Just one more question on GF seats vs standing

[saint66au]

Just curious, did anyone EXCLUDE Standing Room in their option, even after theu were given a chance to change their minds, and as a result miss out on tix altogether?

Ive been told an interesting story that I cant really elaborate on atm....but Id be interested to know if anyone did miss out puerly by not ticking that box

[saintsRrising]

I heard a lady ring up SEN 15 minutes before the second chance registration concluded complaining that the Saints had reneged on the the guarantee that all SC Members were guaranteed a ticket.

I would assume that she had excluded standing room...and then somehow was ignorant of the second chance registration.

Which just goes to show that many do not read and understand fine print...or probably even large print by not reading the mail at all.

[ace]

I fear the biggest reading mistake was made by the club when Demetriou promised them 11,500 tickets for competing team supporters.

I suspect the club was fooled by Demetriou's lack of candour in his press publicity.
He probably did not tell the club until much later that 15% would be standing room.

AND the club limited the size of the social club unaware that Demetriou had not told the whole truth to the press.

BUT Demetriou got a seat, not standing room.

The club should scale back the size of the social club to the number of GF seats and leave standing room to September Saints.

[saintspremiers]

I fear the biggest reading mistake was made by the club when Demetriou promised them 11,500 tickets for competing team supporters.

I suspect the club was fooled by Demetriou's lack of candour in his press publicity.
He probably did not tell the club until much later that 15% would be standing room.

AND the club limited the size of the social club unaware that Demetriou had not told the whole truth to the press.

BUT Demetriou got a seat, not standing room.

Demetriou is someone you CANNOT trust, we've known that for years.

As such, it's our clubs, and every clubs, duty to drill down ALL the detail when dealing with the AFL - otherwise prepare to get shafted - which is what happend.

I can't imagine St Kilda deliberately pulled this fiasco on the fans - but I may be wrong....

[saint66au]

AFAIK the Club didnt know the exact break up of seats v standing until pretty much as they were being allocated

[Mr Magic]

AFAIK the Club didnt know the exact break up of seats v standing until pretty much as they were being allocated

I believe the first they found out that there were standing room in their allocation was on teh Friday of teh Prelim Final, by which time they had already committed to a 'ballot' for teh tickets on the Saturday.

That doesn't change the fact that they appear to be 'hanging their hat' on the ticket/seat semantics when all along I believe that they thought they were getting seats. The ticket/seat semantics is a 'convenient excuse' for them in this issue, IMO.

I for one would rather that they came clean on the whole issue and just told us that they had expected to get all seats and were shocked to find out that a major portion of the additional tickets were standing room. I can accept a 'mea culpa' like that with a promiose to look at the situation in future so as to make a more equiatable allocation.

Unfortunately, IMO, the way they've used the ticket/seat semantics makes them appear as 'shifty' as the AFL, when they are most probably a 'victim' in this.

[saint75]

AFAIK the Club didnt know the exact break up of seats v standing until pretty much as they were being allocated

I believe the first they found out that there were standing room in their allocation was on teh Friday of teh Prelim Final, by which time they had already committed to a 'ballot' for teh tickets on the Saturday.

That doesn't change the fact that they appear to be 'hanging their hat' on the ticket/seat semantics when all along I believe that they thought they were getting seats. The ticket/seat semantics is a 'convenient excuse' for them in this issue, IMO.

I for one would rather that they came clean on the whole issue and just told us that they had expected to get all seats and were shocked to find out that a major portion of the additional tickets were standing room. I can accept a 'mea culpa' like that with a promiose to look at the situation in future so as to make a more equiatable allocation.

Unfortunately, IMO, the way they've used the ticket/seat semantics makes them appear as 'shifty' as the AFL, when they are most probably a 'victim' in this.

Has anyone actually addressed the club in regards to this..?? Would be very interesting to hear what they have to say post GF when it is not as hectic and don't have as much on their plate.

[Enrico_Misso]

They are very evasive.
I asked them to confirm
- what % of SC members had registered
- of them what proportion would accept standing room
- what proportion of our 11,500 tickets were standing room
- how many Sept Saints had registered

That was after the ballot.
I was simply trying to work out what proportion of our SC members were likely to miss out, and what proportion of Sept Saints would get a standing ticket, as I thought that was interesting and relevant info that should be posted for all to see.

I got a polite response that they didn't know the answers to any of those questions yet.

I simply don't believe that.

At the conclusion of the ballot, if I was managing the process, they would be the first questions I would ask Ticketmaster, and I would already have been questioning the AFL on the mix.

I think they were running scared.
They did their modelling on the basis that the take-up would be 85% and we would get 10,500 seats which meant all SC members would get a seat.
That is why they decided to abandon guaranteeing Foundation SC members a seat as they felt they were all safe.

Then when they saw the 93% take up and then found that because they hadn't lobbied or negotiated or communicated hard enough with the AFL and the number of seats were cut by 500 - they realised there wasn't enough seats to go round.
I think someone shat themselves in the membership dept.
They tried to play it down but also minimise the damage by ringing every SC member who hadn't ticked the "I am prepared to stand" box.

If I was a Foundation SC member who hates to stand and then missed out on a seat (or missed out completely) I would be seething (well maybe not quite so much given the result).
But the principle is the same.
Several hundred Foundation SC members would have been shafted.

It promises to be an interesting AGM

[saint75]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Would still like to see the AFL challenged on this by all the clubs. Simply not good enough. They do have the ultimate control but seem to come away from this issue unscathed.

[Enrico_Misso]

Look Dimwit and Alcoholic Anonymous are a bunch of greasy shysters, we all know that.

But I am not convinced the club did enough to ensure the mix of tickets was 10,500/1,000 seats/standing like in prev years.
I think we blithely accepted their promise of 11,500 "tickets" without crossing our "t"'s on the mix issues.

Or else the greasy shysters lied to us and as usual we are too scared to complain for fear of being shafted in the draw like last year (5 twilight games and limited Fri night TV exposure).

[saint75]

Look Dimwit and Alcoholic Anonymous are a bunch of greasy shysters, we all know that.

But I am not convinced the club did enough to ensure the mix of tickets was 10,500/1,000 seats/standing like in prev years.
I think we blithely accepted their promise of 11,500 "tickets" without crossing our "t"'s on the mix issues.

Or else the greasy shysters lied to us and as usual we are too scared to complain for fear of being shafted in the draw like last year (5 twilight games and limited Fri night TV exposure).

I hope they don't complain and b**tch to the AFL too much, we have been on the receiving end of way too much crap whenever we have upset them. Just not worth the long term pain for short term satisfaction! Would be better if the clubs approached them as a united front.

Would rather see Demetriou turfed out along with Anderson. Now that would return the smile to my face if that was to happen this week.

[matrix]

thats interesting Enrico
i rang them on the day of the ballet
was told (with about maybe 2 or 3 hrs to go still ) that 90% had registered
i asked when would they know the final figure?

at the end of the day/early next day

rang again a few days later and young lady told me that they arent told the final figure.


wonder whats happened at other clubs in the previous years, if there has been some kind of allocation problems?

[Milton66]

i rang them on the day of the ballet

Funny, I never picked you as the ballet type.. or opera for that matter.

[matrix]

opps

yeah
im a tights man
lol

ballOt

[oneteam]

That is why they decided to abandon guaranteeing Foundation SC members a seat as they felt they were all safe.

when did they guarantee anyone a seat ?

[saint75]

That is why they decided to abandon guaranteeing Foundation SC members a seat as they felt they were all safe.

when did they guarantee anyone a seat ?

They didn't, they guaranteed a ticket. Someone kept the information and posted it not long after the ballot results came out.

[hellorocky]

There are many, many questions regarding the standing room allocation for social club and/or foundation members and I hope to prepare a letter for my family to the club soon.

All that aside, I would like share something that happened to my 13yo daughter in our standing room at M4. She was standing at the back wall, older brother just in front, 2 uncles nearby. A man dressed in Geelong colours approached her and asked her for her ticket as he wanted to get a friend in, thankfully she said no and he just walked away. It was all over in a matter of seconds and 1 uncle heard it but didn't realise what was happening until the man walked away.

Was this something random? Did he go and keep asking other youngsters? Has this happened to anyone else before? Would it have happened if we were in a seat?

[west57]

I'm a Social Club member who was allocated a restricted view seat (same category as standing room). When i found my seat on Saturday, pretty much the whole bay was Geelong - probably about 10 Saints strewn throughout the whole bay. Disappointing to say the least.

[Thomas]

My first choice was any available tickets except standing. then I received a letter and and Email saying that I had a second chance which I took.
Standing room is not as bad as I thought, had a good day until 5 minutes before the siren went.

[ausfatcat]

In regards to this I am 99% sure this is what occured before the finals.


11,500 tickets will goto members

I believe the club would've thought of those tickets between 10 to 15% would've been standing.

Recent history shows that only 80% of the Social club members register for a ticket.

Therefore the club thought all social club members will get a seat and the rest to sept saints.


The week of the prelim they found out 95% of Social club members registered and 15% of tickets were standing, therefore some social club members were to stand, this is what the club didn't think about and didn't expect to happen. As the process and priorities of tikets had already been decided by this point in time there was nothing the club could do to change this. Simply put too many Social club members registered for tickets (a record amount for any club ever I hear!!). This was almost unforseeable

What they could've done, is held off selling those ticket packages untill after the prelim like what the bulldogs did, and sold those at say $500 with a breaky to social club members who were allocated standing.

Most of this problem lays at the feet of the AFL more than anyone else as they have controll of the tickets allocated and how they are allocated with minimal input from the clubs themselves. I am not sure if the cub could have had a third priority group either ie foundation, social club, sept saints. I think they did stuff up to a degree but was largely out of their hands, which begs the question why was the foundation social club even created in the first place? They aren't and were never guareenteed a seat (only a ticket).


BTW apparantly and I cannot confirm this but some sept saints got seats.

[ausfatcat]

My first choice was any available tickets except standing. then I received a letter and and Email saying that I had a second chance which I took.
Standing room is not as bad as I thought, had a good day until 5 minutes before the siren went.

Actually I thought it was worse than I thought it would be. The atmosphere was like being at a supporters pub, not the G with 100,000 people there. Couldn't hear the siren or the cheer squads even, and when the people in seats in front of us stood up (after every goal or mark) couldn't see a thing.

[3rd generation saint]

I'll tell you what was really disgusting that in the row behind me was a Geelong supporter who got a seat because his friends used their Social Club status to get him a seat.
These people robbed a St.Kilda Social Club member of a seat, and those supporters should be ashamed of themselves.

[saintspremiers]

I'll tell you what was really disgusting that in the row behind me was a Geelong supporter who got a seat because his friends used their Social Club status to get him a seat.
These people robbed a St.Kilda Social Club member of a seat, and those supporters should be ashamed of themselves.

I disagree, due to the system the AFL has put in place it's dog-eat-dog re getting into the Granny......Demetriou is ultimately to blame for the lengths people will go to get in.

[Thomas]

My first choice was any available tickets except standing. then I received a letter and and Email saying that I had a second chance which I took.
Standing room is not as bad as I thought, had a good day until 5 minutes before the siren went.

Actually I thought it was worse than I thought it would be. The atmosphere was like being at a supporters pub, not the G with 100,000 people there. Couldn't hear the siren or the cheer squads even, and when the people in seats in front of us stood up (after every goal or mark) couldn't see a thing.

I was in M2 slightly to the right behind the cheer squad, got there early put my coat on the fence, introduced myself and had a chat with other Saints supporters, about 9 45 got a pass out went to the corner pub, had a few drinks with saintsational mates until about roughly midday , then headed back to the ground my spot on the fence was kept for me. I had no problems with people stading up in front even though I am vertically challanged.

[3rd generation saint]

He was the only Geelong supporter in M57 section, the only way he got that ticket was due to his friends, and they were his friends because they all came together and chatted before and through the game.
As I said for a Grand Final, you do not rob one of your own for a friend who supports the team you are playing against.