Want to buy a Varsity Cup ticket? Forget it.
A desperate shortage of Varsity Cup tickets for home matches of the Eagles has given rise to frustration, anger and illegal ticket sales.
Illegal ticket sales have surfaced on social media with tickets which officially cost only R10 being offered for up to R200 a piece.
The 4 000 tickets that were released by the North-West University’s organisers for the match on 6 March between the home team, Eagles, and Maties, the team of Stellenbosch University, were sold out within seconds, according to students who tried to buy tickets.
This was also the experience of fans who tried to purchase tickets for the earlier two home fixtures of the Eagles against the University of Johannesburg as well as against Shimlas, the team of the University of the Free State, during the 16th Varsity Cup tournament.
However, many students have shared their frustrations over the sale of tickets, or rather the lack thereof. 4 000 tickets for Monday’s game against Maties, 6 March, were released 28 February at 3pm and were sold out within seconds. But Quicket, the site where the tickets are being sold, had 12 831 visitors during the day. The NWU has an estimated 23 000 contact students on the Potchefstroom campus.
Students and would-be-spectators have taken to social media to express their anger, with some claiming that the tickets were sold out within 30 seconds. One of the users said on the NWU Eagles Facebook page: “It is impossible to get tickets” and others labelled the ticketing system as “ridiculous”.
Armand Voster, a postgraduate student, said he and his friends refreshed the ticket site and within ten seconds all the tickets were sold out. He said he preferred buying a paper ticket.
Danae Ford, a fifth-year student, said that her experience of buying Varsity Cup tickets was “very stressful, the price of the tickets is never the problem, it’s just the supply and demand of it is ridiculous.”
She said that if people are able to get tickets, they are one of a lucky few. She further said that she preferred when physical tickets had to be bought for the games as the process was much easier, because it was a “first come first serve basis”.
Christi Cloete, Senior Stakeholder Relations Officer at the NWU, said that they have received a lot of backlash from individuals who were not able to secure their tickets. “It is unfortunate that everyone cannot attend, we would love it, but it is impossible.”
For the first round of Varsity Cup action only 3 500 people were allowed. On 22 February Cloete was able to increase the Fanie du Toit sports grounds spectator capacity to 4 500.
The number of spectators allowed at the ‘Fanie’, as the facility is known in Potch, is determined and enforced through the Safety at Sports and Recreational Events Act.
However, Cloete said, “We cannot sell 4 500 tickets, we are only able to sell 4 000 tickets. The 4 500 capacity is for the venue in total, the remaining 500 ‘spaces’ we need to set out for players, coaches, referees, ER24, staff and media.”
Cloete confirmed the ticket sales were further scrutinised when people started reselling their tickets. This created the idea that people are buying hundreds of tickets at a time.
“That is simply not true, the tickets are limited to five tickets per person to prevent this. We have unfortunately experienced students reselling their tickets for a profit, but this is illegal.”
She said the organisers have come across resellers and their tickets were cancelled and put back into the system.
Cloete said that they use Quicket because it is a reputable organisation and it has a proven track record.
Furthermore, the capacity of the stadium has been questioned, especially when considering there are an estimated 23 000 contact students registered at the Potchefstroom campus. She said that upgrading the capacity of the stadium is not a feasible option. “It only reaches capacity with three or four games a year, it would not make sense spending millions to upgrade the facility.” – By Amanda Viljoen and Ruhan Friedrichs