The COVID-19 pandemic has had a monumental impact on businesses and organizations of all kinds, forcing them to be more adaptable to overcome the various challenges that the pandemic created.
For some businesses and organizations though, the pandemic was also a catalyst for insightfully innovative ideas.
One such organization that incorporated its own unique, innovative change as a result of the pandemic is the Guelph Storm.
The Guelph Storm are a major junior hockey team that plays in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). Over the course of the pandemic, the hockey organization found itself having to deal with the predicament of having to refund and credit a number of season ticket holders as a result of the capacity limits announced by the Ontario government which restricted the amount of season ticket customers who could attend the games.
Matt Newby, the vice-president of business operations for the Guelph Storm said that because of the uncertainty the pandemic created for season ticket holders and their ability to attend games, the organization was inspired to come up with a new idea to overcome this issue.
“The pandemic inspired us to come up with an innovative idea in the form of our new refund model, in which season ticket owners are allotted the ability to miss games without worrying about wasting their tickets, because ultimately they don’t lose any money as a result of not being able to attend games under this new system,” Matt said.
“Alongside the pandemic, I would also say that the change in consumer behaviour influenced our decision to use a new refund model for our season tickets. People nowadays are making plans more in advance, plus they are consuming entertainment in many different ways, and so we wanted to come up with a system that worked around their unique and busy schedules.”
Normally, under the traditional model of purchasing season tickets, customers would purchase tickets to every home game in advance, with the expectation that they would be able to attend every game to make the tickets worth buying.
A crucial flaw of this ticketing model, though, is that if season ticket holders cannot attend games—for any variety of reasons—then they would either need to sell or give away their tickets, or just simply leave the ticket unused and accept the financial loss.
“We looked at the data, and we noticed that around 91 per cent of season ticket holders miss at least one game a month,” Matt said.
“So, what’s nice about buying season tickets with our new system is that someone with two adult tickets that misses one game per month will renew a pair of regular adult season tickets the next season and see a credit of nearly $250 on their account. We’re really excited to introduce this, but we know that the reward will come for our fans in 2023-24, when virtually all of our season ticket holders have a credit on their account and save a lot of money.”
But, with this newly-introduced refund program, season ticket holders now have the flexibility to miss any number of home games in a season if they know that they will be unable to attend them in advance.
This is because the program allows owners to simply return any tickets to games they cannot attend, either in-person or by email, at least 72 or more hours before the game’s start time.
The price of the game is then refunded as credit onto the season ticket account. The credit can then be applied to season tickets in future seasons or if someone decides that season tickets don’t work – the credit can be used to purchase single game tickets in future seasons. Since the credits do not ever expire or go away, and there are no limitations on the amount of credits you can accumulate for future seasons, the customer does not need to rush to apply the credits.
“We’re not looking to punish people for having busy lives,” Matt said. “Actually, with this new program, it’s kind of the opposite. Where you are free to be busy, but you can still save up to $9 per ticket on a game-by-game basis.”
“When you turn in your tickets, we can then resell them to single game buyers looking for available tickets. And this opens up more opportunities for people to successfully purchase single game tickets for bigger, more in-demand games. Overall, it greatly benefits all of our fans.”
The new refund program only just began late last month, and while Matt says that the reaction from season ticket buyers has been mainly positive thus far, he mentions that some customers have had reservations about the new policy because they think there may be “strings attached” or it’s “too good to be true”.
“There are some people who just don’t believe the new policy or think there’s a catch of some sort. But there are no catches here,” Matt said.
“And so let’s say that you are going away on vacation for three months and you know the schedule, you can return all of those tickets that fell within the span of the three month time period, and that money will be returned in full as credit with no expiry date, that you can use for any future games of your choosing, and it will be worth exactly what you paid for in the first place, which we think is a big improvement for our loyal fans, and they deserve it.”
If you would like to inquire about season tickets for the Guelph Storm 2022-23 season, or if you would like to learn more about the organization's Early Bird season tickets and their new refund program, you can visit their website at guelphstorm.com.