Last night I went to a Dallas Stars hockey game. I’m a big sports fan, and was real excited about attending the game. The tickets were given to me by someone who attends our church, and they were GREAT tickets, somewhere over the $200 face value for each ticket. In other words, they were not the variety of ticket that the LittlePastor would fork money over for. These were a real gift! They gave me 4 tickets so I took my wife, and another couple to the game.

We had a great dinner near the American Airlines Center at RJ’s Mexican Cuisine. (I mean a really, really great dinner; I highly recommend to my Dallas readers.) Then headed over to the Platinum Club in the AAC for the game. When we arrived at our seats, the adventure really began. Someone was sitting in our seats, and I waited for the usher to kindly help them find their correct seats. Seems that was where the trouble began. See these people in my seats, actually had the same tickets I did. Seemed that they bought their tickets online through DallasStars.com; and the Dallas Stars had sold them our seats. So we were told to go sit in the handicapped section next door, while the Platinum concierge took care of the issue. The man who came to help, told both myself and the man who also had seat tickets in my section to follow him. We both inquired as to why we had to go somewhere, but he insisted even thought the game had started and was into the 1st period. We followed him around 1/2 the arena and down multiple floors until we got to the Ticket Box Office. The entire time, we were neither told where we were going, or why we were going with him. I felt like maybe the authenticity of my tickets was in question, and I was being treated like a criminal. We were also being dragged away from a game, that I had been entitled to watch with my tickets. After much discussion behind the box office window, I was handed my tickets back, and told the seats were mine; meaning the other individual was given additional tickets in a section nearby. When I inquired as to if we would receive any compensation for having missed 15 minutes of the 1st period (Not actual minutes, GAME MINUTES), to a game that we had tickets to, I was told that I had what I needed and was directed to my seat.

I find this entire experience extremely frustrating and very unreasonable. When I have tickets of this value in my possession, I expect to be able to watch a hockey game; not be dragged down to a ticket office, and have a large percentage of the game experience stolen from me by a mistake that the Dallas Stars ticket office made in the first place. I was treated like someone who had done something wrong, not like someone who had very expensive tickets in my hand. Is this a common way of dealing with this situation? The procedures used to deal with these types of problems need some serious oversight and review. Why should I have to leave my seat? Why was the process not explained to me? Why did I not receive an apology? Why was I treated like I did something wrong? Things like this make me wonder if the people in charge, have ever taken a customer service training in their entire lives.

The game was fun, at least the two periods I saw were fun. The Stars won 4-1, scoring on some power plays and scoring it into an empty net as time expired. I took some pics on my camera phone, but they aren’t very good.

I did email the VP of Operations for the Stars last night, so I’ll keep everyone updated on what they do to remedy my frustrations. I’m hoping for some free tickets for a future game!