FlashSeats disabled biding so this would not happen. My seats in 411 cost me $66 a game for round 2. Due to the high tickets price I could sell my tickets for TC's price and still make a decent profit. I do not think this happened.
-- Disabling bidding made it worse. If a season ticket holder is outrageously selling a ticket for $400, he needs to see bids of $100 or $125 to realize and reinforce to him that his prices are too high. Last night, that person (selling for $400 or some other outrageous price) did not realize until well after the start of the game that his prices were too high because he did not see the constant low bids. Essentially, bidding helps resolve the sell and get the fan in the seat faster. Taking bidding away fails to provide the seller with the message he needs to lower the price. As a result, that ticket did not sell until later.
Before the game starts, if you're in the lower bowl and you're not there for the first 5 minutes, you should be forced to watch from the upper bowl. And they should start letting people from the upper bowl come down to the lower bowl after the first 5 minutes of the game. We were facing elimination in the playoffs, the fans should've been ready for this. smh.
-- Interesting idea. Here is another one, but a bit draconian: The Denver Broncos are starting to revoke the licenses of season ticket holders who do not attend any games. Specifically, during this off-season, the Broncos determined that some in their season ticket fan base did not attend even one game last year and instead sold all of their tickets on the secondary market. The Broncos did not permit those fans to purchase new season tickets. The Rockets have--right now--the ability to know if there are season ticket holders who did not attend a single game last year. I say identify them and do not sell them season tickets this year. I would limit this draconian measure to season ticket holders who attended two games or fewer in the '16-'17 campaign.
Is that what it says? I checked Flashseats at game time and minutes before it closed at 8pm. There were a lot of tickets available at 7pm and they released more new tickets a few minutes before at and they were still available at 7.59pm TC making up numbers? Or do you actually think it was sold out?
-- The game was sold out. Flashseats is a market place for people who have already purchased tickets from the Rockets (usually season ticket holders) to re-sell them. That's what you saw. People re-selling their tickets. But The Houston Rockets long before had sold each of those tickets.
This is an interesting theory. I tend to buy tickets an hour before the game, but I can see how many others wait until after tip-off. One solution can be to cut off ticket sales/bidding an hour before tip-off. I'm totally guessing here, but I would assume the Broncos have a long waiting list for season ticket holders? I don't think the Rockets are that high demand, so management would want to retain all and any STH no matter what. This is an idea I had recently. I'm not sure how feasible it is, though. So before each game, if you arrive at the Toyota Center early (i.e. an hour), you can "opt in" to fill in a lower bowl seat. The seat will be pre-selected for you. When the actual ticket is scanned at the door, you are alerted (i.e. an app, text msg) to immediately leave and return to your original seat. Some notes: It would make sense to allow only STH from the upper level to opt in. This should be a privilege. If you manage to misbehave or fail to leave in a timely manner, you can have this privilege revoked. This could be easily done with a mobile app. You simply "check-in" at Toyota Center and the seat location(s) will be given to you. You will then be notified when you need to return to your seats. There are some technical details to work out, obviously. Like one concern is the reliability of the phone/app. Apps can crash; phones can lose signal and battery life. You don't want to make it awkward for the people involved. One solution may be to hand out reusable electronic wrist bands that light up/vibrate when you need to leave your seat. It would also make it easy for ushers to identify those who are just filling in.
Nope. Every game. Minutes before the close on the secondary reseller market, tickets are released at well below the value of the tickets. So a bit before half time. Resellers can only list tickets at 80% of the purchase price. I assume only the Rockets can sell tickets well below the 80% marker. I know several lots of tickets that popped up minutes before close, hugely discounted (ie $20 each) in batches of 4 or 6. For all playoff games. I can send you receipts if you want.
It wasn't just lower bowl. The every-man of this board likes to get self righteous, but the upper bowl was just as bad.
I get it was "sold out" on the basis the Rockets would have "sold" the tickets. I wonder what the attendance was.
- Interesting. But keep two things in mind before you conclude the attendance is incorrect: First, these last minute releases could well be tickets that were never FOR SALE and thus not counted toward official attendance numbers. For example, the Rockets or NBA may reserve a small amount of tickets for players' wives or NBA personnel. I would think the teams do not put these tickets up for sale in advance of a game. But, when it becomes clear these "comp" tickets are no longer needed, the team probably releases them to the public. After all, the team wants to have a full house, so for aesthetic value alone, selling these at a discount is worth it if it means the place is packed. Whether these tickets are sold or not is not relevant to the attendance analysis, so merely seeing tickets get released at the last minute, without more, does not tell you much. Second, not all Rockets STH are on FS. Some fans still have paper tickets--these are generally large corporations who have told the Rockets that FS does not work for them. For example, I know some law firms downtown that have paper season tickets because the firms have told the Rockets that FS is not convenient for them, considering that these firms are giving tickets away often to people who are not internet savvy and would not want to deal with FS. (The big time oil man who wants to go to a game tonight and will be accepting tickets from his company's law firm has no idea about how to get tickets transferred to him; and he does not want to know. He will take them by hand on the way to the game, thank you very much). Conceivably, paper season ticket holders might have uploaded their tickets at the last minute and tried to re-sale them. This is unlikely the issue here, though. My guess is that is was a sell-out and that these last minute releases are required "comp" seats that are always released last minute, per usual. Broadway does the same thing when seats that are set aside for actors' families are unclaimed before curtain rise. These are generally made available to the public.
The Rockets saw the poor turnout, saw the fans didn't care to show up, and then they put up a disastrous performance. It's all related.
-- Me too. I am with you; I watch it all very closely. But some of these big ballers (not that you aren't one just put the tickets up for sale "for sport", and then do other things while they wait for a sale. They rely on the buzz they get on their phone or computer telling them that a new bid has been placed or removed or that a previous bidder has purchased other tickets, etc. Without that buzzing, they kinda' forget about the tickets and don't realize until they are leaving the bar (where they were having cocktails with clients), or the links (where they were doing the same), or the office, or the party, at close to 8:00p, that they have not sold the tickets yet. By that point they are scrambling to sell before the market closes. For them, the bidding activity reminds them they have tickets for sale and actually gets them to sale faster. These are the people of the "lower bowl sideline view." Bless them. By the way, I had season tickets for two years prior to this last year (16-17) and never recall the "bid" button being disabled. What was the reason behind this? is this a new thing?
-- You are exactly right with your Broncos thoughts. They have a waiting list reportedly of over 75,000 people trying to get tickets. It was pretty easy for them to revoke licenses and move on to the next name on the list. We don't have that in Houston. As for your thoughts on opt in lower bowl seating, I think you may be on to something. You admit that it needs more development, but its a good start. Interestingly, I considered starting a company a while back that would assist season ticket holding corporations in selling their tickets on nights they can't go or get clients there. I realized that most corporate season ticket holders don't even know they can re-sale their tickets. Those that do know, don't actually sell them very consistently. My business plan would help them make a little change (and monetize an asset), help the Rockets get people in the seats, and help me make $$ Quick details: By 4p on a game night, the company would let me know if they would be attending the game or sending someone to attend, such as a client. Usually, there is a person at the company or the firm in charge of dispersing their tickets. I would communicate with that person. If Company A told me they were not sending anyone to the game, I would go on to FS, using the credentials they supplied to me, and sell them. Company A would get the revenue from the sale, minus my $50 transaction fee. Everyone would be happy: The Company would get some revenue they did not even knew existed, albeit fairly chump change. The fan would get a ticket. The Rockets would get butts in the seat. And I would make about $80,000 a year doing this by my calculation. Any thoughts on this?
Football is King in Texas even though San Antonio fans are on the short list of best fanbases in the association
