John and Jennifer Dewar cannot buy regular concert tickets because John has Multiple Sclerosis and needs seats where he can see the show from his wheelchair.
“Normally we try to buy tickets right when they go on sale, on sale day, or through pre-sales,” John said. “They sell tickets that are on the floor but for a concert, people are standing the whole time, you can’t see if you’re in a wheelchair and you’re obviously not able to stand yourself.”
John said when he tried to get tickets in his favorite handicap accessible section at the Sleep Train, now Mattress Firm Amphitheatre, for a Train concert in May, the seats he wanted were not available. He wanted seats towards the front of the amphitheater but the only handicap accessible seats showing up as available on the Ticketmaster website were in the back.
The tickets weren’t sold, John said, they were just unavailable for him to select when purchasing.
“We just didn’t understand why these seats weren’t available during the presale,” he said.
John said he went online again during the regular sale but encountered the same situation.
John and Jennifer called Ticketmaster and found out there was a problem with these elusive tickets.
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“We’re down to just wheelchair seats by themselves,” John said.
John didn’t want to sit alone so he checked the website again. Again, the seats appeared to be there but he still couldn’t order them. So the family turned to NBC 7 Responds for help.
After NBC 7 Responds reached out to Ticketmaster, a representative contacted the Dewar family to say the seats they wanted were available.
Ticketmaster told the couple the new seats were a little more expensive than the seats in the back of the venue, but Ticketmaster gave John, Jennifer, and their daughter Hannah the closer tickets for no extra cost.
NBC 7 Responds asked Ticketmaster why the tickets the Dewar family originally wanted were unavailable during the pre-sale but has yet to hear back.
