I thought I'd take a ride up to Queens on Saturday to see new Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. Bypassing the triple-digit tickets with names like "Delta Club" and "Metropolitan Box," I found "cheap seats" in something called the Promenade Reserved Infield - a fancy word for Upper Deck - for $20. Cheap, until you add in the $6 "fee" (all it says is fee, so I have no idea what it's for) and the $5 "Order Charge" (another word for fee) and the "Print at Home" charge of 2.50, and your cheap seat is suddenly $33.50. Over half the original ticket price is fees.I'm amused (kind of) by the names they gave the sections. "Caesars Club" (no apostrophe, so I'm guessing it really isn't Caesar's Club) and shiny metal designations like silver and gold. For the prices, I'd guess more like platinum and uranium.
The cheapest cheap seat on the menu is an $11 Promenade Reserved, which would include a $4 fee and $5 order charge - or approximately the price of the ticket in fees. It takes a lot of guts to ask for $9 in fees for an $11 ticket. Promenade Reserved tickets would feature a better view of downtown Flushing than the actual game you are presumably paying to see. Although, it strikes me as though you're really paying for the people to sell you the ticket. The ticket itself is secondary to the fees.
Maybe Citi Financial is using those fees to help with their bailout?
I think I'll skip it.
