SEC officials plan to set up a special window to detect fake tickets to Saturday’s Georgia Dome game between the University of Florida and the University of Alabama, for which the resale price of some seats is topping $1,500 each.
But even that, they admit, will not be enough to completely stop the most sophisticated scammers, who have learned to imprint holograms on counterfeit tickets to the sold-out SEC Championship Game between the nation’s No. 1 and No. 2 college football teams.
“Most of the counterfeit tickets that come to the window are purchased on the street,” said SEC spokesman David Knight. “There’s no good answer to it.”
SEC and Dome officials will set up a “ticket validation window” at the main box office of the Georgia Dome beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Kickoff is at 4 p.m. for the game, which will be televised by CBS.
The SEC Championship’s 71,000 tickets sold out almost immediately. The tickets now available are on the murky after-market — which includes outlets ranging from legitimate ticket brokers to Internet auction sites to street-smart hucksters trying to turn a fast buck.
Ideally, Knight said, anyone trying to purchase a ticket on the street would come to the window with the seller to confirm the ticket’s authenticity before paying for it. Assuming it’s legitimate, they would then walk back outside the resale “exclusion zone” to complete the transaction. State law mandates that tickets cannot be resold within 2,700 feet of large venues like the Dome.
Last year, Knight said, about 500 counterfeit tickets were sold to the SEC Championship. The year before there were hardly any, he said.
Anyone who tries to enter the game with a fake ticket will be stopped at the entrance to the Dome by an electronic scanner that can detect counterfeits.
Officials worry that sky-high ticket resale prices will exacerbate the counterfeiting problem this year. Knight said Atlanta officials have assured the SEC there will be stepped-up security near the Dome to deter ticket scammers.
Tim Brown, a ticket broker for SweetSeats in Cartersville, said after-market tickets for the game are running 30 percent to 40 percent higher than they did last year, despite the lingering recession.
Brown said his club-level tickets will go for $750 to $1,250 each, and even the cheapest are topping $400.
Many college football fans consider this game the de facto national championship, Brown said. Right now, the best seats are selling for more than those in Pasadena, Calif., where the sanctioned national championship Rose Bowl game will be played.
“There will be no cheap tickets to this game,” he said.
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