What does it really cost to attend a Penguins game now?

[pittsoccer33]

This thread isn't to complain about ticket prices or scalping or anything like that. Tickets cost whatever somebody is willing to pay for them - whether they followed the team before Mario, wear a blue jersey, paid with a business expense account, or are only there to tweet about the fact that they are there.

I haven't been to very many games since CEC opened. I know that the season ticket prices have gone up a pretty good bit and therefore the secondary market is higher as well.

I often found F level seats at Mellon for under $35 and I went to a game in each of the first three rounds of the 2009 playoffs for around $65 a seat. Now when I look on Craiglist, Stubhub, Ebay, or the sellers thread here it looks like $150 is the going rate for a decent seat. Am I correct on that?

Have the season ticket holder prices gone up so much that there is nothing to find around $50 or less?

[Beveridge]

*after reading the posts I should have waited for, I realized I added no value and possible misinformation so feel free to delete my post here mods.

[jprolley]

$70-$100 for a "cheap" ticket. for me, about $20 in gas, $6 in tolls, $15 to park and about $15-$20 in food at the game.

[beLIEve]

There are season ticket holders that pay less than $50 per seat for their tickets. I only pay $53.50 per seat for a full season and I sit in 204, which is not the cheapest section in the building. Somebody over in the 228ish area has to be paying less than $50 per seat for their full season.

As you mentioned tickets being worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, the demand is just too high and supply too low for you to see tickets for less than $50 on the market. That is especially true in this shortened season where you have to figure there are around the same number of people that "want to go to at least 1 game this year", but only 24 home games in which to do that.

To answer your thread title question, what does it really cost to attend a Penguins game this year? That answer varies wildly based on your requirements. You can go get an assigned standing room only spot for $55 for several of the game out there right now. If you must have a seat, I just did a quick search on the ticket exchange and there are several single seats (not pairs) that are less than $50 right now.

Watching ticket prices, this is what seems to determine ticket prices (in this order:
-- Date/time of the game. Far more people are willing to go to a Saturday night game than any other night of the week, regardless of opponent.
-- Opponent. Flyers games are obviously at a premium.
-- Time remaining until the game. In general, you pay a premium to have peace of mind and have your tickets in advance of game day. If you're willing to be patient, you can usually snag late tickets by one of a few methods.
1. Tickets are held until the day of the game for a variety of partners, player families, etc. Those get released to the general public the day of the game. My friends have snagged several playoff tickets this way to games that otherwise appear "sold out".
2. Check the ticket exchange on the day of the game. Sometimes people have emergencies or other plans come up, so they'll put their tickets up on the exchange for cheaper than anyone else is listing them to ensure that they sell.
3. Obviously more risky, but also the cheapest method is to wait out a scalper outside the arena. Those tickets in his hand that he hasnt sold yet are worth nothing to him if he goes home with them. Wait until after puck drop and you can usually haggle him way below his asking price.

[newarenanow]

My seats are $60 piece, but I use only one of them.

Parking is $5 in town and I walk up.

I'm hit or miss on food. Sometimes I'll grab something before, sometimes I'll drop like $15 at Friday's or the SOuper Bowl. I rarely buy food there, but if I do, I usually drop $10.

Now beer is where it is expensive. If I don't drink, then I get a Coke for like $7. If I'm drinking beer, I usually get 3-4 a game, so that is like $30-35.

So overall, w/o beer, I spend like $75-85. With beer, about $100-105.

[newarenanow]

BTW, my buddy and I have sold about 6 of our 12 games so far, and for $120 total we paid, we've made no less than $225 on stubhub. So we've pretty much paid for our entire season ticket package selling half of our games this year. So technically I spend about $15-25 if I'm not drinking beer, about $40-45 if I am.

[llipgh2]

In the rare times I sell my tickets, I sell them for face value (33.50). I sit in the upper bowl.

Pay $4 for parking. I have a parking value card for the BNY Mellon garages, $4 is the event rate.

I don't drive, whoever I take to the game does. That's the deal, free ticket for ride or beers or dinner.

Speaking of dinner, usually eat at the 5th Ave Grille. Dinner/beer without tip can be $20-24.

At the game, if I'm buying beer, I usually have 2. $15.50.

[pittsoccer33]

If I had season tickets I have no doubt in my mind I'd sell every Flyers and Capitals game. I'd personally rather pay a premium to watch us destroy a last place team than lose a 4-3 game against Philly.

I was thinking of going to last friday night's game and was checking ebay Friday afternoon for a single seat. I saw some tickets with far off locations like Des Moines Iowa for Friday's game at a price that seemed a bit high. The auction on them was over the following Monday - three days after the game. There are a lot of seats listed that way.

Do resellers just put a bunch of games on sites like that at really high prices hoping they get a few bites throughout the year?

I've also found out that the seedy looking sites ticket brokers link to on Craiglist appear to be a loose syndicate. Last year I waited until the last minute to buy Wicked tickets and when they were sold out I went digging through those various sites. The same seats were available on several different sites. I did end up getting them through a broker like that. He was running a ticket selling business out of Bridgeville and was just trying to make an honest buck.

[pittsoccer33]

In the rare times I sell my tickets, I sell them for face value (33.50). I sit in the upper bowl.

That's pretty telling about where the demand is. If any of the seats I'm looking at are similar to yours they are making double their cash at least. I'd sell almost all of them if that was me.

[Jopaz]

I have to question the use of the STH price as the "face value", even though that is what is printed on the ticket. IMO, the true face value or list price for comparison sake should be the game-day price set by the team (exclude ticket master fees for the sake of the discussion if you want).

The STH gets a discount for buying in bulk and paying in advance for the whole season. For someone who wants to buy just 1 game (and also they want to pick the game, the opponent, the date), then they should expect to negotiate off the list price of a single game ticket. If you can get a single game at the STH bulk rate, that's good for you but as the OP stated, the real price is set by the market and the demand drives re-sales.

For a non-STH to expect to get tickets at "not more than face value" may not be realistic. It can happen, but that discount was meant for the bulk purchaser who takes on the risk of possible unused games, up-front investment, etc. If you are buying a single game, and get a better price than game-day price from the team, you are getting a good deal.

[Big Easy Pens Fan]

My seats are $60 piece, but I use only one of them.

Parking is $5 in town and I walk up.

I'm hit or miss on food. Sometimes I'll grab something before, sometimes I'll drop like $15 at Friday's or the SOuper Bowl. I rarely buy food there, but if I do, I usually drop $10.

Now beer is where it is expensive. If I don't drink, then I get a Coke for like $7. If I'm drinking beer, I usually get 3-4 a game, so that is like $30-35.

So overall, w/o beer, I spend like $75-85. With beer, about $100-105.

The above in red is not entirely accurate. The CEC is a Pepsi place. Coke products are not available there. Now I know that this does not mean much to some folks, but to others it makes all the difference in the world.

BEPF

[Jopaz]

Sorry, BEPF, you can't get Pepsi there either.

The Dr Pepper/Snapple group has the contract, so you have those options plus RC Cola and a few others (at the main concessino areas - can't say for the club sections)

[rarst17]

My seats are $60 piece, but I use only one of them.

Parking is $5 in town and I walk up.

I'm hit or miss on food. Sometimes I'll grab something before, sometimes I'll drop like $15 at Friday's or the SOuper Bowl. I rarely buy food there, but if I do, I usually drop $10.

Now beer is where it is expensive. If I don't drink, then I get a Coke for like $7. If I'm drinking beer, I usually get 3-4 a game, so that is like $30-35.

So overall, w/o beer, I spend like $75-85. With beer, about $100-105.

The above in red is not entirely accurate. The CEC is a Pepsi place. Coke products are not available there. Now I know that this does not mean much to some folks, but to others it makes all the difference in the world.

BEPF

Actually it's an RC Cola place, which is absurd. I don't eat when I go to games because I refuse to pay $7 for RC Cola and I don't want to eat without a drink.

[sil]

Spoiler:

[llipgh2]

In the rare times I sell my tickets, I sell them for face value (33.50). I sit in the upper bowl.

That's pretty telling about where the demand is. If any of the seats I'm looking at are similar to yours they are making double their cash at least. I'd sell almost all of them if that was me.

I sell the tix to people I know. I can't see gouging them.

[Big Easy Pens Fan]

I am not a STH. Whenever I do come up to a Pens game I buy tickets from the Pens through Ticketmaster, usually when they first go on sale. For the three games I attended last week I sat in section 220 (centerice) once and section 204 (Pens shoot twice) two times. I paid $85.00/ticket, with an $11.95 Ticketmaster fee and $2.75 to print my own ticket (cheapest option), for a total of total of $99.70 per ticket per game. I have no problem finding seats in pretty much any section in the arena, but then again I am attending games solo and require only one ticket. But I have noticed that multiple (2 or more) tickets together are harder to find via ticketmaster. For those my opinion for the best option on those would be to use the viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60286&p=2326084#p2277826 thread, which is (always?) the 1st thread in the main forum.

Obviously tickets in the lower bowl are gonna be more. I sat behind the goal in the lower bowl (Pens shoot twice) last year in the 1st round of the playoffs and the ticket was, if memory serves, somewhere in the neighborhood of $160-165 with all fees included.

Good luck.

BEPF

[knives of ice]

just look at the prices on ticketmaster. the nice thing now is you can see every seat and what it costs there. expect to pay minimally ticketmaster face value for nearly every game. weekends and premium opponents are obviously more.

[relantel]

For us, it's the constraint that we're unwilling to go to a game without our kids, so our ticket cost is already at 4 instead of 2. Our youngest has never been, and our oldest got to go to a number of games when we were STHs from 05-08. Throw in the drive in from a ways away, and it's no small price tag even at lower ticket prices - we figured our upper max was 100/per if we had to. When tix went on sale, Ticketmaster kept popping up with $240 per a row or two off the glass, or almost as much for four seats to one game as our half season price for two tickets in the E level in 05/06 (1200). That was a wow moment. As it were, finding upper bowl at CEC for four tickets together for games we were able to make it up for was difficult at best. Found some decent options on the ticket exchange, but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

(Our relatives still wish we had our season plan, but the truth is we kept it one season longer than we could afford it previously, and we would not have been able to do it financially again until this year. Maybe our mistake was not getting on the wait-list again sooner... but they will allow out of area on the wait list on an exception basis. Their system still recognizes our old STH login-id & account #.

[PghSkins]

Our relatives still wish we had our season plan,

Do your relatives bum rides with CERV in Oakland after work?

[Kovy27]

Spoiler:

LOL. This is what I thought too.

[Kovy27]

In the rare times I sell my tickets, I sell them for face value (33.50). I sit in the upper bowl.

That's pretty telling about where the demand is. If any of the seats I'm looking at are similar to yours they are making double their cash at least. I'd sell almost all of them if that was me.

I sell the tix to people I know. I can't see gouging them.

If they are gingers, they get a discount right?

[llipgh2]

In the rare times I sell my tickets, I sell them for face value (33.50). I sit in the upper bowl.

That's pretty telling about where the demand is. If any of the seats I'm looking at are similar to yours they are making double their cash at least. I'd sell almost all of them if that was me.

I sell the tix to people I know. I can't see gouging them.

If they are gingers, they get a discount right?

If you mean Azkar, he got the deal my friends get when they come with me to a game. He bought dinner in exchange for the ticket.

And, oddly enough, dinner at Burgatory came to $33.50.

[Kovy27]

If you mean Azkar, he got the deal my friends get when they come with me to a game. He bought dinner in exchange for the ticket.

And, oddly enough, dinner at Burgatory came to $33.50.

I meant Paul Martin.

How odd that dinner cost that much?!

Fleece Blanket for Monday.

[llipgh2]

If you mean Azkar, he got the deal my friends get when they come with me to a game. He bought dinner in exchange for the ticket.

And, oddly enough, dinner at Burgatory came to $33.50.

I meant Paul Martin.

How odd that dinner cost that much?!

Fleece Blanket for Monday.

Why would Paul Martin need tickets?

[Kovy27]

If you mean Azkar, he got the deal my friends get when they come with me to a game. He bought dinner in exchange for the ticket.

And, oddly enough, dinner at Burgatory came to $33.50.

I meant Paul Martin.

How odd that dinner cost that much?!

Fleece Blanket for Monday.

Why would Paul Martin need tickets?

He sucks. Duh!
Nacho Mania.