KATV Channel 7 - The Spirit of Arkansas: Buffett Ticket Trouble

A company is often judged by how it responds following a crisis.

For example, a plan to offer survivors of a capsized cruise ship 30 percent off future bookings was not a great public relations move.

A recent mistake made at Verizon Arena has been handled much better…but still, not everybody is happy.  

Jimmy Buffett's fans…known as Parrot Heads…are legendary in the concert-going community.

Brian Rose counts himself among them…and is eager to make a parrot head out of his wife Toni.

"I've been to at least 12 times as far back '86," says Brian.  "We were excited because this is her first time. We were just married last year and I was excited to introduce her to the party."

The Roses got up early the morning tickets went on sale and snagged a pair on the aisle in section 216.

Five days later they received a message saying their tickets had been moved to section 202.

"We went from directly across from the stage seeing everything to behind the stage," says Toni.  "And I'm like…really? No. I mean…"

"To make a long story short we made a mistake in the way we had it set up," admits Verizon Arena's GM Michael Marion.  "We ended up selling duplicate tickets. We sold one seat to two people."

Actually the box office sold about 50 seats to 100 different people.

Marion says once the error was discovered Verizon Arena responded quickly, owned up to the mistake, and offered options to those affected...either new seats or a full refund.

"You know we didn't want to call them and say I'm sorry, we made a mistake and you can't come to the show," says Marion.  "That was real important to us…that we were able to offer some kind of alternative."

Marion says this has never happened before.

Those affected have until friday to decide what they want to do.

As for the Roses…just before news time they got good news.  They have been moved to section 111 due to a cancellation…seats that are even better than their original purchase.

Air date:  January 25^th, 2012