Unsold SEC Tournament Tickets
by azvol on Feb 7, 2011 2:42 PM EST
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I received an email from UT this morning concerning SEC Tournament tickets. Tennessee has not sold their allotment. The games this year are in the Georgia Dome. Failure to sell their allotment even happened last year when the games were in Nashville at a smaller venue. Where will UT fans be sitting this year? Not the best seats in the huge building. Section 129, in the corner. At $325 per booklet it is turning out to be a tough sale.
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I wonder where
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
oops, sorry, I’ll try again…..
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
I wonder where the UK allotment is...
since Calipari has once again said that they don’t care about winning the SEC championship or the tournament. If it’s not a big deal to the coach, and he feels the need to publicly proclaim it, the SEC should not feel it’s necessary to accommodate their fans.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
Simple: buy 'em, hold 'em, and sell 'em to Kentucky fans at twice the price.
They don’t care where they’re seated. Heck, we could probably sell them tickets into Neyland and put the game on the ‘Tron and they’d be happy so long as they got to say they had tickets to the games.
If you love basketball, I highly recommend the SEC Tournament
Buying the whole book up front is the biggest financial risk/reward I’ve experienced in the ticket world, because your team can get bounced the first day. But if you just want to see basketball and interact with a ton of different fanbases in the same place, it’s a great event. You get 11 games in 4 days, which is way more than any NCAA Tournament venue can provide.
But in the Georgia Dome, good seats will always be available. I went down in 07 and 08, got tickets from UT and had great seats. And we lost the first day in 07 and got tornadoed out in 08. But if you’re not interested in seeing the other games, it’s a very hard sell for the whole book in Atlanta. When it’s in smaller venues like Nashville, the books are more valuable.
I may rely on you...
for more ticket buying advice around SEC tourney time. I would much rather attend in Nashville, but may have a better chance of good seats in Atlanta.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
Also
It’s in Atlanta this year, New Orleans next year, and not back in Nashville until 2013…then back to Atlanta in 2014.
What in the hell is it doing in New Orleans?
Seriously, that is arguably the worst location I can think of… It would almost be like having it in Miami or Louisville. Just keep the thing in Atlanta, and if Birmingham didn’t suck so much, I’d alternate between the two.
If I don't burn vacation time the first two days of the NCAA tourney, I might take the plunge this season.
Not sure I can reconcile the three days those two weeks would require.
Formerly 'snail. You get used to it after a while.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 8, 2011 8:43 AM EST up reply actions
Also,
If UT had available seats to the tournament last year, it’s news to me. I’m fairly certain that if they don’t sell their allotment to boosters or students, they make them available on the website, like they have done with NCAA tickets. I checked with them and no tickets were available.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
Season ticket holders get first crack at them before the year starts
That’s how I’ve always gotten mine. In Atlanta the seats were lower level in the first 10 rows both times, but in Nashville they’ve been upper deck both times. Different venues, and there are certainly donors who are higher on the food chain than me.
In smaller venues, you can make a profit as long as Kentucky is still playing. But in Atlanta, that place is just so huge for basketball, it’s hard to get much back if you’re interested in selling. I went to all the first day games in 07, but we played the early session on Friday in 08 and then I sold the evening session and only got some of my money back even with UK involved. (Of course, I missed the tornado, and you can’t put a price on that).
I’d only buy the whole book in Atlanta if you plan on going to most or all of the games.
Tickets
I intended to express the fact that UT did not sell all of their allotment last year in the same way they did not sell all this year, i.e., the season ticket holders did not buy up the initial offering and they had to be made available to the general public. After they went “public” I don’t doubt they sold out last year. Hopefully that will happen this year, too.
Well...
there are a LOT of us out here who aren’t season-ticket holders, but we like to go to games, and sit in good seats. So, just because the allotment wasn’t all used by the season-ticket folks doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of interest in the tickets.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
Well...
I couldn’t agree more. As long as the Vols are well-represented at the tournament, I think we’d all be satisfied.
The reason I was pointing out that tournament tickets were available to the public is that that has not always been the case. It was the case this year and last year. Prior to that, during the CBP era, tournament tickets were snatched up in their entirety by season ticket holders. I wonder if their failure to do that the past two years is symptomatic of anything? Last year the tourney was in Nashville, so I don’t think it is venue. Personally, when I saw the location of the tickets UT was making available to season ticket holders, I opted out. Don’t want to spend four days in the upper deck with a baseline view. If I were younger, I would have been satisfied with simply getting in the building. Now that I am old, I am spoiled. Getting in the building isn’t enough. If I am spending the $$ to be away from work and overnight in Nashville 4 or 5 nights, I want to experience the event in the best way possible. This is a personal thing and I realize it certainly doesn’t apply to everyone. It is a good thing that everyone is not as spoiled as I am; or, otherwise we’d have a 1/2 empty arena.
the Georgia Dome is absolute garbage
i wouldn’t only pay for tickets if they were in the first 10 rows or over on the temporary bleachers they put up.
There is...
a definite absurdity in pricing when it comes to tickets… Seriously $325 is outrageous for a venue the size of the Georgia Dome…
I could go down there, and purchase individual tickets for every single game from a scalper an quite possibly pay 1/4th of that price. The same thing goes for every home football game, and that’s excluding donation costs for season tickets.
Seriously… ~$1k for the right to spend another 300 on a pair of tickets. When I’ve paid as little as $10 from a scalper for a game against Auburn while we were still in the running for a national title, it borders on the absurd to the degree that I’m convinced that we have a ton of fans who don’t realize how easy it is to acquire tickets… that, or we have a LOT of people who donate out of goodwill.
FYI, NCAA Tournament sites
for travel plans:
First/Second Rounds: Washington DC, Charlotte, Cleveland, Tampa, Chicago, Tulsa, Denver, Tucson
Sweet 16/Elite 8: Newark, New Orleans, San Antonio, Anaheim
Final Four: Houston
Wait, we have first / second round dates in DC?
Are those Friday / Sunday or Thursday / Saturday?
Formerly 'snail. You get used to it after a while.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 8, 2011 11:15 AM EST up reply actions
DC is Thursday/Saturday
Charlotte is Friday/Sunday
Also, 2012 is the best draw for UT fan travel I’ve ever seen – I hope we’re good enough to get in. There are first round games in Nashville, Greensboro, Louisville, and Columbus, and regional finals in Atlanta and St. Louis.
by Will Shelton on Feb 8, 2011 11:28 AM EST up reply actions
Well, nuts.
It’d be easier to reconcile taking time off to do Friday/Sunday. Not sure I can do that Thursday (or at least all of it).
Formerly 'snail. You get used to it after a while.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 8, 2011 12:19 PM EST up reply actions
You also don't know when the games are
Last year, I went to a Thursday/Saturday site (Providence) where the games were 7:30 (G-town/OU) and 10:00 (UT/SDSU)
by Incipient_Senescence on Feb 8, 2011 12:42 PM EST up reply actions
Aren't they doing four games at a site still?
Formerly 'snail. You get used to it after a while.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 8, 2011 5:13 PM EST up reply actions
Yeah, but each ticket is only good for two
They usually have an afternoon session, a break to clear things out, and an evening session.
by Incipient_Senescence on Feb 8, 2011 5:35 PM EST up reply actions
SEC Tournament works in similar fashion
Tickets for Afternoon/Evening on Thursday/Friday, then one ticket for Saturday and one for Sunday
UNC's prospective student weekend is March 20-22
It would be so depressing if we ended up in Charlotte and I was that close to the site but unable to go. But I doubt we’ll be in Charlotte, since we won’t be a high enough seed to be protected geographically.
by Incipient_Senescence on Feb 8, 2011 11:53 AM EST up reply actions
I live in Atlanta...
…so it’s not a disaster for me if I wait and no tickets are available, but whenever I go, I always just wait and buy individual tickets for the sessions I want to go to. I suppose if we ever get into the championship in the Dome, I might have trouble, but up until now, the only UT game I haven’t been able to get into here was the semifinal that was moved to Georgia Tech, and no one could get into that.
Having to buy a whole book to get tickets from the university is a complete rip-off, in my opinion. Especially in an arena the size of the Georgia Dome. The only way I would ever buy a tournament book is if I was going out-of-town to attend, and even then I probably wouldn’t. Especially not for the Superdome. Maybe for an actual 20,000 seat basketball arena (so Nashville or Tampa, recently), I would consider it.
Where / when do you buy the individual session tickets?
Outside the stadium?
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
Either StubHub or outside the stadium
Generally I start with StubHub (or any similar online ticket service) and then after the first game, if we win and I run across somebody outside selling tickets, I might go that route for the next game.
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