On Saving Seats

[IbleedPink233]

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