Short lines at Citi Field to buy Mets tickets

[Lil Bit Special]

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spmtick176072360mar17,0,4388693.story

John Cintorino planned to arrive at Citi Field before 7 a.m. yesterday to get in line for the Mets' in-person, single-game ticket sales event, but he overslept.

Turns out that the extra sleep didn't hurt the 45-year-old Ozone Park resident, because he was still first in line when the ticket counters opened two hours after his arrival.

When 9 a.m. rolled around, only a handful of Mets fans were waiting outside the Bullpen Gate entrance to purchase tickets, even though metal barricades, security guards and a police van suggested that the organization anticipated a larger turnout. Between 8:35 and 10:45 there were only five or six people on line.

"I thought there would be more people than this," Cintorino said, even though he had assumed people procured tickets by other means. "I figured a lot of people would do it online or over the phone yesterday."

Robert Brennan, 58, of Jackson Heights, said the small turnout surprised him. "Maybe it wasn't advertised much," he said.

The dearth of customers purchasing in person, however, did not surprise Dave Howard, executive vice president of business operations for the Mets.

Tickets for games in April and May (except for the opener April 13) also were made available for purchase online and via telephone Sunday morning, which Howard said went "very well."

Howard said the 50,000 tickets purchased Sunday were comparable to those sold last year on March 9, when the entire season's tickets were available. Howard also said total ticket sales (slightly more than 2 million) are up 10 percent from 2008.

Buying tickets conveniently, online or over the telephone, has become the preferred option for many, Howard said. "Our customers are moving more and more to online and phone sales," he said. "We've been seeing that, for the past couple years, in-person sales have dwindled."

Other factors for the paucity of patrons include on-site construction and the inability to buy tickets for Opening Day, which were made available through a random online drawing.

Matthew Hoey, 33, of Newburgh, said if he had been given the opportunity to camp out and wait in line to buy tickets for Citi Field's opener, he'd have showed up yesterday.

Hoey was first in line for the in-person sales events from 1999-2005. Hoey said he purchased five tickets over the phone Sunday as well as a 15-game pack online in February.

"I felt really upset they didn't offer fans the opportunity to go and purchase an Opening Day ticket like I did in the past," Hoey said.

Hoey said the fans not fortunate enough to be chosen in the drawing must buy tickets online through sites such as eBay or StubHub, where face value can escalate astronomically.

"It's unheard of," Hoey said. "The fans who came year after year and camped out to get tickets, they don't offer them anything."

[AdropOFvenom]

Buying tickets conveniently, online or over the telephone, has become the preferred option for many, Howard said. "Our customers are moving more and more to online and phone sales," he said. "We've been seeing that, for the past couple years, in-person sales have dwindled."

Pretty much says it all right there...

Waiting outside the ballpark overnight is an extinct art (Or at least, it should be).