On Saving Seats
 

I've noticed in the past couple of years the number of seats being saved has been increasing. By saving, I mean an entire team leaves stuff in a section of the arena to "claim" it.

I do not know how many of you read the FIRST emails, but in the most recent one it states: "Do not save seats. It is not fair to other teams or public guests."

I do not want this thread to turn into a debate over the morals of seat saving, but I would just ask everyone please to follow what was stated above.

Thanks,
E Dawg

Re: On Saving Seats
 

10000000000% agree with you some teams even make things for there seats to save them, I find it very aggravating

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I feel like it's relative.

If one team member steps away to do something, and someone saves his seat, I would let that go. But, if half of a team steps away to work or eat or anything else and leave a few people to claim tons of seats, that's not okay.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

yeah that im fine with I mean if 90% of your team is there and you get up leaving one seat in the middle odds are no ones going to take it the problem is when one teams gets up to eat or work and anther team comes back and seats down there, then its aggravating explaining that saving seats is un gracious an so on.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Agree. At bigger venues, like the Los Angeles regional we have sports arena seating, and saved seats is still an annoying issue.

Buuuuut... relatively few teams actually follow CD forums. So don't be surprised if this problem continues forever.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Theres only 2 exceptions to the seat saving thing I feel.

#1: You want to save 3-4 seats for your drive team for awards. They don't need to be saved the entire competition, just after their last match is played. I can tell you theres nothing more annoying then going through a stressful Eliminations only to find theres no seats for you during awards, at least in my experience.

#2: Lunch Time. I completely understand teams that save their seats during lunch time. I wouldn't want to come back from lunch to find the entire stands filled and no where for the scouters to sit.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Don't get me started. I have been known to remove "saved" signs, and sit in the middle of "saved" seats. I double-dog-dare you to confront me on it...::rtm::

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Well how about stadium chairs? The ones that clip on and have a fold up back. We have a mentor on our team that would use one for his back. Is that not saving a seat if he left it there? Its a tough call.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I agree with the above points. I meant seat-saving in the sense that the seat will be empty 90% of the time OR seat-saving overnight.

Otherwise, no problem.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Yes! Glad I'm not alone at championships in 2012 the drivers me and another member went to go eat lunch it was a long day already things weren't going great with the robot and there were no seats left In our teams direct area so we took two seats with tags on them neighboring ours and low and behold 5 minutes later two members came back and wanting there seats and said oh we left our stuff there so we gave them there stuff that was under the seat and and the tag in the seat and asked if they wanted to sit next to us but nope those were for other team members so eventually we got up and moved to prevent further confrontation

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Yeah, saving one or four seats isn't the problem, it's saving dozens that irks me.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

If I were a judge (especially for Chairmans award) I would walk through the seating area at the event and eliminate any team that was 'saving' seats, as it is clearly against the rules.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I actually would have to say that the only time where saving seats is reasonable is in terms of people with special needs. If I have a seat saved for a family member who has knee problems, then I ask that you respect that. Otherwise instead of having your team sit together tell the ones who are out in the stands to go out and make friends with other teams. Nothing wrong with building communication with other teams. I mean your team benefits so much more from networking with other teams then becoming territorial over a bunch of seats.
Oh man just re read what I said and I feel the flak coming...

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Have a flak jacket.



Incidentally, I prefer the "warm body" method of saving seats: If there's a warm body in the seat, it's saved. If not, it's not (unless they are just off for a quick bathroom break).

Re: On Saving Seats
 

In an ideal world maybe. As of right now that would leave almost no one winning awards. At one point or another, whether it is egregious or not, someone on all of our teams has "saved" a seat or two.


The only way to stop this is if everyone agrees and actually stops doing it. Otherwise you can be the righteous, noble team that does the right thing and ends up watching matches from behind driver stations....:ahh:

I think another solution to consider is adding more events and ensuring that the venues can actually hold the team capacities they post. Peachtree last year was a NIGHTMARE because every year the number of teams increased but (alas) the number of stands/seats did not. Those are the events where seat saving gets ugly.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I can sympathize with people saving seats because having your team in one area makes everything nicer and more professional looking then 5 here and there. Plus it makes scouting and making strategy's much easier and creates more of a team atmosphere.

When people save a large amount of seats and then are gone what I typically do is go ahead and sit in them, but when they come back I always graciously return the seats. Now teams that have a problem with other people sitting in "their spot" while they are gone is what is wrong in my opinion.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Ahhh, I see. So it's only OK to break the rules when it makes things easier and creates a team atmosphere ... gotcha :rolleyes:

Re: On Saving Seats
 

This. Drive team is one of the most stressful positions one can have at a regional. And every drive team I've ever been on, or talked to, always tries 110% to compete at the teams absolute best. And coming back to the team seating area after a long day of competing to find that there's not even space for you to rest your legs is kind of disheartening.

That being said. Saving half the stands for your team is fairly annoying. Especially when you force people to not sit in their area. I always try to respect a teams "area" but at the same time I would expect that any FRC team would make room for people who have nowhere else to sit, If need be.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

How about this:

Queue up to go into the venue in the order you arrive. It is absolutely unfair to have one team member line up early and then have a bus load of 70 students, parents and other supporters come up and assume they get to go to the front of the line. Line up to enter the venue in the order you arrive. If you want seats for your team, get your whole team there early.

Do not save seats in the arena. Sit in a group if you like, but do not block of a large section of the stands. If someone comes to sit with you, welcome them.

The primary violators of seat saving are not students or mentors, they are parents. We simply need to get them to understand how we do things. Or at least how we should be doing things.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Boy. I am glad I am not the only one that does that. :0

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I was going to this but I was beaten to it.

In my opinion one of the most common acts of ungracious professionalism is when teams that are behind you in line run to get the the prime seats. This is wrong. What further irks me is when they send 3 or 4 people to save seats for their entire team. This is also wrong. If you want a certain section of seats convince your whole team to get up and get in line early so you can get them fairly like any other gracious professional would.

I would love to see a system implemented that involvles releasing groups of 50 or so people at at time to prevent the mad scramble for seats. The open the floodgates approach for opening venues doesn't work well.

Also another pet peeve of mine is when teams insist a certain section of seats is theirs because "we were here yesterday" or "we always have these seats". Again the only rule that should apply is who has their whole team assembled in the line in the morning the day of.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

The controlled entry is a very good idea. Having both inadvertently been swept up in it and been asked to stop it (as a volunteer), I believe that the mad scramble for seats is perhaps the single most dangerous thing at any FIRST event.

Control the entry, don't allow for any saved seats.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: On Saving Seats
 

It seems like it is either the whole team rushing to the seats, or the scouters and a few parents to save enough seats for the team. In my opinion, it is much safer to save seats...unless FIRST assigned seats based on team size and time registered to the event.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Certainly it is not a pleasant experience if most or all seats in the stands are being "saved"... but teams should be able to sit together, even if many team members are not always in the stands. Surely there is some kind of solution that can satisfy both criteria?

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Thank you OP.

I agree that everyone wants to sit together as a team. So do we. BUT 10 or 15 people saving an entire section for a 100+ person team is somewhat aggravating. Especially when the only time the other 90+ people are in the stands is during

1. Announcements
2. Awards
3. When told to be out of the pits by the judges
4. When their team is on the field

I wouldn't take quite such offense to it if some of the individuals in question:

1. had not been openly rude and aggressive to members of my team and their parents when they sat in the obviously reserved section (signs, pool noodles, etc.) because all the other seats were filled
2. and if we had not been asked to 'move up a couple of rows' (out of seats we had been in all day) to make room for more of their team

Another commenter posted that they felt these actions were primarily by parents who 'don't know how FIRST operates.' In my case this was what appeared to be a mentor or coach who was openly rude about saving the seats and I would submit this in response; we are supposed to be the adults...grow up.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Seating at events is terrible from every angle:
1. Teams are completely different sizes
2. The positioning of other teams can disturb others - e.g. teams that stand + have signs obstructing vision - even if it is banned during a match, it can still be problematic
3. Many teams have equipment and possessions and literally nowhere safe to put them besides their seating area
4. Eating at some arenas is financially absurd - necessitating leaving the venue to eat
5. Narrow band of seating that has clear view of the field - varies from year to year
6. Close seating can help out scouting immensely - but there isn't space for everyone who wants to scout
7. Visitors tend to come on the last day of the event - I've seen ~15 alumni from a single team; dozens of parents,family, and friends; multiply that by dozens of teams at an event and you end up with hundreds of people trying to cram in-between teams
8. Competitions should be a way to showcase FIRST to outsiders - but they always get stuck watching from the worst seats
9. Students need supervision
The list goes on.

With these things - some teams feel they have to save seats to handle all of these issues.

I think that a seat reservation system would be ideal:
Event coordinators use the venue's ticketing/seating system - the architecture is already there to assign seats and blocks fairly- then every team can get "tickets" that aren't required for entry, but just list what seats that team has
Each team applies with an estimated #of seats that they need
Adjust the estimate per day of the event to include visitors
Maybe have a scouting block - 6 seats for all teams that request it.

I'm sure that such a system could be abused, but the current system is unenforceable and rage-inducing

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Someone else on CD suggested a reserved section for scouting a couple of years ago and I think it would be a great idea! Unfortunately when you are talking about 64 teams and 6 seats/team that's 384 seats so that's something that would have to be worked out. But I still say a scouting section is a great idea.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I've seen scouting sections set up by the regional planning committees, and honestly I am not a fan. Generally they do not get used, some scouts use it, but a vast majority do not and would rather sit with their teams. Additionally, it really takes the crowd out of it since they are prime seats.

I am very against saving seats, I know teams would like to sit together as a team, but honestly, all the doors open at the same time. Show up as a team and then you can get the privilege to sit together as a team.

Some venues which mandate Ushers to be on staff during the events have actually had the venue staff enforce this rule and generally it works pretty well, and usually you end up with a crowd that is way more into the game.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I don't like the idea of a team cordoning off an entire section for team members that are not there. However, that being said, demanding that there not be an empty seat within the block of a team is a bit ridiculous. Teams have pit crews and drive teams that want to sit sometimes, and not being able to sit with the team is not fun. At least for our events (SBPLI Long Island and New York City) there is usually enough seating that finding a block big enough for a 40 person team isn't that crazy. And usually most teams are easy to work with if you need to use a couple of empty seats near them. I know we are always happy to oblige as well.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I think that this should be planned by the area's committee or those who put the event together. They would request an as close to real attendee number and assign teams locations and then if necessary readjust for Saturday.
But this issue is something that I personally am disgusted at. We arrived around 7:50 with the whole entourage and picked a reasonably nice spot, about 10 feet from the middle of the field and plopped down. A while later, our business lead came back to me and told me that another large team had requested that we move to a different spot. I was just flabbergasted that they had asked someone to move. It was not meant to be a sharing of the space but a blatant move out the way fool. This team was a team that has been around for a long time so I did not expect such actions from them, and was really frustrated at them. I just do not understand why there are expectations that teams are given some right to their seats again for another day of competition. We suffered through a day where we could barely see the field, now they could. I do understand the fact that they were a larger team but we had around 80 people there and watching our team. So at the end of the day, I think that if we had our event coordinator plan where everyone will sit would help alot of teams out

Re: On Saving Seats
 

It looks like FIRST has listened to some of the seating compliants at the championship. According to page 11 on this document, there will be special seating for the 6 teams currently playing.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I like the idea and glad FIRST is listening to us. My concern now is, will the team's 'normal' or 'regular' seats be lost/forfeited due to vacating to watch from the new viewing area?

Re: On Saving Seats
 

How about something like this:

1) Prime section(s) where No Reserved Seats is enforced. Intended for scouts, people who come and go, unaffiliated persons just wanting to watch.
2) Remaining seats are divided into Good, and OK sections.
3) Lottery for remaining seats
4) Team can either select a block of 20 seats in the Good section, or a block of 50 seats in the OK section.
5) Once everyone has been through the lottery once, teams wanting more seats are put through the lottery process again.
6) The number of seats a team can get are based upon the team size (number of registered students and mentors).

A trading forum is established so teams can trade (with compensation?) sections to get all their people together (or close together).

Think of the blocks as where the team has "priority", but "gracious professionalism" is expected to apply to seats that are not being used.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Oooorrrrr.

Just a thought here.

We can just all be nice about seating space.

Crazy idea, I know.

Just throwing it out there.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

That's CRAZY talk. I like it :D

Re: On Saving Seats
 

The document doesn't give details about the size of the team viewing sections, but one possibility is that they would be geared mostly for the pit crew that will only watch one match anyways.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

This is an incredibly complicated and resource intensive solution for a problem that isn't really a problem.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if getting up from your team's normal seating area to move to this new designated area results in you losing your seats. They certainly couldn't save those seats for when they come back because "that's against the rules." Having teams constantly getting up and shuffling around in the seating area does not sound even remotely like a good idea.

I still believe there was nothing wrong with the previous seating system. You get your whole team to the venue early, and you get good seats. You can't expect to sit in ideal seats if you're not willing to do that. The only problem they really need to solve is the mad dash to the seating area in the morning. Set up ropes outside the doors to allow the formation of a line to help prevent people from skipping. They could also let only a few teams through the doors at a time to ensure that teams who got in line first will get priority in seating choice without having to sprint in a race against the other teams in their division.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

The old system is extremely unkind to small teams who don't have the manpower to have people camping in the bleachers for the whole competition.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I'm interested to see how this goes. I will hold back on any judgement until the end of next week.

It seems to me that the constant traffic in and out of this area might create a totally new problem...But we will have to wait and see.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

We tried the "teams competing area" thing at NC and it didn't work at all. Teams don't want to keep moving (even if it is to great seats) every time they compete.

One argument FOR saving seats, that I haven't heard anyone mention (might have missed) concerns the extremely small teams that could completely abandon their seats out of necessity when everyone gets busy at the same time. Our team has traveled with only 18 members, only a handful of adults - and there are times when everyone is doing something. We still need a place (albeit not a large place) to have coats and notebooks and stuff. We do save seats - but I always stress being as compact as we can and taking up only the number of seats we will need. I think if everyone did that, this would be a non issue.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

We were unaware of the purpose for those 'reserved' seats until late Saturday afternoon. I don't know that the purpose of those seats were well communicated.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

At the PNW championship one team saved over 100 seats by placing pom-poms on them. When I found a seat with out a pom-pom a mentors came and talked to me about gracious professionalism. I was quite surprised.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

From the perspective of a small team with ~10 students.

So...in order to get good seats, and sit together as a team, you need to get there early. But, teams rushing to good seats is dangerous. So in order to make the rush less dangerous, each team should only send a few students up to the stands. But then they have to save seats in order to have enough for their whole team, which is against the rules. So if you send a few students up, then other teams will sit next to you, because they are good seats. Then there isnt enough room for the drive team to come back and watch the matches.

Here is my proposed solution, which is what our team already does. We save seats. There, I said it. We sit down, and put our jackets and bags on the seats next to us, to ensure room for the pit crew. But I think the problem with saving seats, and the solution lies after the big rush, and the claiming. Its what you do with your claimed seats. If someone wants to sit down in a claimed seat,let them. That is GP. And if someone who has been in the pits wants to sit with their team to watch their match, move over for them. GP is basically manners. Just be polite about seats, and no one will have a problem.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

They tried this at the NC Regional and it failed miserably. As far as we could tell it wasn't remotely enforced, they only announced it in a private mentors meeting, there was conflicting information about whether the rule had been repealed, and to compensate for "saving" these seats they allowed teams to "leave possessions in the stands.

I think it is an okay idea, but they need to actually enforce it and get the word around. If not they will just end up with a group of jerks sitting in it for the whole competition and end up splitting up team members who want to sit together.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I took a bunch of pictures of 1111 laying out their streamers and signs and markers down in the front rows at the start of each competition day. I don't plan on doing anything with the pictures but I made sure they saw me taking them. Hopefully it caused a little guilt.

I didn't notice you guys though, your saving must not have been nearly as obnoxious and you didn't take up the best seats in the stadium.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

That is truly unacceptable and the prime target for this thread. Also a team in Florida made special seat coverings for a few years. Im slightly surprised that the event volunteers have not intervened although former members of our team have with no change there actions.