CANADIENS HIKE PRICES
Some tickets jump 24%
The Canadiens might have just priced some of their most hardcore fans out of the Bell Centre.
Canadiens season-ticket holders received their bills this week for the 2015-16 National Hockey League season and fans who sit in the nosebleed blue section have reason to be upset. Those tickets have suddenly gone up 24 per cent in price.
“I am really pissed off ... I have to be honest,” one longtime season-ticket holder told the Montreal Gazette on Wednesday after learning his pair of tickets in the blues (located four rows from the roof ) will cost $4,002.77 this season, up from $3,227.87 last year.
“If you do the math, it’s 24 per cent … that’s insane,” added the season-ticket holder, who asked that his name not be used for fear of repercussions from the club.
“Gasoline stations don’t put up their price 24 per cent in one shot.
“They don’t even say anything to us … they just send the bill out,” he added. “They should be embarrassed by that and I’m a huge Habs fan. I’m really, really mad at this. They could have at least sent out a letter saying due to this and that we had to put up the cost. But 24 per cent? They nailed us big time.”
There will also be a significant raise in ticket prices for the other two sections in the upper bowl of the Bell Centre, with grey seats going up about 20 per cent and whites 10 per cent. One season-ticket holder in the whites told the Montreal Gazette that his pair of seats will now cost $7,378.67, including taxes and service charges.
Tickets in the lower bowl will see price increases of about 3 per cent — which a Canadiens spokesman said Wednesday is about the normal annual hike — while the limited number of tickets in the “family section” will remain at $21. A pair of season tickets in Section 103 in the lower bowl for the 2015-16 season will cost $13,895.57.
Season-ticket holders must purchase their seats for the four pre-season games at the Bell Centre at regular-season prices.
“Our people felt that it was appropriate to make the adjustments based on the real value on the market,” Donald Beauchamp, the Canadiens’ senior vice-president (communications and community relations) said Wednesday afternoon to explain the price hikes in the upper bowl. “A 25-per-cent number might look like a lot, but at the end of the day it’s about $6 or $7 more per ticket.
“The value of those tickets did not reflect their market value,” he added.
Beauchamp said the club had looked at what tickets in the upper bowl were re-selling for on the Canadiens Ticket Vault — the club’s official ticket resale site — and other secondary markets, adding: “and I’m not talking scalpers.”
The season-ticket holder in the blues who spoke with the Montreal Gazette said his seats now cost $44 each, up from $36 last season. He has had season tickets for more than 30 years, dating back to the days at the Forum, and said when the club first moved to the Bell Centre in 1996 his seats cost $16 each. He was also upset about the Canadiens charging a $110 “administration fee” for his new season tickets, not including taxes.
“Can you imagine going to McDonald’s and the guy says that’s an extra dollar for your Big Mac for administration fees?” he said. “That’s the business they’re in.”
The Canadiens have a capacity of 21,287 at the Bell Centre, with 15,000 of the seats sold as season tickets, according to Beauchamp. The Canadiens make another 4,000 seats per game available to the general public, while the rest are in corporate suites.
They should be embarrassed by that and I’m a huge Habs fan. I’m really, really mad at this. … But 24 per cent? They nailed us big time.
The Canadiens’ sellout streak at the Bell Centre came to an end after 422 games last December, but only because Jean Béliveau’s seat was left empty out of respect following the Hall of Famer’s death.
The last time the Canadiens actually didn’t sell out a game was on Jan. 8, 2004. The top individual game-ticket price for a regular-season “optimum game” last season was $439 in the Platinum section, while the same seat was $270 for a “regular game.” Individual game tickets for 2015-16 will go on sale in early September.
Beauchamp said that the economic reality is the Canadiens could sell all 21,287 seats as season tickets — with “thousands” on a waiting list — but “as an organization we always felt that it was a good idea to have those (4,000) tickets offered to more people.”
According to a Forbes report last season, the Canadiens had the 10th-highest average ticket price in the NHL last season at $219. The Toronto Maple Leafs were No. 1 at $446, followed by the Edmonton Oilers ($328), Vancouver Canucks ($297), Chicago Blackhawks ($279), Calgary Flames ($265), Winnipeg Jets ($253), Pittsburgh Penguins ($231), New York Rangers ($224) and Boston Bruins ($223).
While many of the season tickets in the lower bowl of the Bell Centre are owned by corporations, which can write off a good chunk at tax time, the blues are the seats most affordable to the average fan paying out of his own pocket. It’s also where the loudest fans normally sit, wearing their bleu-blanc-rouge sweaters. The season-ticket holder in the whites who spoke to the Montreal Gazette — and also didn’t want his name to be used — said his ticket prices basically doubled about five years ago when he moved down from the blues after being on a waiting list for two or three years to improve his seats. He owns a small business and said that last year he was able to write off about 50 per cent of the cost of his tickets, not including the PST and GST. He only goes to about five games a season himself, giving the rest of his tickets to clients.
But the season-ticket holder in the blues, who is living on an old age pension and pays 100 per cent out of his own pocket, said he can no longer afford his tickets. He plans to only go to about five games this season, while hoping to sell the rest of his tickets to friends at face value to recoup a chunk of the $4,002.77 he will now have to put out. When asked if he had thought about getting rid of his season tickets altogether, he said: “I have to keep them ... I’m a big Habs fan.”
One of the first things they teach you in Economics 101 is the law of supply and demand.
The Canadiens have learned it very well.