How do we do away with Premium Seating?

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FearDaBee

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Good question....

IMHO, the 'best' seats should be used for students and alumnus THAT GO TO THE GAMES AND SUPPORT THE TEAMS!!!! I hate it in basketball when so many primo seats are sold to alumni that contribute a ton of money and then do not attend. Their seats are either empty or they are scalped, sometimes to the opposition - how stupid is that?

There must be someway to rewared supporters that actually attend the games!

First, good seats should be allocated to students. Not in the end zones, and not on the 10 yard line.

Second, the next best seats should be given to alumni. There has to be some part of the 'formula' used by the Alumni Association and Ticket office to see who actually attends the games. Points should be subtracted if someone buys season tickets and then only goes to one game (for example).

I know that my opinion states an 'ideal' world, but hey, it is just my opinion.
 
Ramblin,
I'm confused. You state that Braine is against this. If so, why is it happening? Doesn't the opinion of the AD carry some weight on this? Educate me on this process.

I am also not happy with the idea of premium seating. It'll replace the beer and pretzels crowd with wine and cheesers. I think it will wind up with more opposition fans in good seats...more empty seats in non-premo games like Weak and Dook. OTOH, it's a money thing. You gotta be able to pay for things, and I'm assuming that's what is behind this.

Anyway, I thought that's what the luxury boxes were for....
puke.gif
 
1. Why are so many people against "premium seating"?
If this were done here in G'ville, fans/alums would step up to the plate and buy those seats.
2. Why aren't Tech people in those corporations using those seats? Is it that the rank and file Tech alum is not VP in his company? I would like to think that any GT alum would kill to have his company get access to those seats just so that he/she could go to games.
3. Premium seating can work as long as the product is good. More importantly, if the product is bad, the life and death GT fans should buy those seats.

Hell, why should premium seating be corporate.
All those Hivers should buy out those seats...then the "problem" is solved.
 
Originally posted by FearDaBee:
Good question....
First, good seats should be allocated to students. Not in the end zones, and not on the 10 yard line.
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">IMHO, Students are lucky to be in the stadium. They pay a very small portion of the GTAA's bills, therefore I don't think they should receive priority over alums/fans that donate to A-T/Roll Call. The students aren't "owed" anything more than a good education.
 
I dont have a problem with premium seating, as long as the seats are filled with GT fans.

I dont care how much you donate if you give your QUALITY seat away to a rude S.O.B then I believe you should be warned and then lose the seat if it happens again.

I also do not want these seats to be empty. If they are not going to be used they should be sold to first come basis to GT fans on the day of the game.
 
My understanding is that Braine is against the Premium Seating idea, but the AA marketing department and the A-T for some reason is pushing for it. Primarily the marketing dept. But this could be bad info.

I think corporate folks (big time GT boosters) will buy the suites at the high $$$$ price. The premium seats are more for entertaining clients for alot less than suites. It looks like we are setting up to have the special lounge underneath the stands (no, not that kind of a lounge) with upscale food and satellite TVs like at Philips. This is the way Philips Arena premium seating works: You pay extra for the seats. You have waiters taking your order for food, you can go underneath to the lounge and unwind and never watch the game. "This" is one reason that the premium seats are more than half empty for Thrashers games. The folks are in attendance, but since they got the tickets for free from the business and have no real connection to the teams, they just stay underneath in the lounge. THIS is NOT the type of set up we need at BDS@HGF. We do not need a bunch of neutral fans showing up, lounging underneath the stands just looking for some perks. We need REAL fans!! Real Tech die-hards!!
 
law_bee:

Your comment about wanting the tickets sold to Tech fans on game day, if not sold will in April, will be the problem (much like Personal Seat Licenses). So, you sell half the premium seats to fans before the year starts at $100 per seat per game. Then on game day you release the unsold seats at $30. Well, if I am one that paid $100, I am pissed as hell that someone got the seat for $30. So, the next year, you sell even less, because the fans that were willing to buy at $100 decide just to wait til later for the $30 price. All this means that they will likely always go unsold at the "premium".

This is the same problem with PSLs. You either have to have demand greater than your supply or not have them at all. When the Raiders moved back to Oakland they were requiring something like $5,000-$10,000 per seat for the PSL to have the "right" to buy season tickets for the next 20 years. Well, they only sold about 50% of the season tickets that they had available this way, so in August they just opened up season tickets for anyone. At this point, the folks who had paid the outlandish PSL fee sued the Raiders and I don't blame them. In my opinion, you have to be a fool to pay a PSL fee.

So, this is why I think the Premium Seating will fail miserably at Tech, just like the floor seating at AMC (and the chairback seats). To sit courtside, you had to donate some huge $$$$. Well, those seats are 75% empty most nights. AMC was a tough place to play in the mid-80s when the floor came right to the court and you had real fans courtside, not corporate folks that don't show up.
 
Just out of curiosity...does anyone else in major college football have premium seats? Most schools that I'm aware of have pure bleacher seating all the way around. The big contributors get the better seats near the 50. Then, schools have luxury boxes as well.

If we do this, are we going to be ahead of the curve? If we are ahead of the curve on this, why is that so? If this is such a good idea, why doesn't any other school that I'm aware of have this type of seating?

Could it be that other schools have studied this idea and decided not to do it? I don't know.
 
Originally posted by bugboy:
Just out of curiosity...does anyone else in major college football have premium seats? Most schools that I'm aware of have pure bleacher seating all the way around. The big contributors get the better seats near the 50. Then, schools have luxury boxes as well.

If we do this, are we going to be ahead of the curve? If we are ahead of the curve on this, why is that so? If this is such a good idea, why doesn't any other school that I'm aware of have this type of seating?

Could it be that other schools have studied this idea and decided not to do it? I don't know.
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">I don't know about any other schools have PSL's. But virtually all major 1-A schools have premium seats where you have to donate "X" amt of dollars to purchase season tix in a certain section.

My ex-girlfriend went to Tennessee and her parents had a pair of UT season tix at Neyland. They had to donate over $1000 per seat just to buy those season tix each year.

I'm not a fan of the premium seating by any stretch of the imagination, but some GT folks don't donate anything to GTAA. Unless someone lit a fire underneath them, I don't think they would donate anything.
 
but some GT folks don't donate anything to GTAA. Unless someone lit a fire underneath them, I don't think they would donate anything.
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Denying these persons "good" seatsought to be the major goal of "premium seating."

This is why I advocate hard-core/most loyal GT fans buying up these seats. To be honest, we're catching up to the See Everyone Cheats and other football schools by placing a premium on "good" seats and linking loyalty to donation amounts.
If there's any kind of buy-in from hardcore GT fans, then those seats will become badges of honor rather than albatross about our neck.

Addendum:
I believe the AMC chairbacks were full thoroughout most of the end of Cremin's reign.
The poor showing during the early season made seeing GT games in person almost a non-issue. When AMC is rockin' again, the chair backs will be full of GT people. ATL loves a winner, that's all we need to fill our seats.
Only South Carolina watches loosing teams ad nauseum
 
This topic was very lengthy over on the Hive last night and today before the Hive exploded and vanished.

All indications are that the fans do NOT want it, and Braine is against it, so then why are we doing it?

Why are we going to move long-time loyal Tech supporters to worse seats, then try and charge extra $$$$ for primo lower east seats, so that those ticket buyers can give the tickets to the opposition's fans or worse - not be used? We need rowdy fans in these seats!! Ones that love GT and will show up every game. If we play Wake or Duke and these seats are empty, ala AMC is currently with chairbacks except vs UNC and Duke, how is that gonna look on TV?

I know this has been talked about alot on the Hive, and no part of it makes any sense, so how can we stop this from happening? We don't need Tech football to go corporate and market to the neutral corporate crowd. I can see all those seats being filled with Uga and FSU fans now. Ugh!!

Whatta we gotta do??
 
Another reason I don't like this: Chairback seats make me think of the NFL. At alot of NFL stadiums, people just sit on their cans and enjoy the comfort of their seats. I hope this section doesn't become a bunch of "sitters" who don't get up and make noise. We've got enough trouble with that on the west stands. I don't know.
 
That is exactly why I posted my initial post in this thread....

It is so very demoralizing to see empty 'premium' seats, or even 80 year old 'fans' in the premium seats that do not cheer or even clap. Who among us has not seen this in the home basketball games?

Compare that to the Duke home basketball games. The students surround the court on all sides and are jumping up and down, yelling. What a great environment!

As an alumnus that has contributed a ton of money, I would rather the 'primo' seats in football and basketball go to (in this order):
1. students - this is their experience and their years. Don't take it away from them!
2. alumni that attend games and cheer - note that I did NOT say the alumni that contribute the most money.
3. alumni that contribute money
4. other Tech fans
5. the opponent fans
6. open

Finally, I define premium seats as those located closest to the action (field or court) and closest to the middle (ie: 50 yard line). I do not care if the seats have 'arms' on them or not. Real fans will be standing most of the time, anyway - see Duke home basketball games!

PS - the only advantage of arms on chairs at Bobby Dodd is that when a fat person sits next to you now, it is miserable!
 
The Premium, chair back seats behind home plate at Russ Chandler Stadium were empty most of the year except for the big games. Also, they picked green instead of yellow for the color of them? Let's hope neither happens at BDS@HGF. They should either do the whole stadium with them in yellow or scrap the idea IMHO. Remember, GT is the Yellow Jackets, not the Green Jackets nor the Blue Jackets.
 
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