Scotia bank arena and Ticketmaster are the worst.

-Disclaimer. To start off I’d like to state that I understand ticketmaster doesn’t have direct access to most of the tickets they sell and can only be so reliable as most tickets are sold by a third party. With that being said, they could do more due diligence considering the fees they slap onto your ticket purchases. I’d like to know if anyone else had similar experiences to the one I had yesterday?

-The intro I’ve been a WWE fan since childhood, when I found out they were coming back to Toronto I decided to go for my birthday with my father. We looked at tickets for months and I made it a point to go for tickets that were labelled as “aisle seats” on ticketmaster because im 6’4-6’5 and my dad is 6’1-2. Even paid slightly extra for them. I already knew it would be problematic knowing it was at Scotia bank arena but whatever.

-The seats. Fast forward to last night, we show up and find our tickets are not aisle seats unlike what ticketmaster told us and instead are all the way at the end of the row next to a wall. not only that but it was a partially obstructed view because the seats on the other side of the wall were elevated and slightly in front of ours. These seats also had less leg room then airplane seats, to the point where moving an inch forward or back would put you in contact with the people in front/ behind you, when you’re shuffling past people to get to your seat it’s almost impossible to not bump into people or accidentally step on their toes no matter your size. The seats also seemed to be temporary because when anyone in the area moved or stood up the whole seat set up moved for multiple rows, it also had hollow metal floors that were very sketchy instead of the concrete that the rest of the seats had.

-The concessions. For some reason Scotia bank arena automated their pizza/ hotdog/ drink/popcorn section making it a self checkout. If you accidentally scan your item twice and then remove one from the cart you aren’t able to continue scanning other items until a customer service person helps. These are also in a very cramped space where people are bumping into each other constantly. As you leave a lady tells you that you can’t keep your can and bottle caps and pours your beer in a plastic cup.

It seemed like the whole setup was more inconvenient than before, making you work instead of the employees while still needed the same amount of staff, for the price you pay for a slice of pizza, some popcorn, a beer and a water you’d expect it to be a lot less aggravating. Whatever.

-The pros. The concierge’s that direct you to your seat were very professional and knew where every seat was.

The security made entering quick and easy which I rarely experience at events this large.

The show was still fun even though the uncomfortable seating.

Conclusion. Would I pay 175$ before tax and fees per ticket again? Definitely not especially since I did this for my birthday and got mislead by ticketmaster and screwed by the excessive greed of Scotiabank arena. For the price you pay to go to events at this arena I’m not sure why people accept this kind of stuff. At most places those prices would buy you a premium experience with full transparency and no unnecessary inconvenience.