Here are 5 tips on how to get cheap Tampa Bay Lightning tickets! Tampa Bay Lightning season is here. Seems like just last week we were celebrating another Stanley Cup win with the parade on the Hillsborough River but now it’s time to three-peat!
The Lightning will play every team in the league this year at Amalie Arena at least once, including the Seattle Kraken Thanksgiving week.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have actually already been back on the ice for a few weeks getting ready for the new season. While they get ready, you should too. This is the time of year fans can score the cheap Tampa Bay Lightning tickets. Once the season gets into full swing, prices tend to rise and the best seats disappear. Here’s how to save a few bucks on Bolts tickets because unlike the Rays, the Tampa Bay Lightning rarely have any empty seats so ticket prices can skyrocket. Here are my 5 best tips to get cheap Tampa Bay Lightning tickets!
#5: Get tickets now!
Ticket prices don’t drop often during the season. Seats disappear and when the team gets on a roll, demand for tickets goes way up. It’s in the last few hot months of Tampa’s extended summer when many fans aren’t thinking about hockey yet when tickets are cheapest.
#4: Go in the preseason.
Sure the game doesn’t count, but you’ll still get the full game experience at a fraction of the usual ticket price. Preseason tickets start at around $11. There are preseason games against Nashville on Thursday, September 30. They play Carolina on Friday, October 1. Then they play 2 games against the Panthers on October 5 and 7.
#3: Do a road trip.
While seats for Lightning games at Amalie Arena can get expensive, often you will find a bunch of Bolts fans in the seats at Florida Panthers games in Sunrise, Florida. Hockey tickets at BB&T Center used to be super cheap… almost free. But the team has begun to see an increase in attendance over the past few years so tickets generally aren’t super cheap anymore. But they’re usually still far less expensive than Lightning games in Tampa.
#2: Look for a string of consecutive home games.
When the team has a long set of games at home back to back, ticket demand tends to ease up a bit. For example, there are 5 consecutive home games starting in mid April.
#1: Skip opening night.
Just like every Rays Opening Day game sells out, everyone wants to be there when the puck drops for the first time at Amalie. But if you are ok with waiting a couple days and pick game 2, you save big. Opening night tickets start at around $113 for October 12 when the Lightning play the Penguins. But the second game against the Panthers? You can score tickets right now for a little over $20!
Written by Geno Knight
Hear more about the upcoming Tampa Bay Lightning season (1:08) on the Experience Tampa Bay in 10 Minutes or Less podcast. Discover the Salt Suites in Seminole (3:50) and how you can get you pizza fix in Dunedin (6:55).
Produced by Micaela Figueroa
Photo G. Knight for BBGI