“Enormous Seating Screwup” Sours Royal Rumble Experience for Fans

According to Reddit user evanweb546, there were multiple seating problems at last night’s WWE Royal Rumble which led to many fans not being seating until well into the show. Some fans were reportedly not seated until the match between John Cena and AJ Styles began. Below are emails written by evanweb546 and another Reddit user, tehdudeabides:

evanweb546:
I’m going to assume by the near constant busy signal on your customer care line a lot of my fellow “floor seat folks” are as upset as I am about their disappointing Royal Rumble experience. I got to the arena in time for the pre-show and got to watch a total of two matches from the seat I picked specifically on Ticketmaster (along the ramp barrier)… it was shortly after that I was asked to get up by a police officer. Me and HUNDREDS of others were left to stand awkwardly in the isle for a quarter to half the entire show.
I paid nearly 800 dollars for my friend and I to stand in the isle getting berated by other fans, cops and RUDE Alamodome staff. I was even promised an event chair to take home for my troubles, when I got to the door leading out another RUDE Dome employee glanced at my ticket, ignored what I was saying telling me “you don’t get a chair” and a policeman told me to keep it moving before I could explain myself. Before I knew it I was outside, no chair, having missed half the show with just an enormous tension headache for my trouble.
This was not only one of the worst live event experiences of my life, but one of the most taxing consumer experiences period. I’m a native San Antonion, I love attending WWE events in my city… but I’ll NEVER be attending another WWE show at the Alamodome for as long as I live.
Decades long fan,
-name redacted

tehdudeabides:
Good morning,
My friend and I attended the Royal Rumble last night at the Alamodome having had tickets to the event since they first went on sale last fall. He purchased the tickets for us and I then reimbursed him for mine. In purchasing the tickets, he looked at the seating map which said that in section D, seat 1 was to be by the entrance ramp. He bought seats 1 and 2 for us. Upon arrival to the Alamodome, we discovered that this was not the case. Not only was this not the case but the seat number closest to the ramp was seat 16. The way the chairs were numbered (mind you written out by chalk on the floor) starting at the aisle, were seats 17-20, and then 1-16. 1 was not even an aisle seat. We were not the only ones confused by this. Every row in our section had the exact same issue. At the ramp we were able to ask the attendees on the other side what their seat number was and they told us they were seat 1. Because of this chaos, we essentially missed the whole pre-show, and the majority of the event. We were moved from our seats at least 5 times by alamodome staff and security, WWE staff, and police officers. They ended up putting us on the aisle which also meant that we did not get a commemorative seat to take home with us. All of this moving and standing and walking and trying to find someone who knew exactly what was going on took us the better part of 4 hours from 4pm to 8pm. We finally got to sit for the final two matches with limited view. We also found out that patrons who had paid $70 for their seats up in the plaza level had to be moved down to our area because of their seats being taken up by lights or equipment. We paid $400+ for our seats. A lot of the evening was spent in disarray, anger, frustration and basically a feeling of waste. We went to guest services at the end of the show to try to find some solace or at least some sympathy for our situation but received neither. I would say that he and I expect some sort of compensation or reimbursement because we feel cheated, robbed, and overall, let down. One of the WWE staff gave us a voucher for 3 months to WWE Network to be redeemed at guest services but they were too busy handing out chairs to people in a long line to even listen to us, let alone redeem these vouchers. Please let us know if anything can be done.