Cricket: Seats sold but rows not there

A ticketing bungle left 168 fans with nowhere to sit at Wednesday's sell-out one-day international at Seddon Park in Hamilton.

Ticketek sold $35 "gold" tickets for rows A-Z in Stand A - but the stand went back only as far as row S.

Paul Thompson took business clients from Auckland to the match and bought four gold tickets in the non-existent row U.

"I dropped the clients off and went to get a park, then I got a call saying the seats didn't exist."

The only option for Thompson's party was to sit on the grass bank - in the rain.

"It was potentially an awfully embarrassing situation for me. I'm just lucky my clients had a sense of humour." Four others didn't, according to NZC.

They opted for the full refund and left when they objected to being re-located to the bank.

New Zealand Cricket spokesman Stephen Hill said everyone who had tickets for non-existent seats were moved to another part of the ground.

There was room for everyone at the 11,500-capacity park, despite the sellout. "There are always people who don't turn up on the day and there would have been space on the grass embankment areas."

Hill said he didn't know whether the overflow of matchgoers had breached safety rules and Seddon Park operations manager Keith Parker refused to comment, but New Zealand Cricket marketing manager Peter Dwan said "there is always capacity for overflow".

Hill said affected ticket-holders would be refunded $10 each - the difference between the cost of tickets for the areas they were moved to and the tickets they bought, however Thompson said he would be seeking a full $140 refund.

Hill said there would be a full review of the incident, which New Zealand Cricket and Ticketek regretted. Ticketek's regret did not extend to an apology however.

"Given that Ticketek has people's details ... I was expecting a call to say, 'we made a booboo'," Thompson said. "It would have been nice to know that before we got in the car to drive to Hamilton actually."