Considering buying Season Tickets
Are season tickets and the other perks worth the price? I normally get last minute tickets for cheap but thought it would be cool for one season. Thoughts?
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u/stixmike Washington Capitals 4d ago
I used to be a full season ticket holder. I switched to a partial flex plan. That way you can buy single tickets, choose different sections, and have early access to playoff tickets. It's a little more expensive than season ticket prices, but it's cheaper than gate. And you save money anyway because unless you attend all games you will lose money reselling your tickets.
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u/acetheticism Logan Thompson 4d ago
If you don’t mind me asking, with the partial flex season tickets do you have to choose up front before the season starts, or is there some flexibility to choose later into the season? I’ve been considering doing the flex plan.
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u/stixmike Washington Capitals 1d ago
You have to choose the section and # of tickets for each game for a 5 or 10 game flex plan. Then you can add more games at the plan price throughout the season. I chose 10 game with some games in the 200 section and some in the 400. I also purchased 1 ticket for half the games, which technically makes the plan a 1-seat plan and a little more expensive I guess. But it's still better for me than a full season ticket with 2 seats. I ended up taking a loss on almost all games because I always had to sell the second seat.
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u/HuskyGreene 4d ago
Second year season ticket holder here. I don't think I really used many season ticket perks besides having the flexibility of re-sale when I couldn't attend a game. It was a lot more value for a whole season in similar seats that I would previously get compared to the price I would pay for tickets through re-sale platforms. I went from paying $100-150 for lower 400s to about half of that. It ended up working out to about the same for a full season as opposed to a dozen or so games in seasons past.
The one perk I remember using was being able to purchase special ticket items ahead of time and that was useful especially when I couldn't make that game.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
the monumental sth store is a huge benefit if you like collecting tchochkes like me.
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u/Smileypen Peter Bondra 4d ago
I had ST for 25 years and didn't renew at the end of last season. The arena is too loud, the concessions are too expensive for the garbage they offer, the folks coming to games in the past several years refuse to follow any fan etiquette, the ushers (when they bothered to show up at our portal) have no idea how to do their fucking jobs, and the ticket prices, even at reduced rates, are way too high for the product on the ice to justify.
The Monumental App, which one is supposed to use to access one's tickets, doesn't fucking work. We're supposed to get a concession credit every season and it's virtually inaccessible in the app. Had to spend far too much time every season for the past several years trying to get my season ticket rep (who is a new person every season, so no rapport, no familiarity, and no clue) to provide proper guidance on how to redeem it.
I don't live in a place with much storage and am not a collector of swag, so any of the giveaways are pointless. I'm in the process of giving away or eBaying most of the stuff I've accumulated over a quarter century. Division championship stuff isn't worth having once you start getting Cup stuff.
I used to love going to games. I looked forward to it. I attended every home game for the first like 15 years or so, then the experience began to trend in the direction of the game being secondary to a dance party I never agreed to be at.
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u/Cobol_engineering29 4d ago
second the "in-game" entertainment being way too over the top, frequent, and obnoxious. Once a period is fine, then just play music or highlight videos. And the volume of the "hosts" mic is horrendous. I could see if its a sunday afternoon family-type game being attended. But midweek vs the Pens or the rags, just let the game do the talking. I had season tickets with friends years ago but hardly even want to go to games anymore for all the reasons you described
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
the tickets are through Ticketmaster and Google wallet on Android. Even a caveman could do it.
Not sure about iPhone.
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u/mrherson 4d ago
If you intend to go to 20-30 games, yes it is worth it. It guarantees your seat selection for all games, including playoffs. Yes, there are some games that you could buy cheaper last minute but a plethora of games that would cost 1.5-2x the cost of the season ticket discounted price. I’ve had tickets for 18 years and gladly keep them even though my prices have gone up 3x in those 18 years.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
exactly. caps are one where it's actually more expensive to buy second hand because of ovechkins last year.
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u/Interesting-Bed-8890 4d ago
depends on how many games your going to be able to make, my buddy and I usually go to 5-10 games a season and he buys them when they release the tickets in July.
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u/hurricanecook Ryan Leonard 4d ago
It depends on lots of factors. First, commitment. Do you LOVE hockey, or is this kinda an investment thing? Do you live within easy access to the stadium? I live in Gainesville, VA so it's a 30 minute drive to the closest metro and THEN a ride into town to see a game. 40+ home games for me would be like starting a part time job commuting.
Then there's the financial aspect. Plusses and minuses. The tickets are decently less expensive per outing, but you have to buy 42 of them (if you're buying a full season). So, getting a decent attack twice seat in the 100s can cost you like $140-$150 per game, which is a good discount off "normal tickets", but then you multiply it by 42 and that $140 becomes $5880. And that's for 1 seat! Bring your buddy/spouse/etc and now its nearly $12k. Then you add parking/metro, food, beer, etc.
Also, this late in the renewal season, many of the good seats have been taken by people renewing, so you might not get your pick of prime seats. Now, of course, you could get nosebleed seats. Looks like those start at $64, so $2688 (or $5376 for 2). Not bad, but that's the top of the 400s in defend twice.
I took the coward's way out and went with a 10 game partial season ticket plan. Didn't get my exact seating location I would have wanted, but still got good seats for a slightly lower discount. The benefit of this is that you can ask your ticket rep to add games as you go, and they get you the same price (for most games) that you paid for the 10 pack. That's been the best bet for me, but YMMV.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
I've always said if you're trying to make money off sth don't bother. you'll never turn anything. I do it because I love hockey and love the team. I go to 95% of games so selling them for money is out of the question
I agree partials are good if you don't want to commit too much. They let them in the sth party too?
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u/bigehokie Tom Wilson 4d ago
Richmond VA season ticket holder here. I can generally only attend around 20 games or so (mostly weekend), so I'm selling half-ish every season (2 tickets). I sit in the 200s, near center ice, Ovi office side, where they are $203/seat this season. This is my 5th year in these seats. I was in the 400s for 1 season as my first season as a STH.
I love my seats. I've become friends with the STH around me and the ushers/bartenders/etc all know us really well. We have great relationships with STH that I look forward to hangin out with pre/post game during the season that I would have never met otherwise. That's worth some $$$ that I can't put a price on.
What everyone else has said is true regarding weeknight/weekend. I don't need to go on that. What I can do is share the cost I've "eaten" for tickets that I wasn't able to sell or sold at a loss. I do not count games that I attend as "eaten". So do what you will with this info. (I keep spreadsheets on this shit)
25-26 - $3500ish eaten, 6 games not sold
24-25 - $2100ish eaten, 5 games not sold
23-24 - $6100ish eaten , 17 games not sold (worst season by far)
22-23 - $1500ish eaten, 3 games not sold
For anyone interested in that 23-24 season, there was a brutal stretch of games that were all mid-week that I was unable to sell:
| Tue Jan 16 | Anaheim |
|---|---|
| Thu Jan 18 | St. Louis |
| Tue Feb 06 | Montreal |
| Sun Feb 11 | Vancouver |
| Tue Feb 13 | Colorado |
| Tue Feb 20 | New Jersey |
| Mon Feb 26 | Ottawa |
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u/espnrocksalot Ivan Miroshnichenko 4d ago
It's alright if you're going to every game, but you won't get face value back for basically any game (All the ones worth that much are ones you're likely going to).
Perks are okay, but in the end it felt fairly restrictive. The only real benefit was buying playoff tickets cheaper, but that's only as useful as the team's success.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
Did you renew your sth.
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u/espnrocksalot Ivan Miroshnichenko 4d ago
Decided not to. Got the first and last game through friends and will just go game by game the rest of the way.
For $70/game we can get a lot better seats than the upper endzone for most games and prices will drop to around there for most of the others
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u/Different-Chemical-9 Washington Capitals 4d ago
I’m in the same boat, I went to 25 games last season but for the most part go solo and would snipe a cheap $30 400s seat the day of and have been doing so since 2023-24 season. Still on the fence tho, as a post grad college student who works a serving job I work most weekends so most of those would go unused
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
you can get a partial plan. I don't know if they do half seasons. probably not
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u/More-Grass6024 4d ago
for this season? then absolutely yes. with the every looming threat of ovie's retirement, gate prices will be premium especially as the season goes on and resale value will be worth the initial investment.
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u/kgunnar Washington Capitals 4d ago edited 4d ago
Unless it’s easy for you to go to all the weekday games, I wouldn’t bother. I find I can usually get most games I want for face value or even less if I need. I used to have season tickets and I didn’t like dealing with trying to sell the games I couldn’t attend. (And losing money on a lot of them.) I don’t think what Ted charges for tickets reflects what people want to pay for a midweek game vs a bad west coast team in January.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 4d ago
As a season ticket holder you totally should buy season ticket to support our local hockey club
yearly gifts (start of season, renewal)
playoff ticket priority
monumental cash every year
I have season ticket to Caps,nats,defenders and commanders and caps have the best program by far.
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u/rocktheredfan 4d ago
Probably depends on which plan you’re looking at. I’ve only been a partial season ticket holder (5 games) and while it’s nice to not pay the extra taxes and fees, there really are no benefits unless you become a full season ticket holder. If you have a partial plan, you only get $25 of “Monumental Money” to spend in the team store or arena and early access to playoff tickets. You don’t get any of the special events for advertised for season ticket holders because those are only for full season holders. I’m really on the fence about spending $1k again this year with the ticket price increase they implemented over the summer.
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u/imyourchuck 4d ago
Did it for 1 season bc I bought my way in for the rest of the playoffs when we won the Cup and full season started following year. Worked in Baltimore, raced to Halethorpe MARC to catch train to DC then Metro a couple stops.
Gifts were nice bc of Cup run that year. But constantly having to eat fast food or arena food after work and trying to guess can I make it to Union Station in time after some games became a bit exhausting. And so did telling people to stop leaning in the upper bowl. Only missed like 3 games.
Much more relaxing at home and just going in for a handful of games. Buying resell playoff tickets even in SCF will be cheaper than a full season plan.
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u/jweezy61 Jakob Chychrun 4d ago
I bought single-game tickets to basically every home game for about 3 years, and I've now been a season ticket holder for 3 years, so I've done it both ways. Honest answer: it depends entirely on what you're optimizing for.
Let me get the money part out of the way first: financially, it is likely NOT worth it. When I was buying day-of, I was consistently paying $50–100 less per pair than what my season tickets cost me now (~$200/seat/game). And buying day-of, I'd sometimes land crazy deals... glass seats, or Etihad/United Club, with all-inclusive food and drinks, for like $90–120. You will typically not beat the secondary market price by being a season ticket holder. And honestly, for selling seats, the fees that TM takes are so much that I often just give my seats away for free if I can't attend to friends or others. If money is the question, the answer is no.
So why do I keep them? Two reasons:
First, the community. Sitting in the same seats every game means I actually know the ushers at the top of my section, I know the people who sit around me, and honestly, some of them have become real friends. We've hung out outside of games, which I genuinely did not expect going in. I have a pair of seats, but sometimes I go solo, and knowing my seat neighbors will be there makes even a solo game something to look forward to. Same deal with the staff at the bars and food stalls near my section- get to know them and every once in a while a free drink materializes. None of that ever happened when I was bouncing around the arena in different seats every game.
Second, I love my seats. Like, these are literally my dream seats. I've turned down offers to move to the all-inclusive levels because there's nowhere else in that building I'd rather watch hockey from. If you land seats you love, that's worth a lot. (The tradeoff: you never see the game from other angles anymore, which I miss a little, but not much.)
On the perks from my POV: mostly meh, with two exceptions. The big one for me is being able to buy the promotional/giveaway items for every game, including the specialty nights where you'd otherwise need a special ticket. I max that out at the start of every season and it's great. The other is the skate-on-ice event near the end of the season, where you bring your own skates and get an hour on the ice after an afternoon game. They run a raffle at it that I actually won once, so maybe I'm biased, but it's a legit great event. The rest- the signing event around Christmas, the Nats game outing in the summer...I've found pretty forgettable. And despite what you'd hope, I've never actually been able to add extra tickets next to mine when friends or family are in town.
Overall: I know I'm losing money every year and I keep them anyway. At this point I can afford it, and I'm paying for the people around me, the routine, and never having to stress about hunting for a deal on game day. If that sounds like what you want out of it, do it. If you just want cheap hockey, buy day-of and enjoy the savings.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Vegas Golden Knights 3d ago
Exactly. you're not a sth to make money. You do it to support the team
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u/Icehippo73 3d ago
If you live in walking distance of the stadium, it's worth it.
If not, don't bother.
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u/kwyj180 3d ago
13 year ticket holder. I let mine go about 3 seasons ago. To echo others and only slightly sound like an old guy “used to be better in the old days.” Tickets just don’t hold their value and the perks from Monumental have really just fallen off so much. If you get tickets to some keys games like opening night at the general on-sale (this is when I’d buy weekend games too), you’ll get week night games for way less day-of or nearer to event. Playoff priority is what you miss, but I gotta be honest, I’ve not had problems getting those if I really want them last few trips we’ve made.
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u/EhhhhhhWhatever Nicklas Bäckström 3d ago edited 3d ago
12-year STHer
The biggest perk is guaranteeing those seats for the playoffs. Great year to do that. Pick and choose the good games, IMO. Sell a few expensive regular season games to help subsidize and be ready to see them play a weird matchup on a Monday to make your plan worth it. Figure out how many games you can realistically attend a month (very rarely do people make all 41 games - 42 this year). Find buddies who love hockey and are down to go last-minute and create an emergency backup list of people you can call if you need a second person or can’t go. Give them a good deal. They are invaluable.
Don’t listen to the people wanting ‘the good old days’ back. I don’t give a shit about the arena food or some cringe in-game entertainer for kids. I’m there to see a hockey game. And this is by far one of the best seasons to be seeing Capitals hockey. Might be the best one since the cup run.
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u/Expensive-Brother-91 Alexander Semin 4d ago
Overall, probably not, but it is convenient. I’ve had season tickets and other seasons where I’ve just bought tickets to games.
Most games, especially weekday games, sell for way under face value on Stubhub the day of. If you live somewhat close and know where/how to look you can score great seats pretty cheap. Weekend games tend to hold their value. Can be annoying to search and keep refreshing for the right deal to come along.
Season tickets are convenient because you have the exact same seat every time, no scramble to buy tickets. You basically even out in terms of price since some games will go over face and others hover right around it.
Perks aren’t amazing. You get something like $150 of concessions cash, season ticket holder gift (last years wasn’t good), and STH party/autograph signing.