It's tick, tick ... tickets!

Broncos fans lay siege to Invesco Field box office

John Aguilar, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, January 16, 2006

It was survival of the luckiest at Invesco Field at Mile High Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds of Broncos fans flocked to the box office on the stadium's south side to undergo a four-stage test of endurance for coveted tickets to next weekend's AFC Championship Game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

First, there was the matter of a football game 1,100 miles away, where a Steelers' victory was needed to ensure another Broncos playoff game at home.

With that accomplished, the first few hundred fans in line at Invesco Field received a numbered lottery ticket, while hundreds more were turned away.

The lottery ticket holders had yet another test to pass, as they breathlessly waited for officials to announce the number that would determine everyone's place in the buying line.

Lastly, there was the nervous wait to actually get to a ticket window and plunk down the credit card before thousands of competing fans from around the country managed to do it over the phone or Internet.

"It feels awesome," exulted Paul Davey, of Denver, who held lucky number 625916 - the lottery ticket randomly selected by officials to start the box office sale.

Davey, 24, strode up to Window 2 at 4 p.m. and less than five minutes later held an envelope holding the maximum six tickets allowed per person.

Shawn Krone, 39, was first in line at 9:30 a.m. with his radio and camping chair. An early arrival assured his chances of getting a lottery ticket and increased his chances of making it to the ticket window.

"I would have camped out here if they had let me," said the Arvadan.

Most of the seats were gone in 30 minutes and the shades on the 12 ticket windows were pulled down at 5 p.m. By the time the last few tickets were sold, seats for the game were mostly at the expensive club level.

Amber Valdez, 24, paid $1,080 for three tickets that weren't even together.

"I'm the Willy Wonka of Broncos tickets," she exclaimed as she ran out to present the tickets she had bought to her fiance and cousin waiting behind a security gate.

Valdez said she brought nine credit cards with her to make certain that if any of them were declined during the transactions, she would have another to cover the cost.

The seats sold at the box office Sunday ranged in price from $73 to $400 and were part of a pool of 15,000 tickets that was available to anyone with a phone line or Internet connection.

Which is why Rick Nichols, the Broncos' vice president of ticket operations and business development, urged fans to make their purchases online through Ticketmaster.com.

He said it's actually a disadvantage coming down to Invesco Field to try to buy tickets.

"It's a race against every Internet user and every other ticket window in town," he said. "The savvy buyer is on the Web in their jammies, sipping coffee."

Then there were those trying to cover all their bases, like Alex Coy and Jared Cox, both of Denver, who brought a laptop with a wireless Internet connection to the stadium.

After the co-workers failed to get lottery tickets, they fired up their machine near the box office windows and connected to Ticketmaster the minute tickets went on sale.

Coy's first attempt to get tickets failed, but he quickly entered another request into the ticket giant's Web site.

"This has happened before and we still got tickets," he said, as he rubbed his hands and stared intently at his computer screen.

One rowdy game Saturday

• Early last call: Off-duty Denver police closed down the bars at the club level of Invesco Field a few minutes earlier than usual during the fourth quarter of the New England Patriots-Denver Broncos playoff game Saturday, Denver police reported Sunday.

• Misbehavin': Denver police spokesman John White said officers ejected 22 people from the game, mostly for throwing objects onto the field. Three people were arrested for misdemeanors and a few were taken to a detox center, White said.

• A break for paramedics: More than 76,000 fans attended the game, but dispatchers logged just seven ambulance calls, down from the average of 10 at home games, according to a spokesperson with Denver Health Medical Center.

aguilarj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2550