toward the back of the ticket-buying line.

So Winter asked a woman near the front of the line if she planned to buy the maximum six tickets. The woman wanted only four tickets, so Winter gave her $200 cash — a recent birthday gift — for the remaining two tickets.

"She came out and said, 'Well, I hope you like your seats, because they're in the front row. Merry Christmas!' " Winter said. "I couldn't believe it. She was my angel."

Winter, who plans to take her 7-year-old daughter, Sydnie, to the concert, said she got home to a Facebook page full of comments from frustrated moms and dads.

"It's very disappointing, because she (Swift) is such a big star and really resonates with young girls.... It's too bad there's not a better system to make sure more tickets go to the people who really want them."
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