Re: 2014 Frozen Four Ticket Buying Process
Just a question for anyone involved with last years way of picking your tickets...what did you think of the process..? Good or Bad..?
By "process," I presume you mean the ability to choose your own seats. This is a major improvement. More than most sports, hockey fans hold diverse opinions on the relative value of the various seat locations. By letting everyone choose their specific location, value is potentially created for each customer in the applicant pool.
Having a computer program assign seats is inherently inferior, particularly for hockey. While the computer programs have gotten a little better over the years, they still miss many nuances for any given venue.
For many Ticketmaster events, it is now possible to choose between the two systems: Select Your Own vs. Accept Best Available. It's interesting to put the computer to the test. Find a moderate demand event, and play around with it for a while. In most cases I can beat the computer's "best available" seats using the "interactive" feature -- sometimes by a lot. I bet you'll have the same experience.
I got good seats last year,but I can see if your a mid-priority ticket holder where seats thru a lottery would have been better...(by luck I might add)..imo.
Well, there's the rub. In order to win in the lottery, there have to winning tickets in the pool. Last year there were lots of very good seats to be had, but no great ones. Over the years, getting lower bowl seats on the sides has been at least a slight possibility. Also, seats in the first few rows have gone to lucky winners. Not so last year. Many of those seats were pulled from the lottery and sold as premium seating. Others weren't offered to the public at all. The NCAA giveth, and the NCAA taketh.
As for this year's rules, I can give a preliminary thumbs up. Because applicants in the Priority Lottery have almost universally favored lower bowl seating over the years, it makes sense that the upper bowl should cost a little less. Note, though, that this is kind of a pyrrhic victory for the consumer. Upper bowl customers aren't actually saving any money, they're avoiding a price increase.
Last but not least, those overpriced glass seats deserve a mention. Again, it's a good news, bad news scenario. To the extent the premium seating option has been scaled back to just glass seating, that's a good thing. Rows 2 & 3 would be considered by most to be lottery wins. So here's to hoping those are back in the general pool. Also, the NCAA has been much more forthcoming this year about the existence of the premium option. Although the upcharge is steep, at least you're aware of the choice and have the power to say yes or no. But on the downside, the upcharge is indeed steep -- both in percentage and absolute terms.
