Some fans hoping to see TCU beat OSU at Cowboys Stadium Saturday were in for a shock when they found out the tickets they bought were no good.
An NBCDFW viewer, who asked to not be identified, sent the above picture to us with the caption, “Unhappy fans stand in hot sun in front of Cowboys Stadium ticket resolution window. Many purchased tickets in upper deck several months ago. Cowboys closed upper deck and fans were not allowed into the stadium.”
We did some investigating, and here’s what happened:
Cowboys spokesman Brett Daniels said they had level 400 of Cowboys Stadium available when they first started selling tickets for this game. About eight weeks ago, they did an analysis on ticket sales, and decided to close level 400 because not many people were buying tickets up there.
Those who had bought level 400 tickets through the Cowboys and through Ticketmaster.com were contacted and told to reprint their newly issued tickets on level 300 for Saturday’s game.
“Those seats aren’t any better or worse,” Daniels said.
Some people showed up Saturday and hadn’t printed their new level 300 tickets. No big deal. They just had to stand in line, show their ID and get their new tickets.
Other people, however, purchased level 400 tickets online through an unaffiliated ticket vendor. Some of those tickets were resold by people who had already gotten their reissued level 300 tickets.
Daniels said they tried to accommodate as many people as possible.
So, if someone showed up with a level 400 ticket, and the reissued level 300 ticket never arrived to the game, that person got to go in with a new 300 ticket.
But if had a no-good level 400 ticket, and the re-issued 300 ticket holder showed up, you were out of luck.
The unidentified NBCDFW viewer (let’s call him “Bob”) said a friend of his purchased tickets through a different ticket agent. That friend couldn’t make it, so he gave the tickets to Bob.
When Bob got to the game, he said he was told by one of the Cowboys employees that his ticket agent was contacted and told of the issue with the level 400 seats being reissued.
In lieu of taking the level 300 seats and contacting the people who had purchased from him, Bob was told that agent chose to take a refund for all the tickets.
Daniels said Sunday the Cowboys were planning on giving a report to the online vendor to let them know of Saturday’s issue.
Meanwhile, Bob says he’s not mad at the ticket agent that sold his friend the bogus tickets.
“If you’re going to close a section, close it before tickets go on sale,” Bob argued. “I mean, doesn’t that make sense?”
