The curious incident of the Kiev Major tickets: A look into event ticketing

The Kiev Major tickets were completely sold out in what seemed like seconds – reportedly, 20 minutes. With the ticketing agency intermittently offline at the time of ticket sales, a hellish process for English speaking buyers and no limits on purchases per person, the community has been sent into a tizzy. Event ticketing seems to be a convoluted process – often a stressful and frustrating experience for many.

The Kiev Major tickets went on sale on Wednesday, February 22, at 10:00 local time (09:00 CET).

The much anticipated spring major event tickets were sold through Karabas – a Ukrainian ticket agency. The tickets were available for purchase as individual daily passes with prices ranging from ₴130/~$5 – ₴400/~$15 – mere pennies for a $3 million major event.

The event is being held at the National Palace of Arts – one of the main theater venues in Kiev, Ukraine, with a seating capacity of almost 4,000 in the main concert hall. This is approximately the same size and capacity as the Boston Major held at Wang Theater, half the size of Frankfurt Major’s Festhalle Messe, about a quarter of the size of Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, and a third of the size of Mall of Asia Arena in Manila.

Between the low cost, the large passionate fan base in the CIS region and the limited number of seats available for attendance, tickets were a hot commodity.

However, as fans clamored to gain tickets, frustrations about the process and legalities of broker and scalping have once again surfaced – a story as old as time for Dota 2 fans.

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Kiev Major ticket fiasco

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Prior to tickets being released, Valve recommended creating and preparing an account on Karabas to ensure a smooth process.

Many fans complained that the site was difficult to navigate and that the page did not translate all of the text when switched to English.

Despite the difficulties, customers were ready to move forward with the stroke of the clock signaling the release.

According to social media and Reddit reports, the tickets were nearly impossible to purchase online. Most people attributed the situation to the absence of any limitations on amount of tickets allowed per person. Reports indicate that buyers were able to purchase as many as 50-200 tickets at a time at the physical locations.

Some lucky fans were able to secure tickets via the online process – proof that the system was functioning and available, at least for a brief time.

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Previous ticket sales experiences in Dota 2

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Buying tickets for Dota 2 major events such as The International has been riddled with a history of grievances and letdowns.

Tickets for The International 4 were sold out in less than an hour.

The International 5 tickets were sold out in a matter of minutes. The first batch of tickets was completely sold out in less than six minutes. A second batch of tickets then went on sale 12 hours later, only to vanish within minutes yet again.

The process was marred with multiple errors, loading problems, system crashes and overall glitches. Tickets started to circulate on Ebay and other listings for prices ranging from $400 to $1000, with much speculation that many of the tickets were actually purchased by bots and scalpers.

Tarnished with an onslaught of errors and cart “time outs” at checkout, The International 6 hopeful ticket owners were frustrated with their experience. The International 6 was sold out within the hour, despite numerous system crashes.

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Ticket sales and venues – a brief examination of a long history

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A significant part of the community is blaming the Kiev Major ticketing fiasco on PGL.

Dotablast reached out to the organizer for a statement and confirmation, but has not received a response as of yet. However, most likely PGL was not the ones responsible for or handling tickets.

PGL is the organizer of the event and not the ticketing agency or the promoter.

Typically most often venues have contracts with specific ticket agencies and promoters determine the number and types of tickets available for sale. The ticketing agency then sells the tickets that the promoters make available to them for the event in that particular venue.

In the United States, TicketMaster has been the official ticket seller of the majority of venues for the last 30 years – creating a near monopoly and lock on the industry.

According to the Co-Founder of TickPick.com (a transparent ticket marketplace), starting in the 1970s, the venues stopped handling the sales of tickets. Instead, TicketMaster had been able to convince venues to let them sell the tickets on their behalf – providing the venue with a financial incentive and the technology and operational expertise to do so.

Back in the 70s each venue sold tickets on their own through their own box office, and as you can imagine, this was no easy task. Distribution, operations, inventory management – these were all extremely challenging tasks without any technology or software. So when TicketMaster came around with proprietary ticket software and told venues they were going to get paid to outsource the sale of tickets to TicketMaster, it was a no brainer for venues to consent to this.

Albeit an old system, Ticketmaster’s technology and approach give them the advantage and keep them as the cornerstone of the market.

Few computer systems can handle the strain of hundreds of thousands to millions attempting to buy tickets simultaneously seconds after market opening – including the repeated attacks by bots designed to score for scalping and resale purposes.

Competitors have tried, but systems have failed according to reports by Wired.

Ticketfly set up a website to give away tickets to the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, starring Pavement, M.I.A., and LCD Soundsystem at Merriweather. Almost immediately after seats went on sale, the 75,000 simultaneous visitors to Ticketfly’s site exposed a bug in a recent tech upgrade. The entire system stalled. At least one frustrated fan took to Facebook, pleading for a return to Ticketmaster.

Veritix had similar problems. For example, when Lady Gaga tickets went on sale at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland over the summer, a miscommunication caused blocks of tickets to appear and disappear randomly.

Fans had begged for a return to Ticketmaster.

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Dota 2 fans harsh reality

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Options such as mail order tickets for early birds or release of tickets via steam could be viable if negotiated with the promoter, but then carry a myriad of other problems for a relatively few number of tickets that could be made available as such.

For the time being, it seems that fans will have to chalk up the experience as part of the package and find solace in being able to watch via live stream for free at various pubstomps or from the comfort of their own homes.

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Kiev Major tickets

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Tickets went on sale on Wednesday, February 22, at 10:00 local time (09:00 CET).

All tickets for the event were sold through Karabas as individual daily passes: ₴130/~$5 each for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and ₴400/~$15 for the Grand Final on Sunday.

It’s worth it to continue checking back for available tickets.

Venues are known to occasionally release additional tickets or restructure set-ups allowing more seating to be made available at a later time. It is not uncommon to find a few hundred tickets released quietly at a later date.

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Kiev Major

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The Kiev Major is set to take place April 27 – 30 at the National Palace of Arts Ukraine in Kiev – with 16 of the world’s best teams competing in the $3 million event hosted by PGL.

The National Palace of Arts Ukraine is one of the main theater venues in Kiev, Ukraine. It was opened in 1970 with a seating capacity of almost 4,000 in the main concert hall.

In the past, StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 2 hosted CS:GO at the venue successfully.