David Stern is a good source to quote here ... one of his favorite sayings is that there is no seat in sports as good as a courtside seat at a basketball game. Nobody even argues with that. For the record, our most expensive seats (there's only a dozen or so of them) are the courtside seats between the broadcasters and the player benches. $1500 per game, available on a season basis only. Our fans have nicknamed them "The Jack Nicholson Seats." And yes, if you're going to entertain, you want to do it impressively. That's why the big corporate customers go for the big seats. Our customers in the $175 and $135 club seats know the price is steep, but they're the first ones to tell us it's worth it if the bonding experience with potential customers creates a couple of new sales a year. As for the upper bowl -- if there's issues or suggestions for what we can do to make that a better experience, I'm all ears. I'm guessing most of the issues will be ones I've heard and that we're addressing. I've spent most of my games recently in the highest reaches of the upper bowl, watching and talking to people. But I always want to hear what's on people's minds on issues like that. Tim
Actually, for the upper bowl, in which I have spent the entire season, i have no complaints at all. The worst seats in the house is still a great view of the court, the timeout entertainment where they have tshirt toss, they actually have people in the upper row go down the sections and toss shirts out, there are pregame entertainment before the game on the upper course, as far as I am concern, the expierence in the upper concourse is just as great as the bottom, keep up the good work.
Forgot to mention one thing, is there any plans in which maybe, if i am dreaming, that yall sell those seats in the middle club seats at lets say a discount rate the day of the game? Those are probably some of the best spots in the arena, yet, half the time, i see the majority of them not being used. Those are some great seats going to waste. Even just selling the seats and have no accomodations in the suites themselves is just fine with me.
Tim, I think it is pretty clear that a large % of the Upper Bowl market segment feel that the the tickets are not worth the price (whether its due to other entertainment alternatives, poor play, bad seating, etc.). Thus, there is a great deal of room for improving attendance. I recall reading that Mark Cuban allows fans to buy tickets for games on game day (assuming their are seats available) at a major discount or purchasing seats that are not together. Seems sensible since those tickets would have gone to waste anyways and building a loyal fan base is important. Has the Rockets ever considered this?
Why don't you give some tickets away to local downtown restaraunts / bars just before the game to get people that already live and work downtown to make the short trip over. The Astros must do it....
Better yet send some Rox clad hotties around giving them away or selling them for like $5 each before the games during happy hours....
The best seat in the house for me is in my apartment watching it on NBA League Pass. Until they drop the prices on those tickets, I'm gonna watch it from home or watch them when they come down to the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Until we win another championship, no one is going to come watch the Rockets....
Tim, Why not after the 1st quarter, if there are seats available toward the middle that are open, why don't you get the rowdy guys from up top to come down and occupy the middle seats? Then the losers who didn't show up can occupy the nosebleeds? That might be a good idea to show at least the arena sort of looks full.
I think I know the logistical problems that could occur if you did that... BUT - what if there were a contest? Just announce at the beginning of the game that each section is miked at the front - whichever section is loudest gets to move into any empty seat at the start of the 4th quarter, as long as you show your ticket. This way, crowds have to actually act loud in the 1-3 quarters, which is usually dead time... and the 4th quarter is a reward, and everyone else is going to be louder than before anyway (I hope). I'd yell from the opening tipoff if I knew there were lower bowl tix up for grabs.. actually, I do that anyway.
If I was single, I would pay, but for a family of 5, it gets real expensive... The Rox have the Rockets Family Pack night which is an awesome deal, starting at $69 for 4 tickets, 4 hotdogs & drinks & 2 kids t-shirts...We have to buy a 5th ticket, but its worth it... Family Pack
I don't think your average fan *can* argue, because it's an impossible experience to have. As your average fan, and I doubt that would even pop into his head. Man, that would be awesome, though... Oh, to be rich. Uh, anybody want to fund my new joint, "Do the Bright Thing"? It's gonna be big, I tell ya, huge!
But what if the "loser" paid for his seats and wants to move into them when he gets there, isn't he still entitled to them since he paid for them? Not that I agree with the notion of not letting us poor hard core fans get a shot at the good seats but what you're saying is the same as why not let the homeless man use a rich person's summer home and the rich person can live in a shelter when he vacations in that city. I like Rocket104 of letting fans of the loudest sections pick to go to empty seats going into the fourth quarter but with the added stipulation that they would have to move if the owners of those seats do happen to show up. Though I think some b*stard might start taking bathroom breaks before the start of the fourth just so they can kick people out of those seats.
Tim said in an earlier thread that they can work with you to accomidate however many people in your family. 4 must be just the average family that buys it so they market it like that.
You're making the assumption that the market for tickets is completely elastic, and that lowering the ticket price by 13% or so will sell the remaining 15% of seats we have in the upper bowl on an average night. We've looked at teams across the sports industry who have followed this path, and what we've learned is that it's a relatively inelastic market. Dropping prices 15% never results in a 15% increase in sales. Maybe 1% or 2%. What has shown results are special discount deals like the $69 Family 4-Packs. So we're doing those. (And, since it was mentioned upstream, if you actually want to buy 5 tickets, we can give you the same pricing per ticket deal -- to keep the message simple, we advertise it as a 4-pack, but you can get it in any quantity you want. They can help you out at 713-627-DUNK.) That said, we've also looked carefully at what they've done in Dallas. It's a great concept, and an excellent one to bring up. One thing has to happen before you can make it work, though -- you have to sell out games consistently. The Dallas program was created because they did get to a point where they were, by the definitions used in pro sports, selling out the building consistently -- meaning there were no two seats left together in the building. They did, however, end up with a lot of single seats, probably about 200-300 if they're single seat rate is typical. These are very hard to sell. They're program is great for squeezing every last seat out of a sold out building. We'll consider using it when we get to that point. As for letting people move down, the problems with doing that end up being huge. All it takes is for someone to move down into a seat that they thought was open, and have that person return from getting a beer, and it's mayhem. There's no easy way to distinguish between an unused seat and one that's just temporarily unoccupied. In addition, it tends to upset the people who paid for tickets in that section when somebody who paid less gets to sit next to them. Don't just take my word for it -- several others on the board have raised these points already. Tim
The next family pack night is coming up early February if I remember against Chicago. The Bulls suck to high hell but there are children probably who have not yet learned to hate and vigorously boo Scottie Pippen. I'm down with the Clutch the Bear chooses random people to go down or the section volume thing. It'd be kind of like airlines moving people up to first class which works because the people who actually pay for those more expensive tickets are none the wiser. Remember watching playoff games on NBC late 90's where they'd measure the crowd in decibals and it'd top out at about 105 which is pretty impressive. Imagine if they're doing that by the time we get deep in the playoffs. If Salt Lake of all places can get fan support like that, then I KNOW after some awesome seasons we will too. I assume they have great support because of 15 years of Stockton and Malone winning 50.
I'm not sure what Sacramento does, but they somehow manage to get real fans into the lower bowl seats - not the ****head yuppies who sit around looking bored even at moments of high-drama, if they even bother showing up at all. If some corporate c**ts don't show up for their billion dollar seats after the first quarter, isn't there some sort of ticket/pass checking thing at the gate that would indicate that the seat is, in fact, empty and not that it was someone just getting up to take a leak or grab a beer? Because, even though I couldn't afford the great seats even if there were any available, I get sick of watching the Rockets start kicking ass while the majority of the lower bowl is filled with yawning yuppie mannequins who are just there trying to impress a potential sucker by getting him/her a good seat. It's mentioned by almost every commentator that the fans have some influence on how well their team plays - isn't being surrounded by unimpressed and nearly comatose corporate schmucks a possible buzzkill for the Rockets themselves, and not just the other fans? Maybe if there were some real fans in the seats to get the Rocket players hyped up the Rockets would win a few more games and more people would want to come see the games then - voila, more ticket sales. **** it, maybe I'm just bitter that I wasn't born rich like the jackasses with the cushy chairs.
