pangerho
16 Jun 2006, 05:30 PM
Don't want to sound too much like sour grapes, but I was really disappointed with my "Category 1" tickets to SWE-PAR yesterday. They were in the second level, well behind the goal and well outside the touch line -- effectively way back in one corner. There were people behind the goal but much closer to the field and presumably with a better view of at least one dimension of the field who no doubt were sitting in Cat 2 or 3 seats.
It is yet another thing I just don't understand about the *&$%@# ticketing process the yahoos at the OC came up with. Perhaps some fans would prefer my seats to those on the ends, but I wouldn't. So I paid a premium to get seats that were actually worse. Why couldn't the OC do what every other ticketing body in the world does and give you the ability to see the seats you are buying? At least by section/cost? As it was, I paid top dollar (at least the highest amount I could pay to someone who wasn't my "cousin") and got the luck of the draw -- almost no insight or influence -- about what seat I received.
I guess the real answer about why this happens is that the OC is hte literal and figurative 800-pound monopolistic gorilla. They didn't give me a choice because they didn't need to do it -- clearly there was plenty of demand from people like me who paid up without knowing what seat they would get. And even after that, there were lots of "Bjorn"s and "Tomas"s outside the stadium looking for tickets.
Having said all that, I must admit that my underwhelming seat was still pretty good, especially since it was at the end where Lllllllungberg scored the goal. It is pretty impressive that when you look around a European soccer stadium, -- there are very few seats you look at and say, "Wow. It would really suck to sit up there." Unlike a baseball stadium where there are lots of bad seats (and I've sat in most of them), these soccer specific stadiums have amazing sight lines.
Anyway, anybody else having crappy CAT 1 seat experiences?
It is yet another thing I just don't understand about the *&$%@# ticketing process the yahoos at the OC came up with. Perhaps some fans would prefer my seats to those on the ends, but I wouldn't. So I paid a premium to get seats that were actually worse. Why couldn't the OC do what every other ticketing body in the world does and give you the ability to see the seats you are buying? At least by section/cost? As it was, I paid top dollar (at least the highest amount I could pay to someone who wasn't my "cousin") and got the luck of the draw -- almost no insight or influence -- about what seat I received.
I guess the real answer about why this happens is that the OC is hte literal and figurative 800-pound monopolistic gorilla. They didn't give me a choice because they didn't need to do it -- clearly there was plenty of demand from people like me who paid up without knowing what seat they would get. And even after that, there were lots of "Bjorn"s and "Tomas"s outside the stadium looking for tickets.
Having said all that, I must admit that my underwhelming seat was still pretty good, especially since it was at the end where Lllllllungberg scored the goal. It is pretty impressive that when you look around a European soccer stadium, -- there are very few seats you look at and say, "Wow. It would really suck to sit up there." Unlike a baseball stadium where there are lots of bad seats (and I've sat in most of them), these soccer specific stadiums have amazing sight lines.
Anyway, anybody else having crappy CAT 1 seat experiences?