Starting Monday, Aug. 1 the Arden Theatre box office Ticketmaster outlet will no longer issue entertainment tickets or provide pickup service for performances or events outside of the Arden Theatre.
In a move to revamp services, Ticketmaster will no longer offer regional and national sales through community outlets such as the Arden Theatre.
“We’re disappointed but we try to maintain and provide good quality service and meet people’s needs as best we can. People can still come and purchase tickets for St. Albert events at the box office and online,” said Kelly Jerrott, City of St. Albert director of cultural services.
The Arden Ticketmaster outlet will continue to be a sales and pickup venue for local events such as the Northern Alberta International Children’s Festival of the Arts, St. Albert Children’s Theatre, the Amplify Festival and the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts as well as the Arden Theatre’s regular season.
However, anyone wishing to book an event or pick up tickets from outside the city’s geographic area such as Rexall Place, Rogers Place, the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, River Cree Casino and any number of other venues will have to go online to ticketmaster.ca or drop by any one of four designated Edmonton outlets.
Cultural services was informed of the Ticketmaster decision several months ago.
“We negotiated a date to minimize the confusion for our patrons so we waited until the bulk of the last season was over and we were starting a new one,” Jerrott said.
She believes Ticketmaster shifted their sales model since most people order online.
The Arden Theatre-Ticketmaster lease agreement for the use of the behemoth’s ticketing system will continue.
When asked if the Arden would consider financing a new ticketing system, Jerrott replied, “There is a significant investment in a software ticketing system and we are not looking at that at the moment.”
She also noted that although fewer tickets will be sold through the Arden outlet, the same levels of staffing would be maintained. However, box office hours may be shortened.
“For now we will continue to monitor how much people pick up in lines at our events and we will make decisions based on service.”
Beginning Aug. 1, the new list of drop-by Edmonton outlets will be available at ticketmaster.ca/retail-outlets.
