Parking, paperless tickets and a packed house: A guide for Garth Brooks fans

The mad rush for tickets might be a sign of things to come as far as parking goes for next month’s Garth Brooks concerts in Saskatoon.

After record-breaking ticket sales, thousands of fans are wondering how parking is going to work at SaskTel Centre – considering four of the country singer’s six shows are back to back.

Sasktel Centre’s Scott Ford has been fielding a lot of calls and said fans won’t need to worry about missing the show.

“Garth keeps track of how many people are coming in for the second showing; he won’t start the show until everyone is in the building,” Ford said.

Staff are currently working on a traffic plan and will communicate directly with fans once it’s approved.

“Because all the tickets were purchased by phone and the internet, we have access to get to the customer – we can email them our traffic plans and tell them the routes to come in,” he said.

Ford said there are certainly logistics to consider such as clearing the lot from one show before traffic can enter to fill the lot again.

He said a full slate of staff will be on hand, along with shuttles for each show to help move things efficiently.

“For Rush games, with 15,000 people, we’ve been able to clear the parking lot in about 40 minutes,” Ford said.

There are still a few tickets to be had for Garth Brooks next month in Saskatoon – mostly single seats.

“The two 10:30 shows still may have a couple doubles together, but if there is – there’s not much,” Ford said.

He also reminded buyers to beware of third-party purchasing sites where scams and inflated tickets can end up going awry.

“For every big show we get in the building, we’ll get 20 or 30 people showing up crying because they bought tickets from another system not being Ticketmaster. So be very careful how you scrutinize the tickets.”

Fans also had questions about what exactly was needed if they’d purchased a paperless ticket.

“You don’t actually have a ticket; your credit card that you used to purchase the ticket is your ticket … it requires the customer to come to the event the day of the show and then we swipe the card and print them the tickets.”

Ford said the measure is in place for all of Garth’s shows – and any high-demand performance – to help reduce scalping. The seats most often impacted by this are in the lower bowl, close to the stage.

Ford added that while the original card holder who bought the tickets is expected to be the one to redeem them, exceptions can be made.

For example, a father could give his son the purchasing credit card to swipe for tickets on the day.

Ford also assured that card swiping wouldn’t take any more time than the regular scanning of tickets, as staff have specialized equipment to handle both processes.

Show dates and times for Saskatoon are as follows: