FrankAnswersFridays: October 25, 2013: Safety at Championships

[Siri]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Isn't the solution for this problem a bit obvious? If there was someone with a FIRST volunteer shirt to walk around and tell off the most egregious violators of the "no saving seats" rule, I'm sure a lot of the motivation for the stampede to the stands would be gone.

It'd take a lot more volunteer-power than just one person to actually enforce this to the point of removing the motivation. Culture changes are hard, especially when the benefit of not changing is precieved as so high. I think it's the correct approach--the message is certainly correct, effective delivery may be a question. It's less organization intensive than a lottery, but it's not a trivial addition of volunteers, at least for the first few years until the culture changes.

Further, the entire seat-sprint-struggle is over just saving. I've seen it between groups who have their members, to the point of fights almost breaking out as one group tries to cut in front on another. There are better and worse seats, and the former can (and likely will, no matter what) be defined such that it's a scarce resource, so from an economic perspective the competition is built-in.