Letter in my local newspaper

[Linda]

Saw this letter in a local newspaper yesterday in reference to the Wales - Italy rugby match a few weeks ago in Cardiff:

MY brother bought me a ticket for the Italy game – at a cost of £50.

My happiness was very short lived.

I was in the Upper Stand, entry 612, row 12, seat 29. From this seat I saw very little of the game.

There was a metal tubular barrier obscuring my view and all game people were coming and going from me, constantly obstructing my view almost totally. I saw very little of what was going on on the pitch.

Everyone seemed very happy with the result as they were leaving – except for me.

I would have been much better off staying at home.

I therefore demand a refund of my ticket cost by return and the stadium remove this, and other similar seats without delay, to avoid others wasting their money.

So basically this guy wants a refund for a used ticket after staying for the whole game. A ticket he didn't even pay for himself. And was paid for at over face value to start with (I think upper stand tickets were £30 face value)

Plus, if you want a refund of the ticket by return. surely you are better to write to the organisers / ticket seller and not the local newspaper?

Those same tickets were being snapped up at £200 each a week before the match.

[marasbaras]

While he sounds like a total EW, I do think it's rather nasty of many stadiums to sell seats that have zero view due to structural requirements. Those beams are huge.

[rvdammit]

Restricted view tickets are usually sold as such. Mr Complainer makes no mention of if this is such a ticket or not.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Milwaukee County Stadium used to be like that, especially for football.

The last Packers game there, a radio station had a contest where the winner of one of these seats, the "worst seat in the house" would win a radio and binoculars and a few other goodies.

But anyhow, this guy's an asshat. What good is writing to the local paper going to do instead of contacting the team directly? And also, as mentioned above, obstructed-view tickets are usually sold as such.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Perhaps the organisers/ticket seller already told him no, and he is pressing the issue via the newspaper.

[Heksubah]

I can sorta relate to that letter. My mother promised me for years, over and over, that she would take me with her to see a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. Last year I told her that it was on my birthday, she'd run out of time, I wanted that as my present. As a result my big present was the concert.

The section we sat in was... well...

http://www.kcbrigade.com/images/Spri...hart_large.gif

We were in 103 in the middle towards the back. 104 starts about two feet above our level and juts up about 10 feet higher and hangs out. It blocks the view of where the stage is if you are along that side of the wall. Since this is mostly a basketball stadium it wouldn't matter then but it makes a very big difference for this sort of concert.

My mother and I witnessed a woman and a son, who was probably about 15 and very well behaved, come over and start to sit down. The woman left her son after a moment, left her things, and marched over to one of the center employees. I could hear her ranting and raving and all I thought at first was, SC! Then she dragged the woman over and I could hear her better. She was saying, "Just sit there. See, where our stuff is? My son there! Sit in the seat! I paid sixty bucks a piece for these tickets and we can't even see! This is ridiculous!"

Granted, she probably could have handled it a bit more calmly but it was about 10-15 minutes till the show started and she was in a bind. I saw them both get led off so I'm assuming the place fixed it.

Perhaps that letter writer, rather than waiting and writing a letter, could have told someone at the game then and there about the problem. I'm sure it could have been accommodated if they had the means.

(On another note, that darn Sprint Center is eeeeevil. They forced about 500+ people into a tiny entry, doors wide open letting in the air (cold air into a warmer place so it came in at a screaming pace and had us all numb in seconds), ignored the metal detectors because there were so many people shoved in there was no room to check, and made people stand so close that I am now intimately familiar with many complete strangers for over 45 minutes. I have a bad back and was nearly in tears. They didn't stop taking tickets, though, they just kept shoving us in and telling us to move without letting us out of the entry and into the venue to find our seats. WTF?! I intend to avoid that center now. That grated badly on me.)

[rerant]

I think this sums everything up pretty nicely.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

^^Oh look! A Cubs fan conversing with one of his intellectual superiors!

(ducks and runs)

[edible_hat]

The last Packers game there, a radio station had a contest where the winner of one of these seats, the "worst seat in the house" would win a radio and binoculars and a few other goodies.

I once went to a stand-up comedy show where something similar happened... the first 20 minutes were "let's meet the audience". There was a couple in the front row who'd just gotten engaged and it was his 21st birthday. So the comedian moved them to an unoccupied private box. Then he walked right up the back of the theatre (climbing over a few people along the way) to the worst seats in the house, and took those people back to the front row.

The funniest thing was that there was an interpreter for the deaf, who managed to sign the whole thing. (Also that night I learned that there is no sign for "porn", you have to fingerspell it)

[protege]

Three Rivers had plenty of areas like that. Those beams held up the upper decks. What really sucked though, is to sit in the covered sections, and not be able to even see the damn field because of the low 'ceiling.' To get around that, the team had installed TV sets. Er, no. Sorry, but if I want to see the game on TV, I'll stay home, thanks.

The new PNC Park is awesome to see a game. Not only are you much closer, but there aren't any posts in the way.