Attending Vikings games: What to do if you don’t have a smartphone?

For the 2018 season, in an attempt to cut down on lines and fake tickets as well as improve communication with ticket holders on game day, the Minnesota Vikings decided to become one of six teams who have moved to entirely digital tickets.

In fact, Chris Gates wrote a short article previously about this change and the nostalgia factor that would be lost with the demise of the ticket stub.

But what about the Vikings fans who, for one reason or another, do not yet have the technology to be able to pull up online tickets? How would they be able to get into the games?

As I was scrolling through my Twitter feed last night, a story from Heather Brown over at CBS Minnesota caught my eye that answered that exact question.

[Jeff] Anderson [Vikings VP of corporate communications] said a couple hundred fans came to U.S. Bank Stadium on Saturday with paper tickets and were allowed into the game. Most of them were Jaguar fans who weren’t familiar with the policy change.

Suppose that makes a certain amount of sense, it’s more likely that fans of the Vikings were more aware of the new policy. But as for the new way to get in, Brown had more:

Vikings ticket holders without smartphones are asked to call the Vikings Ticket Office at 612-33VIKES before the game to coordinate how to get inside.

“We’ll walk through a number of solutions. At the end of the day — bottom line — we want fans in the stadium, so if it comes down to it, we’ll have you arrive early on game day, come to will call and we’ll get you in that [way],” Anderson said.

I’m sure this won’t affect a huge number of fans as seasons pass by and there’s additional time to get used to the changes, especially as smartphones become more and more prevalent in today’s society. But for this season, it seems plenty important to let people know how to maneuver around any lack of technology.

Enjoy the games, everyone!