In my first Christmas Day sporting event, the Orlando Magic defeated the New Orleans Hornets handily 88-68. They began the game on an 8-0 run and never looked back.

Under normal circumstances I would never attend a game on Christmas Day. However, I was able to attend the game today since Nicole’s family eats a big dinner and opens presents on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is left to sitting around, relaxing and eating another big dinner. With no plans to visit with any relatives and dinner scheduled for 7 pm, I had plenty of time to make the noon tip off at Amway Arena. I left Nicole’s family’s house around 10 am and arrived at the Amway Arena parking lot at 11:30 am. I paid $10 to park and then looked to buy a ticket.

Obtaining Tickets
I expected to pay around $10 for the game. However, as I left the parking structure, two scalpers approached me immediately. The first guy wanted $60 for upper level seats. I told them I only wanted to pay $10 and the second scalper offered me an upper level ticket for $20. I balked at the price but finally agreed to pay for a couple of reasons:

First, I noticed a few fans with their fingers in the air (meaning they were looking to buy tickets as opposed to selling tickets). Ticket Buying Tip: Fans holding their fingers in the air means two things: 1) For high demand events – scalpers also do not have any tickets, so they need find an extra ticket from another fan; 2) In the case of today’s game, there is a gap between what the scalpers are charging and what fans are willing to pay. In both cases, it will be hard to find a seat for $10 or less.

Second, it was Christmas Day and I felt like giving the scalper what he wanted rather than negotiate $5 or $10 off (especially since it was already a reasonable price).

The ticket had $10 printed as the face value. However, I was sitting next to a group who must have received group pricing because after looking at a seating chart, I realized that the game day price for my seat was $22. Thus, I still paid less than what I would have at the window. Plus, with the cheapest ticket at the ticket window being $141 the ticket window was not really a viable option.

Milestones
Chris Paul failed to record a steal in the game, which snapped his NBA-record 108-consecutive-game streak with at least one steal.