Outback attendees- experiences? Mine sucked
I just want to know anyone else who tried to scalp tix. I had heard all the stories of how many tix would be floating around, and the cut rate prices you could get on them. So i decided against purchasing thru the University or 3rd-party sites and gambled on getting some good ones at the game.....Bad Idea.
Scalpers were brutal, still trying to get more than face value AFTER the game had started. I actually saw scalpers leave with tickets in hand, saying "These people aint biting". Kept saying the game was a sell out and they couldn't sell for less.
By the end of the first quarter, I ended up just buying tix at front gate for $75, which put me in upper level on Michigan side. I ended up finding some seats that weren't taken in 204, which gave me a better view, but i definitely won't be trying this again.
Anyone else have luck with this? Good or bad
EDIT: There was a lot more to my experience sucking, but i was interested in hearing about others that tried to buy tix. I made reservations at Charley's steakhouse NYE, got there at 9:52 and they wouldn't seat me because they closed at 10. Some old couple came in right after me and got seated. Wife threw a huge fuss, thinks we were profiled. Too much to go in to.
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:46 PM ^
From the story that he told (and perhaps I missed something in the thread), there was no indication that race played a role in in the restaurant's decision to not seat them. It was assumed that because the white people got what they wanted (they got to sit and eat) and the non-white people didn't (the restaurant turned them away), then racial profiling was probably the reason for this. Without understanding the full context of the situation, these untelligent assumptions do nothing but harm to the already shaky relationships between people of all races.
What's more, I think it can be construed that he racially profiled the white people.
January 3rd, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^
Anyone know? Was there a major tail-off the last day or so? Fall back to face value or stay relatively overpriced per usual?
January 3rd, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^
Stayed really high.
January 3rd, 2013 at 5:03 PM ^
just like me.
January 3rd, 2013 at 9:02 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 4:47 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 4:52 PM ^
Scalping tickets for the bowl games is an art not science. I've done this many times in the past including the Capital One Bowl vs FL a few years back.
I set up my cooler and chairs with my son and walked around asking fellow tailgaters if they had extras. No luck. Scalpers were selling tickets at 2x face value so plan B was to hit a local bar for the game. About a half hour before kickoff, some Gator fans we had been BSing with for an hour or two produced two extra tickets at face. Told us they wanted to make sure we were 'good guys' before they sold them to MI fans. Guess we fooled them.
Best bet is to work the crowd for tickets or just hang around one of the guys with a 'need tickets' sign. If someone stops, offer more than the scalper is willing to pay. Just keep in mind that you are spending all of your pregame time looking for tickets instead of having fun. This year I decided my time was the more valuable commodity. Not to mention I had 14 people to seat...
January 3rd, 2013 at 4:58 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 5:09 PM ^
The festivities surrounding the game were great. Walking up to the stadium, i felt like it was 85% UM fans. Flyover, Rangers, and Darius Rucker was cool. I could see the field great from my upper deck seats.
Only two negatives (outside of losing) were not knowing who was who due to the terrible jerseys and the two ridiculously obnoxious Michigan fans I was around. One was that guy cheering when an SC player was hurt and screaming for Clowney's to blow out his knees like Lattimore. The other was sarcastically telling everyone to be quiet, sit down in front... Etc.
Overall, very fun trip.
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:26 PM ^
Did that douche have a beard, and was he wearing these?
Because I had a guy do what you described, "Hey everybody! We're at a Michigan football game! Be really quiet and don't cheer!"
January 3rd, 2013 at 8:24 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 10:17 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 10:42 PM ^
I was sitting the section over, and about 10 rows lower. I thought about saying something, but didn't feel like yelling over at them.
I hate those people. Yes, the Big House can be quiet sometimes, and yes, sometimes there are people who are annoying about the "down in front" thing. But you don't have to be a douche about things
January 3rd, 2013 at 7:59 PM ^
I think our seats were close by. I remember a couple of guys wearing Michigan overalls telling people to be quiet. My son was wearing the Michigan hockey mask. I was surprised how many fans there were from other states that had never been to Michigan.
For us the only bad thing about the game was that we lost. It sucked walking out listening to all those SC fans. I agree with others about the jersey numbers not being visible from the stands. We also couldn't hear the Michigan band at all. Most of the souvenir stands were sold out by halftime.
My family still loved the experience. Can't wait to do it again.
January 3rd, 2013 at 10:17 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 5:38 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:07 PM ^
"But a lot of places close earlier than you'd like because Tampa just simply isn't a young person's town."
So then, it wasn't race discrimination, it was age discrimination. Nice!
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:34 PM ^
Bern's was a great experience, and I will definitely go back - but Boca was outstanding in its own way. I would highly recommend Boca if you haven't been there, in Soho.
January 3rd, 2013 at 9:06 PM ^
Correct, but downtown St. Pete most definitely IS a young person's town. People constantly make that oversight, especially tourists (which is fine by me as a local ).
January 4th, 2013 at 10:13 AM ^
January 6th, 2013 at 6:44 AM ^
Yeah, I hear you. I tried to do the same in those same threads. As a local, I actually don't really care if visitors figure that out, though, to be honest. If it wasn't Michigan fans, I never would have mentioned it. In other words, there is no chance that I'd be telling the same thing to which ever non-Michigan team comes for the Outback Bowl next year.
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:33 PM ^
We were spending NYE in St Pete with friends, and it looked like the Outback looked like a fairly likely proposition for M, so as a hedge I bought a membership in the Bowl itself. I got the lowest level, for about the price of a ticket. It gave me the right to buy four tickets and a parking pass. As soon as it was announced that M was going I called the members ticket line and got right through- got four tickets and a parking pass. It was my first bowl, so forgive me if this is all obvious to bowl vets.
The parking for members was directly across the sidewalk from the gate, and our tickets were on the 10 in the second section of the lower bowl, on the Big Ten side. Not bad, but far from perfect. Couldn't hear the band, and I was as disappointed as everyone else in the video boards and the result. Sitting away from the people who bought their tickets from the University meant there were a lot of very casual fans. Lots of being loud while we were on offense, not enough being loud on D. There was a drunk guy behind me who kept saying "Let's go boobs!" - but that's life. The Sakerlina fans I interacted with were all cool.
The best part was that the lot for members was so convenient that we were out of the lot and on the highway in ten minutes.
The takeaway for me was that since Michigan doesn't have a huge problem selling bowl tickets, that Michigan fans should consider paying a small premium for slightly better seats and a much more convenient logistical experience. Not a must, but something to consider.
January 3rd, 2013 at 7:35 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 8:13 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:17 PM ^
I ended up buying my tickets on Stub Hub. We were in section 114. Really happy with the seats, although there were three jerks sitting next to me, trying to stir up trouble. They were Gamecock fans, the kind who yell after a penalty, "Stay Classy, Michigan!" Even after a holding call. I heard one of them say, "I love stirring things up with people I don't know just to piss them off." That was it for me. So when they turned the ball over, I jumped up and started clapping in their faces (embarrassing my children in the process), and the guy next to me totally backed down, and said, "I didn't even go to South Carolina. I went to Syracuse.I don't even care who wins." He continued to tell me that his fiance was from Ohio and he was required to hate everything Michigan. After half time, I made my husband sit next to him.
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:40 PM ^
It's the only one I got.
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:48 PM ^
January 4th, 2013 at 4:38 AM ^
Just in case..
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:42 PM ^
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:54 PM ^
January 4th, 2013 at 12:29 AM ^
I was going to use the "street economy," but after not seeing what I usually see on CL in the week leading up to the game, I decided to buy a ticket through TM. If you were a SC fan, it was no problem finding a decent seat at the box office, becuase they only filled about 1/3 of their upper deck.
By gametime, there were still plenty of seats avaliable, even on the Michigan side. The problem was that the remaining lower seats were "club"seats that would have cost $165 from the box office.
As for the scalpers, it seems like they have gotten together and decided that they won't give anyone a break, at least for this game. On the way in, I noticed the lack of a "marketplace" this time around. There just didn't seem to be a lot of movement. I am surprised they decided to "eat" tickets instead of letting them go at a decent price. I hope this doesn't indicate a change in the market.
This has me wondering if I'm actually going to have to pay full price to get into the Under Armour game tomorrow.
January 5th, 2013 at 1:47 PM ^
What you and ATL relate screams "local chamber of commerce/bowl committee provide scads of free tickets to local sponsors/businesses/NFL season ticket holders at low/no cost."
My impression of scalpers is they won't eat the buy-in cost of the tickets they have in hand, if someone is offering a reasonable amount of green for them. Reading the varied commentary, including Mr. Beeks, I gather quite a few people were happy to not sell...my experience upon viewing StubHub a couple hours prior to kick-off (from Clarkston, for giggles) showed stacks of tickets (some sellers had 14 or 20 seats available) meaning either a broker bought them, or they were freebies that current ticket holders were trying to off-load at a tidy profit to themselves. These were all priced over $100/ticket...obviously the prices dropped in the last couple hours run-up to kick-off.
Maybe the bowl dynamic is different than the home ticket market dynamic...my sense is this is a fairly true statement, regardless of venue (except maybe OSU, as they have FAR more demand than seats available).
My $0.02.
January 6th, 2013 at 6:49 AM ^
I agree. I said the same thing to my wife the last time that I looked at prices prior to kick off. Specifically about one of those 14 seat blocks. It was obvious that large numbers of tickets ended up on StubHub that didn't cost the seller a thing. I've actually not seen that happen on StubHub like that before (i.e. where the prices remain that high - lowest price I saw in the hour before kick off was in the $40 range), but I hadn't ever looked at a bowl game, either.
January 7th, 2013 at 1:34 AM ^
Got tickets in the student section, so I didn't experience any of the ticket problems that you guys are talking about.
We stayed in Ybor City. Despite every Tampa local telling us to avoid it and saying that it was sketchy, we liked staying there and never had a single problem.
Ybor was kind of strange--on the weekends the bars and clubs were packed to the gills like it was Bourbon Street, but during the weekdays there would only be 4 or so people in each bar, even on the night after the game. The trolley system was very convenient so we spent some time in Channelside and Downtown as well, but it was kind of unfortunate that there wasn't a central nightlife area to find bowl fans. I suppose the metro area is so big that lots of people stay outside of the immediate city.
One beef I had with Tampa is that we spent midnight on NYE downtown watching the fireworks, and then afterward it was literally impossible to get back to Ybor for bars/clubs because the trolley stopped running shortly after midnight and every cab in the city was booked. As a result we didn't really get to party because it took us 2 hours to find a cab and there were barely any bars open downtown.
I disagree with people saying that the stadium situation sucked. From Ybor it was only a 15 minute or so drive without bad traffic, and we found a parking lot to tailgate in for $10 or so just a ten-minute walk from the stadium.Leaving the stadium we were able to take a sidestreet so we didn't run into any traffic there either. Atmosphere at the game was kind of lame--especially in the student section--but I wasn't really expecting something crazy for a mid-tier bowl.