Tonight we celebrated Fathers’ Day. My brother came down from Toronto to be with our dad. We had a nice homemade dinner, and then our dad decided that he wanted to go to the Montreal Science Centre to see Body Worlds 2 instead of the usual Friday night movie. So we called the Montreal Science Centre and reserved tickets for the 7:45pm entry time. We could only reserve 3 tickets, because they refused to accept a reservation for my free entry voucher - I was told that I had to show up in person to exchange my “health professional voucher” (shown below).



So we got to the Montreal Science Centre around 7:25pm and were immediately told that the show had sold out – I couldn’t redeem my voucher for a free entry, and accompany my family in the exhibit. My family got in line to retrieve their reserved tickets and finally got some service around 7:45pm, which was supposed to be their entry time. The service was slow because there were numerous complaints being lodged. While we waited, we overheard two other groups of people in situations similar to ours – with some reserved tickets and some vouchers for free tickets – who decided to get their reserved tickets refunded and opt for another activity that the entire group could enjoy together. So, in theory, previously purchased tickets had just returned on the market. I asked the teller if I could get one of the tickets that had just been returned. He told us to speak to the person in charge of customer service.

The person in charge of customer service told us that she could not give us a ticket to us because it wouldn’t be fair to others. We didn’t understand – there were now 3 physical spots available to view the exhibit, but she wouldn’t give one to us. So we asked to speak to her superior.

The second person in charge of customer service, presumably higher in the hierarchy, told us that the reason she could not issue us the tickets was that they had been booked through the online ticketing network, and that until the online ticketing network processed the refund and released the spots, it was impossible for her to generate new tickets for anyone to purchase – the computer was still showing the exhibit as sold out. We refused to let some IT limitation prevent willing customers from attending the exhibit, and we asked to speak to the highest manager in charge.

After much waiting, the manager came to speak to us. By this point, our ranks had grown to about 25 angry customers. The manager started off by blaming us for “coming at a bad time” and “waiting until the last day”, and he warned us that he would not take any special measure to accommodate any of us morons (so he didn’t explicitly call us morons, but he certainly implied it). He made no allowances for health professional with busy schedules or for unclear instructions on the voucher we received – we were just morons. He said that he had already sent another 60 people in the same situation packing, and that he had no intention of making any special effort this time around either. He argued with us that we should have made reservations, until I made him read the voucher that said no reservations were possible either online or by telephone. I argued that there were physical spots available in the museum because other people had gotten refunds for their tickets. To which he replied that he had just checked the counter and the room was at full capacity (400). We all answered in unison, “that’s logically impossible… unless you over-booked the show.” He vehemently denied any over-booking and blamed us for “latching on to words” and not listening to his explanations. He explained that when visitors spent more time than expected in the exhibit, he had discretionary power to refuse entry to ticket holders with later entry times. To which we all replied: “That’s over-booking!” But he would not give an inch – he just argued semantics. He kept blaming us for coming on the last day that our vouchers for free entry were valid, and he continued to refuse to make any special allowances to accommodate any of us. He made it very clear that we were not worthy of his business and he didn’t want our money.

In the end, at least 75 people got turned away, some of which were paying customers accompanying health professionals with vouchers for free entry. One group of health professionals who were turned away had driven 2 hours to see the exhibit. Another group had already been refused entry on two previous dates because those dates also turned out to be sold out. Everyone was extremely upset with the poor customer service endured, and obviously disappointed that they were not able to view the exhibit. Many solutions were proposed by the would-be visitors: extend the voucher validity period, issue a free ticket now for a later date, keep the exhibit open one hour later tonight and let us all visit now, etc. But the management refused to entertain any of these options. So everyone filled out a complaint form and grudgingly walked away, promising to complain, boycott, and badmouth the Montreal Science Centre administration on their poor handling of this promotional fiasco.