Concertgoers say paid seats didn’t exist at Andrea Bocelli show in Hamilton

A woman and her sister say they’re disappointed after what was supposed to be an amazing night with one of the best singers in the world at Hamilton’s TD Coliseum last week, instead turned into a seat-finding fiasco.

Kathleen Loney says she bought tickets for last week’s Andrea Bocelli concert back in April.

Everything went smoothly until they got to her seats and found that they didn’t exist.

“I think when you are offering a premium experience, people who are paying a premium amount of money for that should get what they’ve paid for,” said Loney.

Back in April, Loney and her sister decided to see the Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert at the newly renovated TD Coliseum.

“My sister and I both have our birthdays in November and December,” said Loney. “I messaged her and I said, ‘lets splurge this year and do something really fun.'”

The concert was the first to be advertised by the coliseum before renovations were completed.

Loney bought two tickets for just under $900, located in section 215, row one.

However when the day of the concert arrived, “row one” was nowhere to be found.

“We asked the usher ‘where are our seats?’ and he said, ‘oh this isn’t good, somebody messed up — this row doesn’t exist’,” said Loney.

Lonely says staff tried to figure out what went wrong.

“She said, ‘I don’t know what to do, I’m going to take you back upstairs, and we’re just gonna have you stand behind one of the accessible sections, so you don’t miss the beginning of the show’,” said Loney.

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Loney says there were other people who had a seat in this non-existent row — she says some of them were older and could have really used a place to sit.

“And they couldn’t even find chairs for us,” said Loney.

About a half hour into the concert, Loney says they were then moved to another section, where they were told there would be seats, but there weren’t.

“This was in the middle of a performance: Andrea Bocelli is on stage singing, and all these people sitting in this new section are frustrated because we’re all standing there in their way.” said Loney.

They eventually landed on seats on the side of the stage, but Loney says so much of the concert had already passed and the new seats weren’t the best.

“We were behind the performers, so you can appreciate you’re not getting the quality of sound that you would if you were in front of the speakers and everything, and there was also all these video screens that we couldn’t see,” said Loney.

The day after the concert, Loney reached out to TD Coliseum for answers.

She says a representative from Oak View Group, which owns TD Coliseum, responded to her Wednesday afternoon and apologized for her experience and wanted to talk with her further.

Oak View Group also said in a statement to CHCH News, “as with any new venue, we encountered a small number of seating issues during this early run of shows. Our team has addressed these directly with affected guests, and we’re pleased that the majority of guests enjoyed a positive experience.”

Loney says the whole experience now has her on guard and said, “it was just such a disappointment for our experience as a customer.”

A search into future events to be held at TD Coliseum shows that there is no “row one” in section 215 listed.

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