EDMONTON – Two Calgary men made the trip north Sunday to enjoy a concert by a legendary performer in Edmonton, but instead it turned into a “humiliating” experience.
The pair bought tickets to Madonna’s concert at Rexall Place Sunday night. They were in their seats when security asked to see their tickets for a third time. The electronic tickets were on one of the men’s phone which had died during the concert.
It was taking too long to log in on another phone, so security escorted them out and they were met by police.
“They were asking kind of the larger group to present tickets. We were the first and then as we were slower at presenting them the situation really just escalated until police actually had security kind of cool their engines a bit,” said Travis Robertson, Bought e-ticket to Madonna concert.
“I thought like we were singled out because we’re already in the show. They let us on the floor,” added Guy DeBlasio.
The men were finally able to prove they had the tickets and returned to their seats, but by that point, the show was nearly over.
“It was a significant investment, so there’s loss there,” Robertson said. “But even if this wasn’t an investment, it was humiliating. We had friends who had come here from Calgary as well. We made a holiday out of this.”
Northlands released a statement regarding the incident:
“In the event that we or our security contractor were wrong in removing the two men from the venue, we would provide them with guest recovery.”
On Monday, Northlands contacted Global News to say that guest services will be reaching out to the two men to provide them tickets to another show at the venue – but not Monday night’s Madonna concert.
The two men would like to see Northlands implement better policies when it comes to dealing with e-tickets.
“There needs to be practices and policies and equipment in place that if there is going to be a situation like that, that it could be handled quickly,” Robertson said.