WATCH ABOVE: Unlike a hockey game or a concert where people commonly sell tickets they can’t use online, the 850,000 Pan Am Games tickets sold can’t be re-sold on second-hand websites like Kijiji. Christina Stevens has the story.
Over 850,000 tickets have been sold to the Pan Am Games as the event enters its second week.
But unlike a hockey game or a concert where people commonly get rid of tickets they can’t use, those 850,000 tickets can’t be resold on second-hand websites like Kijiji.
Nikki, who did not want to give her last name, bought tickets for herself, her mom and her sister-in-law to one of the horse jumping events when tickets went on sale in December. They can’t go, so she turned to Kijiji to try and get rid of them.
“Things have changed between then and now, so I can’t use them. So I tried to see how I would possibly resell them to somebody that would appreciate them,” she said in an interview Monday.
“My email exploded, I could have sold them eight times over. I’m only asking face value, I don’t need to make any money. That’s not the intent here, we just can’t go and I’d like to give it to somebody that can appreciate that.”
But ads for Pan Am Games tickets have started to disappear as the site has been asked to take them down.
“Although Kijiji absolutely welcomes the sale of tickets on our site, there are instances when a specific event planner will ask us to enforce their ‘not for re-sale’ policy. In this case, we have been notified by the host venue that all tickets for Pan Am and Parapan Am Games are non-transferable.”
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There isn’t an outright ban on ticket transfers, according to the terms and conditions that go along with the purchase. Instead, the Games set out a list of rules that people must meet before selling their tickets – the tickets can’t be sold for more than face value, and they can’t be offered publicly like on Kijiji, Craigslist, or Stubhub (though Pan Am tickets can be found on each of the sites) and you have to know the person you’re selling the tickets to.
According to the Games’ document: “The transferee is a natural person, who is known to the Ticket Purchaser personally and who did not become known to the Ticket Purchaser through the sale, transfer or disposal of the Ticket, and the Ticket must be for the transferee’s personal use only.”
No one from the Pan Am Games was available for an interview regarding the resale of tickets, but a spokesperson did say in an email statement that tickets that are re-sold “are subject to cancelation without refund.”
Pan Am Games officials are trying to stop the resale and go to some lengths to get the ads taken down.
“Although we go through great efforts to prevent the resale of tickets, we can’t always completely prevent tickets from appearing on a secondary market site or confirm the validity of those ‘tickets’.”
Nikki’s ad was targeted by officials.
But the notice came after Trevor – who also didn’t want to give his last name – emailed her. He wanted tickets for his 9-year-old daughter who is a “horse fanatic.”
“I’ve been looking since December, I missed the website opening and ever since then I’ve been checking Kijiji to try and get secondary tickets because the event sold out right away,” he said. “I’m looking so forward to it myself. Just to see the expression on her face.”
Though Trevor admits he can understand the Games officials wanting to cut down on scalping, he thinks the grassroots second-hand market should be allowed to thrive.
“Here I am paying face value tickets, the person was inconvenienced and couldn’t go to the event, so I’m willing to help out and take my daughter,” he said.
With files from Global News’ Christina Stevens
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