People Aren’t Happy About Scotiabank Arena’s Pricey New Pitch To Concert Fans

Sick of presale codes and hours-long online queues for concert tickets? Scotiabank Arena feels your pain—sort of. On Monday, the home of the Raptors and the Leafs launched Arena Priority Plus, a members-only program that offers exclusive access to tickets for more than 50 high-profile events before they go on sale. But access doesn't come cheap. The annual cost of the program is $2,500 and doesn't include the price of tickets, which are limited to two each. Other member perks include an opportunity to book the Scotia Club and to enjoy premium live events (there's no mention of what those might include). The concert-going population may have become inured to the compounding pressures on their pocketbooks amid a cost-of-living crisis—astronomical prices, additional fees, predatory resale markets—but the addition of yet one more pricey hurdle sent commenters over the edge. Words like diabolical, greedy and tone-deaf were lobbed at the venue's X account. On Reddit, the response was largely the same, with some waxing philosophical about what it all means. "We’re firmly at the point where these corpo’s have realized they don’t need the business of the working class masses," wrote one commenter. "They only need the money of a few whales or the wealthy to sustain themselves now." Some commenters were more concerned that Scotiabank Arena's VIP program would encourage other venues to do the same, making the procurement of tickets—already a Hunger Games–like challenge—even more difficult. Wrote one Redditor: "It’s tough enough to get tix as it is."