We need to overseell the Student section

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swmngo4 said:
I actually think "it looks bad" IS a good enough reason to do something.

The wide stadium view angle that the TV cameras show during time outs, before commercials, etc. is right at the top of the aisle that separates the student and non-student sections below the auxilary scoreboard. The rows right in front of the cameras on national TV were empty. In a brand new stadium that is the second smallest in the conference and said to be "sold out". While we know the reason for this, the national TV audience, recruits, and our rivals fans wouldn't know this.

Everything about this stadium was done to make the program look good and to appeal to recruits and those that are currently not the "die hards". Having such a basic problem broadcast nationally many times during the game is a glaring problem that needs to be solved ASAP.

There are students that didn't get tickets. Not all students can or do show up to every game. Those that do don't need as much room as they were assigned as general admission. There is room for more students. The U needs money. These things seem to work together to point to a solution. The solution is the title of this thread. Let's get it done!!!
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There is absolutely 0% chance that they can, or would do it. You can't sell tickets that don't exist. You can't makeup seats that aren't there. How in the world is this so hard to understand?

So people see empty seats. And?
 

Gopherprof said:
There is absolutely 0% chance that they can, or would do it. You can't sell tickets that don't exist. You can't makeup seats that aren't there. How in the world is this so hard to understand?

So people see empty seats. And?
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I understand what everyone is saying, but Gopherprof is right here. They can't just start selling seats out of the blue. There are going to be regular season ticket holders that don't show some games. Should the U oversell the regular season tickets because some folks won't show or the scalpers won't get them sold?

Yes, it looks bad. But you don't get to sell more tickets and change the rules. I love how the "plenty of students didn't get to buy seats" argument gets used. Why would these other students be so much more likely to show up versus getting drunk or being busy? Its not like the tickets sold out in 20 minutes. If they were such diehards they would have gotten seats.
 

SRO

Lots of places sell Standing Room Only seats. If seats are open, you can sit in them...if no open seats, you must stand and watch from the concourse. Sooo....yes, you can sell tickets for seats that don't exist. You can argue wether or not they should or shouldn't do this (personnally I don't see why not), but to say that they cannot do it is just ignorant.
 

M&G BUSt said:
Lots of places sell Standing Room Only seats. If seats are open, you can sit in them...if no open seats, you must stand and watch from the concourse. Sooo....yes, you can sell tickets for seats that don't exist. You can argue wether or not they should or shouldn't do this (personnally I don't see why not), but to say that they cannot do it is just ignorant.
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Students have already bought the seats. You can't sell those seats. What you're talking about is completely different.
 

Gopherprof said:
Students have already bought the seats. You can't sell those seats. What you're talking about is completely different.
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So do you agree that they could sell Standing Room Only tickets to students, effectively filling the empty corners of the student section?
 


M&G BUSt said:
So do you agree that they could sell Standing Room Only tickets to students, effectively filling the empty corners of the student section?
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They could probably sell concourse tickets, yes. Those students could probably find their way into the seats that aren't filled by the students who already own the tickets. I'm not sure how they would go about doing this though, since the whole point of the concourse is supposed to be open.

Also, we're assuming two things here:

1) There are students out there that want tickets. As GoAU aptly noted, it took a really long time just to sell the tickets there were. The mythical rabid student fan base that is being assumed simply does not exist.

2) On the other hand, we're also assuming that there will always be empty seats to be filled. This was not the case against Air Force at all to my recollection, so just how many standing room seats do we sell (assuming anyone would buy them) without making the assumption that they will be able to sit down, which is again, an assumption.

Seating for sporting events simply doesn't work this way. Empty seats happen. I don't see what the big deal is.
 

Resale

I think that "resale of unused tickets" would have to take place a reasonable time into the game. It is after all tickets and not seats that are sold. The ticket provides a license to occupy a seat, and that right belongs to the holder of the ticket. This does not get revoked simply by not being in the seat so the rest of us can see that the seat has been sold and is occupied. Simply being in a general seating area, but not sitting does not revoke the right to seat that they purchased. Not being in the stadium by the start of the second quarter, well that would need to be entered into the license agreement.

BTW - Resale of regular tickets due to late arrival. I would caution against. Though it might be something to consider for "corporate" seats. Doesn't the hockey team have some ability to do that currently?

Gold Vision said:
I don't think anyone was necessarily saying that it was going to happen this year. Either way, I highly doubt that is illegal, or that any students would care except for the 500 more students that got tickets. They paid for a general admission seat, that's it.
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Gopherprof said:
They could probably sell concourse tickets, yes. Those students could probably find their way into the seats that aren't filled by the students who already own the tickets. I'm not sure how they would go about doing this though, since the whole point of the concourse is supposed to be open.

Also, we're assuming two things here:

1) There are students out there that want tickets. As GoAU aptly noted, it took a really long time just to sell the tickets there were. The mythical rabid student fan base that is being assumed simply does not exist.

2) On the other hand, we're also assuming that there will always be empty seats to be filled. This was not the case against Air Force at all to my recollection, so just how many standing room seats do we sell (assuming anyone would buy them) without making the assumption that they will be able to sit down, which is again, an assumption.

Seating for sporting events simply doesn't work this way. Empty seats happen. I don't see what the big deal is.
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Actually, it was the case during Air Force.

And, it didn't take all that long, in my book, to sell the season tickets.

They sell standing room only at Mariucci. Why not TCF? Not saying this year, but to me SRO Student or student "rush" tickets should definitely be considered for next year. No question.
 

Misconception here

The definition of the SRO is that the person is entitled to a place to stand and take in the event. There is no seat real or imagined. The person holding an SRO ticket is not granted a right to a seat even if there are 1000s of open seats. They may be allowed to occupy a seat for which the ticket or license holder is not exercising their right to occupy that seat.

A SRO seat is within its own definition an oximoron. What SRO tickets do is sell space in the stadium from which the event can be seen or experienced in a reasonable manner. If the holder of that ticket gets tired feet . . .They may want to consider getting season tickets so they can sit. The actual capacity of the building is probably several thousand more then the number of seats available. But most of that space would not be considered for sale in an SRO manner. Also with the advant of accessible space for wheel chairs etc, much of the historic SRO space is actually occupied by newly created seats.

So no the stadium cannot sell seats that do not exist. They may however sell tickets that allow access to the view the event without the benefit of having a seat. This does result in attendence figures greater than the listed capacity of the building.

M&G BUSt said:
Lots of places sell Standing Room Only seats. If seats are open, you can sit in them...if no open seats, you must stand and watch from the concourse. Sooo....yes, you can sell tickets for seats that don't exist. You can argue wether or not they should or shouldn't do this (personnally I don't see why not), but to say that they cannot do it is just ignorant.
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Another option...

The "seats" aka numbers on the benches are very spread out. This is a nice feature for most of the bench seating in the stadium, but apparently the students are packing in tighter. They could add more "seats" per bench, sell more tickets, and fill up the student section. This is assuming there are more students who want to go to the game.
 

Another option is to mark the SRO tickets...

differently for the extra SRO seats than the regular tickets.

The students who are interested buy the season tickets. If there is more interest than "base" tickets, then the rest of the students go into a lottery for the SRO tickets. These tickets are awarded and used with the express understanding that a seat may not exist. If the students end up cramming together and space opens up on the upper deck upper rows, then fine, they can sit down. Maybe a delay is implemented, such as after the 1st quarter, and then they can sit down.

There is tons of room on both the main and upper concourse for the extra students to watch the game if they can't get a seat.

There was simply too much open space to let it go to waste.

Are there any students out there that can tell us if there is indeed a population of students who did not get tickets, but would have liked to have gotten tickets?
 

In my opinion, it seems that every student that had even a 1% interest in Gopher football before the season has tickets, however there is a large part of the population that is asking for tickets (on facebook, or whatever)

I say this is an issue where we gotta just wait the season out and then they can decide how many tickets to sell next year.
 

i decided to skip the 2nd page of this thread because of similar posts...but i actually got in an argument with another fan not from the U about how our student section really is sold out but since everyone crams in the bleachers to be closer, there is excess room at the top...so I would be down with selling an additional 500 tickets to allow more students into the game.
 



Since they scan the tickets when you enter, does that mean they have a count of how many people actually showed up? That could tell us whether or not students really are cramming in tighter than the alloted space.

Another way would be to look at pictures from the game, count the number of people in each row, and compare that the the number of allocated spaces in that row.

If students are really cramming in, then it should be possible to simply sell more student tickets. That could be done for next year. For this year, it's possible - I haven't looked at the fine print on the agreement you make with the U for student tickets, but unless there is language which stipulates how wide the alloted space for each person is, it should be legal.
 

Gopherprof said:
Because there aren't more tickets. Those tickets were already sold. If people choose to not sit in them, that's their fucking right.

Imagine if we applied this rule to all sporting events. "Sorry, you didn't sit in your seat the entire game, we're going to have to sell the rest of your tickets that you've already paid for."

It's asinine. Use your brains people.
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Happens all the time with student tickets Mr Brain. We sold rush tickets to hockey games when I was a young undergrad. There is no reason not to oversell the student section. Students have every right to show up to the game on time and sit, but ten minutes before gametime somebody looks at the scan count and sells those seats. And there are plenty of places for them to cram in anyway, especially at the top of the stadium.
 

Gopherprof said:
Students have already bought the seats. You can't sell those seats. What you're talking about is completely different.
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Buddy it is pretty clear that they can. They have done it for years at other events. They do it at the flipping opera for christ sake! There is no contractual obligation to not oversell a ticket to just about any event especially to a general admission section (lord knows I deal with it all to often flying with Northwest)!
 

at both games thus far, the only empty seats have been up high in the student section. All I can say is, when Wisky comes to town in 2 weeks, they'd better be crammed with gold clad students and no RED ones.
 

GopherProf, you keep using the words "seat", "seating" etc. Just so you know, we only sit during timeouts and between quarters. And in fact the entire section stands on the benches, not even the floor. When the U sells student rush seating, what they are really selling is square footage for the each member of the mob.

People were packed down closer and the standing situation is very fluid throughout the game, people who dont have someone to save their spot will lose it if they go get some nachos. So when those people come back with their nachos, they sure as hell aren't going to the back of the section, so they cram in even more.
 

MrGopher said:
GopherProf, you keep using the words "seat", "seating" etc. Just so you know, we only sit during timeouts and between quarters. And in fact the entire section stands on the benches, not even the floor. When the U sells student rush seating, what they are really selling is square footage for the each member of the mob.

People were packed down closer and the standing situation is very fluid throughout the game, people who dont have someone to save their spot will lose it if they go get some nachos. So when those people come back with their nachos, they sure as hell aren't going to the back of the section, so they cram in even more.
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I'm aware of this, I sit in the student section as well.

Regardless of whether you are sitting or not, you've purchased a seat. They sold just as many tickets as there were numbers on the benches in the guarantee that would happen. This is also why they give wristbands for the lower bowl, so everyone there is guaranteed a spot that shows up early. They can't change the rules of the game mid-season, regardless of what anyone is saying. Should they choose to do that next year is an entirely different issue.
 

ulfr said:
Buddy it is pretty clear that they can. They have done it for years at other events. They do it at the flipping opera for christ sake! There is no contractual obligation to not oversell a ticket to just about any event especially to a general admission section (lord knows I deal with it all to often flying with Northwest)!
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Did they start doing it midseason? No? Well then they can't, buddy.
 


All Big Ten schools that have general admission student sections that stand on bleachers must deal with the same issues of crowding together in the front. I dont remember ever seeing any of them having big open gaps at the tops of their student sections like we have had for both games. What are the other schools doing to eliminate this problem? Very likey selling SRO or overselling their general admission student seating. We need to do the same....just like we do at hockey and many other venues do. This is not rocket science. I don't understand why people don't get this.
 

M&G BUSt said:
The "seats" aka numbers on the benches are very spread out. This is a nice feature for most of the bench seating in the stadium, but apparently the students are packing in tighter. They could add more "seats" per bench, sell more tickets, and fill up the student section. This is assuming there are more students who want to go to the game.
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Thank you, thank you. That is what we are saying. If students are standing and taking up less room, cramming more people per row than their are "seats"...why not rezone it and sell more?? Do we need to spell it out for you?
 


swmngo4 said:
All Big Ten schools that have general admission student sections that stand on bleachers must deal with the same issues of crowding together in the front. I dont remember ever seeing any of them having big open gaps at the tops of their student sections like we have had for both games. What are the other schools doing to eliminate this problem? Very likey selling SRO or overselling their general admission student seating. We need to do the same....just like we do at hockey and many other venues do. This is not rocket science. I don't understand why people don't get this.
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The bench seats are super wide at TCF especially in comparison to other big ten stadia; a product of plans for future expansion. Not wanting to loose seats if they went to all chairs, the "seats" on the benches are actually the same distance apart as the chairbacks, but since there isn't a bunch of plastic in between you and your neighbor the end result is a very spacious bench seat. This results in even more students who can cram in on a row. There is absolutely nothing stopping SRO sales legally despite the good Professor's rants. Further SRO in general admission sections makes a lot of sense. People are going to cram into the front rows, that is well established from the Barn. Likewise >10% aren't going to make it into the game. Some are too drunk to leave the party, overslept, out of town, studying [it could happen], etc. This stadium lends itself to standing room especially at the top of the upperdeck without becoming a hazard, and as everybody can plainly see, there is space!
 

What Up Guy said:
Thank you, thank you. That is what we are saying. If students are standing and taking up less room, cramming more people per row than their are "seats"...why not rezone it and sell more?? Do we need to spell it out for you?
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I don't see any reason to bother rezoning. Simply sell standing room only seating. Fact: There are seats going unused upstairs. Send some more kids up there. It is really that easy. Have rush sales at kickoff. It will encourage students to get to their seats on time ;) It is clear that you could sell 400 more without any real danger. The aisles are remaining clear so the fire hazard isn't there.
 

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