Yeah, amusement parks have signs to the effect that "the wait time from this point is 1 hour". Of course they know how long the ride lasts. Were people sharing their life story with Cucho or something that prevented the line from moving quickly?
That's a completely different situation though. For an amusement park ride, you know exactly how many people are getting on the ride, how long the ride takes, and how long it takes to load and unload the ride. Furthermore, you know each individual in line represents one seat on the ride, and you know the average size of a person which allows you to fairly easily calculate the wait time based on the length of the line. You don't really have any of those constants to plug into your equation for an event like last night, so calculating the wait time based on the length of the line is pretty much impossible.
One of these allows the other You want to be snarky and dismissive over ways to improve the fact that there were almost certainly people who waited in line 110 hours and were then turned away. It effected me, personally, very little. My kid was happy to get a Cucho autograph and is old enough to stand in line for 2 hours without too much issue. She would have liked Nagbe's autograph, but wasn't broken up about not getting it. I did not yell at anyone who did such a thing. If you were standing next to me, you wouldn't have even heard me even make any disparaging comments about people who did that. I bring it up because of issues it causes/caused for others. If you prevent people from holding spots for others, other than say going on a bathroom break, then you can have an accurate number of people in line and you can estimate how long it will take to get through that line.
Good call. I've done the CBJ thing. It is similar, except in Nationwide Arena--station of three players per station, and there are lines. If you get in a line at the start, you should get those autographs. There is a person counting folks in line and there is a cutoff sign (you might get one after the sign, but it is not guaranteed). You can try for a second line, and you might get lucky--but might not. I do have one older poster with 10 sigs, but some of those were broadcast folks, etc. Last year and the year before, we only got to one stop. Edit: At the Crew thing, I was only there to get Cheberko's autograph on the jersey I got last year. And that's almost all we did. I didn't need the others. I did take a look at some of the artwork, but not so much as to bore Mrs KG.
I think you missed my point. Let's say you have a couple with three kids waiting in line directly in front of you. They are all together. They will all go up to the player table together, take pictures together, etc. once they get to the front of the line. After standing in line for a while, the mom and two younger children decide to go walk around to ease the boredom while the dad and older child remain in line. After a half hour, the mom and two younger kids return and the dad and older child leave to take a quick bathroom break and return five minutes later. Ten minutes later, it's their turn for their meet & greet. Whether all five of them stood in line for that entire time or just one of them stood in line that entire time does not have any impact on the amount time it took you to get to the front of the line. That's what I mean when I say it didn't impact you or anyone else in line at all in terms of the amount of time you had to wait. And again, getting a count of the total number of people in line does not allow you to get an accurate estimate of time. Some people are in line alone. Some people are with five other people. You could have 25 people in line and it could take 15 minutes to get through all of them or 5 minutes depending on how they are grouped together.
It's not that hard to do. I haven't checked in a while, but COSI has been known to close their high-wire unicycle early. They know each person averages about three minutes riding. Around 4:30, they'll go through the line and give everyone a "ticket" that guarantees a ride. I believe they close the line after that. If there's still time once all the "tickets" have been redeemed OR if it's a slow day, they'll keep it open as close to 5 as possible. The tickets are really just used on busy days when there's a long line at 4:30. It's a shame they can't find a sponsor for post-game autographs and do them more often like they used to. Even if you only had some of the players, and not every game, it'd be something. And I vaguely remember an all-fans autograph session after some game during the Rick Nash era. I believe they either gave similar "redeem for autograph" tickets or had a guy counting people in the line and did a hard stop at X number of fans. I do remember it was Rick Nash and Mike Commodore at the same table. (Yikes?)
Because instead of being 100, you might be 125. There's a difference when there's no guarantee you'll get one. You think you're #100, but when you're actually #125, it's misleading. Now if you're talking about bathroom breaks, that's understandable...but if one person does all the work for their entire family, that should be called out. "I'll wait in this line and text you all when I'm really close and you can waltz to the front." -- Absolutely not. "Let's all get in line together, we'll wait 15-20 minutes and you all can go get other autographs and be back in 30-45 minutes and we can finish the final 30 minutes together." That's fine.
Ok, I guess I have to say it again. People are not individually going up to the table one by one if they are there with other people. Groups of people go up together when they are there as a group. It's not the COSI unicycle where a maximum of ONE person can go at a time. As I laid out above, you could have 30 people in line and the line could move at a wildly different rate depending on the makeup of the line. If all 30 people are in line as individuals the line will take longer than if there are numerous groups of 3-4 people waiting to go up together. Let's say you have a line of 30 people, but those 30 people are comprised of 10 groupings of 3 people each. Assuming each individual person or group of people is permitted the same amount of time at the table with the players, that line of 30 people comprised of 10 groupings of 3 people each would take about as much time to get through as a line of 10 people going one by one. That's exactly why you can't predict the amount of time a line will take to get through at an event like last night in the same way you can with the COSI unicycle.
Man, back in my day (2015) I literally got every single players autograph on a team ball AND poster at HCS except for Waylon Francis (he was injured, wasn’t there). How things have changed…
Back in the day I had to walk uphill, in snow, both ways, with no shoes to Ohio Stadium to watch the Crew......
Yeah. I think I have mentioned that prior to last year’s event, the last Meet the Team event I attended was in 03/04. So.. it had been awhile. And I only went to that event because my (girl) friends wanted to meet the players. I think the event was held at the Columbus Zoo? Does that sound correct? I do not remember hordes and hordes of people. So last year, I was very (very) surprised by the magnitude of the attendance. We are not going to that many more games this season - between the youth soccer season and wanting to make money off of tickets - I have tried to provide a balance of games that we plan to attend. In that negotiation, I promised the kids (Markus mostly) that we would attend these sort of additional events if we could. So I owed them. I was going to post more thoughts about not understanding the whole hamming it up nor fanboy/girling, players are human beings, etc., etc. but that would require more energy than I have currently. Also, in the end, I have found that people find enjoyment in various activities in life that I find puzzling. To each their own.
2019 you could get through almost all the tables, and 2022 you could get through half. Whatever they did in the 2022-2023 offseason was something
The Buckeye Cruise every year has a single autograph session on one of the mornings. You get in line by a certain time and go through to get everyone's signature in order. One item per person, no disrupting the flow to take photos, no exceptions. That's one way to do it. By splitting it into multiple dates they can capp the number of potential people at each event to roughly match the number of hours that players are required to be there. The Crew could even hold it at the stadium and save money on renting a venue. The other option would be going back to a party like was done in prior years where there's a cover band, the coach, owners, GM, etc can say a few words, and guests and players are commingled and able to take pictures rather than autographs. These used to be before the season but I think it could easily be done mid-season during a scheduled bye week or the breaks around Leagues Cup. The latter would also provide an opportunity to introduce any new signings made in the summer window. The current format of "pick your favorite trio of players and that's all you get" is a very stupid and inefficient way of doing it. I don't know why they even hold it off-site because if someone wants to enjoy the museum then almost by definition they aren't going to "meet the team." Crew Night at the Museum or player autographs in the Huntington Club would both be better than what they're doing now.
Regarding your first paragraph, I don't know how strict it was, but during the final years of postgame autographs, I don't believe photos were permitted. It could have just been a "we'll look the other way while we encourage autographs only." Photos definitely bog things down. Of course we can't have postgame autograph sessions now, but that would definitely help with the demand. I wouldn't mind a party format, like when it was the casino night. Say it's 3-4 hours total. Players are obligated for two. Let the fans continue to mingle and enjoy the venue. (This would also allow fans to enjoy the artwork. I didn't go last night, so IDK how long the museum was open for fans, but it seems like not long.) My idea would be to have the players at stations around the concourse of the stadium. Instead of having many different lines, a fan can just walk one lap in a sort of "mega line." By the time the individual gets back to the starting point, all autographs have been collected. That probably wouldn't help much, but it might be worth a try. At this point, it seems like anything would be better than what they're doing. I opted for the second session, thinking they'd iron the bugs out. Yeah...that's not gonna happen.
My head was somewhere in this area. Maybe split players in two groups and have two paths so everyone gets half the team. Might have to throw a majority of non-Cucho starters together opposite Cucho. The Cucho line got you 5 players as it was, so that's ~20% of the team. Was originally going to go for the second event as well, but who knows what fall season schedule will be like for me and my kid, so it was safer to do this first one.
2025 renewal emails are out today. I know my price went up, but I can't find the seating chart from last year to know how much.
Renewals are out. Looks like a jump in prices. I went from about $1400 to about $1900 for a full package.
Where is the seating chart for next year? I looked around the account portal, but I could not find it. Rising prices remind me of why I sell our tickets on TM to help offset costs. Will Messi be playing next season?
Nordecke up to $657 from $535, a 23% increase. This is not Bundesliga-like pricing, for sure. 2 knock-on effects. IMO: - Nordecke will continue to see more casual fans in the section, buying off reseller markets as the cheapest way into the game. - Leagues Cup opt-ins will decline further in 2025. Which the Crew may not mind, they are still getting the money through price increases ... but MLS and Liga Mx might.
Yeah...I keep hearing about how European pricing is lower, yada yada...but we know their player salaries are much, much higher. So where's that money come from? Sponsorships? TV? Taxes? Other? Well, it's safe to say those first two into the Crew's budget are a lot less than European teams. More casual fans aren't necessarily a *bad* thing. We were all casuals at one point.