TICKET TRAP : If There’s a Price to Popularity, Longtime King Fans Are Paying It

There are some loyal, longtime King fans who are mad as hell, but they’re probably going to take it some more.

They have to take it if they want tickets. And they do want tickets.

That’s the problem. It seems everybody wants King tickets now.

Some are mad that their ticket prices have gone up. Others are madder still because they’re being bumped out of their seats to sections where they will still have to pay more than they did before the signing of the Great One.

And they were at the Forum first. Before Wayne Gretzky and before the hordes of nouveau riche hockey fans who jumped on the bandwagon to glory in Gretzky.

Those fans feel betrayed. They say these increases come after they stood by the Kings, win, lose or draw. And in their case, it was mostly lose or draw.

As Don Burkholder put it: “All those years the Kings were averaging 6,000 in attendance, there were really 2,000 or 3,000 people there. The senate seats were sold, but they were empty. We were in our seats.”

Next thing he knows, he’s getting a letter saying, basically, that if he wants to keep his seat, he’s going to have to match the new going rate. The demand is suddenly greater than the supply.

Senate seats are those prime-area seats in the Forum that are season seats in the truest sense of the word. Those who buy a senate seat get that seat for all Laker games, King games, tennis, boxing, volleyball--every sporting event that takes place in the Forum. As well as for the circus, the ice show and most concerts. . . . It also includes parking and hostess service for $7,350 a seat per year.

But even at that price, there is a waiting list for senate seats. So every now and then, Forum ticket managers designate a few more seats as senate seats. And when that happens, the people who are in those seats as season-ticket holders of either the Kings or the Lakers have to decide whether to buy those seats as senate seats, buy them as King or Laker season seats at a premium price, or move to other seats.

This summer, Sections 13 and 31 have been changed from season seats to senate seats. There are 360 seats involved.

The people who held season tickets in those sections and who chose to move were not happy to learn that the Kings were, at the same time, raising ticket prices in sections 14, 15, 32 and 33, among others.

So they had to move at least three sections over, closer to the ends, to avoid an increase.

The season-ticket holders who were in Sections 13 and 31 last season, paying $25 a game--$1,000 a season--could:

--Buy the seat as a senate seat for $7,350, but it often costs more because most people have at least two seats.

--Buy the seat as a King season seat for $50 a game or $2,000 total, twice the price paid last season.

--Move over one section and pay $35 a game or $1,400, a $400 increase.

--Move over two sections and pay $27.50 a game to $1,100, a $100 increase.

--Move over three sections at no increase.

Roy Mlakar, the Kings’ executive vice president and the man who has been working with Forum representatives to implement the seating moves, maintains that the Kings did not choose to have choice sections become senate seats.

“We participate in the senate program,” Mlakar said. “But, remember, we are renters in this building. . . . Which seats are made senate seats, that’s beyond our control.”

Mlakar did, however, have the say-so on the increase in ticket prices. He worked with the ticket managers to set the increases.

And he pointed out that even with the increases, the Kings still are the only team in the National Hockey League that gives a discount to season-ticket holders, that the Kings rank 13th in the NHL in average ticket price, and that there was no increase on 6,500 seats, or 51% of those they control.

There were 24 sellouts last season--three times the Kings’ previous record--and 30 to 35 sellouts are projected for this season.

Dennis Metz, the team’s sales manager, said: “Our pricing philosophy has always been to keep seats within the range of our fans.”