City hopes to iron out Winnipeg street party ticketing wrinkles

True North and the City hope more people show up at the Whiteout Street Party for Monday night’s Jets game than on Saturday.

Economic Development Winnipeg’s Dayna Spiring admitted the organizers were largely at fault for the ticketing situation that kept people away.

“We’re learning as we go here and Winnipeg has never hosted a party on this scale before,” she said. “And so every time we host one of these Street Parties we get all of our team together after and we figure out how to make it better.”

READ MORE: Free tickets now required to enter Whiteout Street Party

The estimated 15,000 people in attendance Saturday was nowhere near the event’s capacity of 27,000 because of scalpers and others who may have ordered their eight free tickets and then not used all of them.

“Unfortunately we had some issues with scalping and some different things which was certainly not the intention of any of the organizers,” Spiring said.

READ MORE: Free tickets for both Whiteout street parties gone, pop up online for sale

10,000 more free tickets were released Sunday in the hopes of getting a full house Monday night.

“We’ll keep doing our best to make sure we get this system the best it can be,” Spiring continued.

She said they’re not closing the door on expanding the parties even further if the demand is there, but adds that 27,000 is close to the maximum that they could safely handle with all the logistics involved.