Student Section going GA
http://www.mgoblue.com/tickets/students-fbl.html
I am sure this makes many of you happy but as a kid whose tickets were going to have excellent senior standing next year and who always makes it before kickoff, I am really angry.
GA is just chaos
(Edit: As a poster pointed out below, tickets are also way more expensive)
(Second Edit: To those thinking you will get good seats just for showing up before kick, you are wrong. Now that there is a reason to go early, we will have our own mini-Paternoville. For good games, you will have to be there 2 hours early. I love Michigan football, but as a grad student who also remembers pregames as the best part of being an undergrad, I really think this could kill some of the Saturday fun.)
At Wisconsin (Sister and friend's went there) you present your GA ticket at the turnstile, then go to whichever section you'd like to sit in. For Michigan Stadium this would mean students have the option of going to sections 26-34(ish?). Then when you enter that section an usher gives out a ticket for your specific seat, progressing from bottom to top. This way there is still some order in the event of contested seats and students still can have some say in the angle they watch.
Personally, I'm glad this happened. For all you expecting awesome seats as seniors, there is no guarantee with the old system, especially if you created a group. Had a group of about 8 friends, all seniors, still got tickets in row 28. You were completely at the mercy of some ticket algorithm. This way you at least have some say in your seating location.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:12 PM ^
I would have been completely estatic with row 28. Last year as a junior I had tickets in row 53 of section 33...
I feel your pain. My Junior year tickets were in that general range too. Basically kept the same seating group for my soph-senior years. We always had a solid 6-8 there when the band came out with 1-2 showing up before kickoff after showing friends/family around, etc. All with pretty standard numbers of credits yet we couldn't crack the first few rows for whatever reason. Hopefully with this new system you can get yourself some better seats.
How do you decide a row is full when no one has a assignment? It's not like people are going to count off every time a new person tries to crowd in. When do you say "go up a row, this one is full?"
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:03 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:03 PM ^
Don't ever underestimate the organizational power of greek life. You know what's going to happen? The pledges are going be ordered to wait in line six days in advance for the Ohio game. This will of course mean they will miss all their classes but that won't matter because they either won't care or will by majoring in psychology.
The AD will set a policy that the gates don't open until an hour and a half before the game for some arbitrary reason. Come game day there will be 10,000 people in line by 9:00 am. But there is zero chance whatsoever that stadium security will be able to monitor line cutters. From 9:00am until the gates open, the upperclassmen frat brothers along with their pregame sorority partners will gradually slip in line up where there pledges are, and who's going to stop them? That's right, no one.
And to top it off, instead of frat house front lawns being trashed, Hoover street will be.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:24 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:21 PM ^
it WILL happen eventually. Like I've mentioned before, what if we're 11-0 going into the Ohio game? I'd put the over under at how early people start camping out at 2 weeks.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:37 PM ^
but it doesn't change the fact that there will 100% without a doubt be 10,000 students standing outside Michigan Stadium at 10:00am on November 30, 2013.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:30 PM ^
So, those pledges who will wait 6 days will damage themselves academically for a frat? If they are that dumb, they deserve to fail out.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:13 PM ^
Shit dude, calm down a little. At the end of the day, it's just seating for a football game, what's gonna matter is that you were actually there, not that some people waited longer than you for seats.
For UTL, I paid 300 bucks and sat in the SE corner, I had 5 inches of butt space and knees in my back the whole game. For OSU my friends and I were literally in all 4 corners of the stadium. For this past year I got Student Seats, showed up an hour before every game, I was seated right above the section entrances, and watched people roll in as the team was running onto the field or even later
In 20 years am I going to mention any of that? No. What I'm going to talk about is watching the games.
There's no such thing as a bad seat in the Big House.
You want a seating horror story? In 2010 I drove down to the Horseshoe, had upper level seats, got to my seat, and I was literally behind a fucking pillar. The pillar wasn't near me, it was literally right in front of my seat. Be thankful we don't have to put up with anything like that
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:22 PM ^
to the people who've been bitching and moaning for the past two years about students not showing up on time to games?
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:40 PM ^
You could probably could.
But I'm addressing that in most of your posts, you're worried about people camping out and stealing all the "good seats". I'm saying that there's no bad seats in the Big House, and that being there is a whole lot more memorable than whatever row you end up in
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:28 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:42 PM ^
Dunno if you meant to reply to me or not, but I agree with you. I think just being there (no matter where your seats are) is just great
Not every reply is a post of disagreement. This was more a "And furthermore...!"
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:04 AM ^
You're absolutely right about no really bad seats. Talk to someone in the ticket office, and they will tell you that among season ticket holders seeking to improve their seat location, the most requested area outside of the 50 yard line is... the top row! The vast majority of requests are to move to higher rows; not lower rows. It's amazing to me to read so many posts in this thread by current students who act as if sitting above row 30 is akin to being exiled to Siberia.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:07 PM ^
here's the new "official" petition because the other one could easily have problems with people signing multiple times
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:13 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:16 PM ^
I strongly disagree with this move. I think people are STRONGLY underestimating what many of the current students have been posting in reference to basketball season. The OSU game was complete chaos before tipoff. People literally almost got trampled and I am not joking in the slightest. This was with only a few thousands students. There are going to be thousands of students rushing all at once to get in right before kickoff. Anybody who's been in a line like this knows full well that there is going to be a push right before people are about to get in. There is also going to be a ton of confusion and anger with the lines and people cutting. Add in a ton of alcohol (which students will get) and this crowd is not going to be calm.
On top of this, I think a lot of people are being safe with their 2 AM assumptions. I've talked to several people at schools with general admission already and they've told me they wait overnight for games not even close to the size Michigan will have in the future. The lines are going to end up going for well over 24 hours in the future. Maybe not next year, but within a few seasons it's going to happen.
I don't care whether you think people are bad fans or not, students are at school for school first and other things second. I don't understand why we need a policy that's going to create chaos before kickoff and waste a ton of time for the students just to look better on TV. We can't create anything more intelligent than general admission? Come on. Why can't they institute a "hail" like system with an MCard swipe when you walk in? What's so tough about this? This is a poorly thought out plan that's going to hurt students.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:19 PM ^
the OSU game was a mess. i was there 5 and a half hours before tip-off and didn't get bleacher seats because of everyone pushing past me during the rush.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:42 PM ^
They're going to need to significantly up security outside the gates to prevent potential crush situations when they start taking tickets and at the tunnel entrances, which will be the other dangerous location.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:40 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:41 PM ^
When did sitting in the first 10 rows get to be a thing? It's one of the worst ways to watch a game in Michigan Stadium. Especially in Sections 29-33; the better view is from about row 40 to about row 70.
Who seriously thinks that there is a better view of the game from the first ten rows?
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:47 PM ^
well no obviously. but then you get to hang with Devin Gardner after he does his Big House Leap at the end of the game.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:54 PM ^
Which is nice.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:49 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:52 PM ^
+1. Insightful.
Nope. Section 23. Block M shall not be upside down.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:49 PM ^
I hate these threads. It just turns into alumni bitching about "back in my day we didn't have this problem" and then blaming the students.
Guess what, if a student is reading this blog then they probably aren't part of the problem. I haven't missed kickoff in 3 years so it gets old seeing everyone say how today's students don't care and whatnot.
I'm not too upset about having to get there a little earlier. Now I just can't sleep in as long, which is how I spend my Saturday mornings. I'm just upset that I waited my time to get good seats and now I'm getting the shaft.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:57 PM ^
line is bull shit, too. Because back in their day, it was much easier to sneak booze into the stadium plus you could leave at half, go to the liqour store across the street (it's now a wireless toyz) then re-enter the stadium. They got to the game on time, because they didn't have to do all the drinking before hand.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:17 PM ^
You're talking about like the 1970s. None of the things you describe were true a decade ago. 9/11 happened when I was a student, so no, you couldn't easily smuggle things in after that. You know what? People still made it to the games on time.
This whole business of huge numbers of students not showing up before kickoff is a very recent phenomenon. Stop making excuses for it. Get to the damn games on time. It's not that hard.
We've now had multiple football players record PSAs urging students to come to the games on time. Do it for them at least.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:17 PM ^
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:23 PM ^
I am talking about 2008-2011...
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:25 PM ^
It's still not too terribly hard to sneak a bit of refreshment into the game.
But yeah, the days of bringing a quarter-barrel into the game, and watching Michigan down Navy 70 to 14 were good times.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^
is that the students were fine with the old policy. The people who cared the most about studnet behavior seemed to be those who had limited access to tickets and didn't like to see the students come late because they wish they were at the game. This is an understandable viewpoint but also a negligable one because hey, you don't go here, you didn't go here, etc. The great majority of students got the fun of partying from the break of dawn until game time and still made it for toe to meet leather. Now, they don't, and that sucks.
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^
Those of us in the Drumline showed up 11 minutes before kickoff, and we got seats on the FIELD, fergodsakes!
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:06 PM ^
I for one find this news AMAZING! I am a grad student at UM-Flint and did my undergrad at UM-Ann Arbor. I did my time huddled with drunk students who are turn around and talk to each other more than watch the game. I made my way down to row 18 my senior year only to get put back up at row 80 my first year of grad school amongst more obnoxious people. They try to keep us Flint folk as far away from the camera as possible. I show up AT LEAST 30 minutes early, so now we all can finally be rewarded.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:10 PM ^
can't believe this thread is never ending. This isn't that huge of a deal. I have a real hard time believing that without the guaruntee of good seats that students are going to get there even EARLIER.
the jackass drunken frat girls and sororiety whores who couldn't be bothered to get there 5mins before the band begins won't suddenly be willing to get here hours before.
it sucks that upperclassmen lose out and can't get grandfathered in, but students now have a choice to make, rather than being entitled to have the cake and drink it too. that's all this is
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:27 PM ^
I think this move is absolutely fantastic. I also think the reason the current students are so upset by it (at least in this thread) is because the students are being held ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. You no show up for games.....you no get assaigned seats. And like it's been said by a lot of people before me this is a relatively new occurance (students not showing up) and I'm so glad the Athletic Department did something about it.
When I was in school (and a frat btw) from 1978-81 we somehow managed to balance the rigors of academic life, partying AND we made it to the games. On time.
Imagine that.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:33 PM ^
for all three years I've had student tickets. What am I being held accountable for exactly?
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:48 PM ^
Individually nothing. Obviously you weren't part of the problem but speaking as someone who has attended almost all home games from 1978 on I can tell you that the empty seats in the student section is a VERY new occurance. And it's not like the academic standards at Michigan has changed a lot in the past 35 years so if students could somehow manage to attend classes AND hook up with girls AND party AND attend the games why couldnt this group? So the accountability was spread over an entire student body and you were collateral damage to the sollution.
If your fellow students had followed your lead and headed the warnings from the athletic department over the past year or so you'd be enjoying seats on the 40 yard line like I did. And I'm sorry you arent given your attendance and support.
But if you're upset over the change look in the classroom and the other students if you want to see the problem. Be mad at them.
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:03 AM ^
Now I am doubly mad at them. And come football season, when those same people who didn't show up to games on time are cutting in front of me as I stand outside for six hours in the freezing cold, just standing there and waiting, unable to tailgate or socialize with my non-student friends and relatives, I will be triply and quadruply mad at them. That doesn't mean I still can't be mad at Dave Brandon for instituting this asinine policy.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:48 PM ^
Well you probably wouldn't think it was absolutely fantastic if you had spent 7 years at Michigan and now have to wait 3 hours in line to get comparable seats.
Huh? I'm not spazzing at all. I'm a little pissed because after 7 years of slowly moving up, it all counts for nothing. But it's not that big of a deal, and I'm not that upset by it.
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:54 PM ^
No, students are mad becuase us rising seniors have had shit seats for 3 seasons, spent hundreds of dollars on tickets, thousands of dollars on tuition, and waited patiently for our turn to have good seats. And now its all for naught as any freshman now has equal opportunity to have the seats that we have waited for.
That's why we're mad.
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:01 AM ^
I get why you're mad. I don't think you guys understand why we alumns are NOT mad.
This is why....