Bears Fans Complain of Inability to Score Practice Tickets via Ticketmaster
The Chicago Bears give out free tickets for their training camp practices, but this year, fans trying to score a ticket on Ticketmaster faced several woes.
The Bears’ practices will commence across nine dates: July 26, 27, and 30, and August 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, and 15. While the Bears haven’t won a playoff game since 2010, fans are excited to see rookie Caleb Williams live, as well as the additions of veteran wide receive Keenan Allen and rookie wide receiver Rome Odunze.
Tickets were up-for-grabs on Ticketmaster’s site starting at 10 a.m. Tuesday. When fans logged on, they faced long wait times in the online queue, error codes, and just minutes after 10 a.m., thousands were left empty-handed. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, tickets for all nine practices were sold out in less than 45 minutes. Many fans called-on the team go back to Bourbannais for their training camp and slammed the organization for choosing to go through Ticketmaster.
Getting practice camp tickets for the @ChicagoBears is like trying to get some dang Taylor Swift tickets. 😭😭😭 I miss the days of lining up outside of FYE or Carson’s to deal with Ticketmaster. I just wanna take my little boy & now you’re gonna have people selling them for 💰
— Elsita (@lovelydeviant) July 9, 2024
@ChicagoBears @RyanPolesBears Today was a sad day. I was online for Bears Practice Tickets and they sold out on all days (I was going for 7/26 my day off work). As a grown up, I cried like a kid smh. My entire day was destroyed.
— Haze1iz (@Haze1iz) July 9, 2024
yeah i was first in the queue and @Ticketmaster called me a bot and kicked me out. no extensions, iOS app. really fuckin cool
— kevin 🧖🏻♂️ (@kevydimes) July 9, 2024
Horrible process. Have to bot to get tickets or have a plug. Bourbonnais would NEVER
— 🅱️🚂 (@blakecowellx) July 9, 2024
Broadcast practice for the fans, since none of us can get tickets.
Or bring back Bourbonais, this is just AWFUL
— Swift Sports Network (@SwiftyNetwork) July 9, 2024
Lifelong Bears fan. Signed on at 10am and kept getting told this: pic.twitter.com/76RcYHpJXY
— Alex (@alexmiehl) July 9, 2024
Thanks for getting my hopes up! I had 2 tickets for 8/14 and the awful @Ticketmaster website hit me with an error code when I submitted the order. Now the tickets are gone.
— Chris D. (@CDUHleen93) July 9, 2024
Shout out to the @ChicagoBears training camp ticket process. Let’s make it so 250 people can “buy” 4 tickets each and every day sells out before you even get into the queue because Halas Hall has a capacity of like 1000 people. Bears gonna Bears. I miss Bourbonais.
— Yablong (@mikeyablong) July 9, 2024
Admin tell the team to never use Ticketmaster again 🙏🏼
— Tvandy0615 (@tmoney6556) July 9, 2024
Can’t think of anything more ridiculous than Bears TRAINING CAMP tickets being limited and sold on ticketmaster. Literally as backwards as it gets. Used to just walk into Bourbonnais for 2 separate decades. Why has that changed while the organization has remained dogshit?
— BK (@bvks_) July 9, 2024
Ticketmaster is a joke. At 11am est I tried to enter queue and kept being routed back to the same prompt. I finally got in and when it was my turn (which by this time was only 11:04am), my Ticketmaster app screen went white and I had to start all over. Then it was sold out. 😞
— Reed Bonnet (@ReedyRancher) July 9, 2024
Following the ticket distributions, tickets were available on resale sites for hundreds of dollars each.
All the training camp tickets are on StubHub going anywhere from $60-$195. There has to be a better way.
— david herman (@herman_dav75721) July 9, 2024
The person selling these should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
(In all seriousness, these websites should ban the sale of free camp tickets bc f that) https://t.co/I4KOVUPqRn pic.twitter.com/6Lx0TErZWO
— Jeff Berckes (@gridironborn) July 9, 2024
On Wednesday, StubHub announced they will remove Bears ticketing listings from their site, as the resale of free tickets is prohibited on their platform. Additionally, the secondary ticketing site said they plan on cancelling any training camp tickets that were already sold.
The Bears nor Ticketmaster have provided comment on the matter.
Ticketmaster has been under fire as of late; over the last year, fans have been frustrated with its ticketing system, leaving fans across all music genres and sporting leagues unable to obtain tickets through its infamous online queue. Ticketmaster has also been targeted alongside its parent company Live Nation for its alleged monopolistic business practices in an antitrust lawsuit by the Department of Justice and 29 states.
