Saving Seats

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by The Manual, Section 7.11.3

Saving group seats is not permitted.

Originally Posted by The Manual, Section 7.12

Do not save seats. It is not fair to other teams or the public we hope to interest as team sponsors/volunteers.

Originally Posted by The Manual, Section 7.14.2

Sitting together in a group during competition rounds makes the game more exciting and fun. It’s where you can show support for your team. Since very often there is not enough seating to accommodate everyone,there has to be a policy regarding seating, so teams are not allowed to save seating space.

I'm sorry to beat this to death, but despite three clear mentioning in the manual, it seems that some teams still do not understand that the saving of seats is not permitted. This rule was broken numerous times in the Curie stands during qualifying. What made it this even worse, was that when my scouts pointed out these rules, they were verbally abused and told they "weren't being very graciously professional".

I understand that many teams have large groups and want everyone to sit together. This can be accomplished without saving large blocks of seats. Follow the example of Team 1511, who cordoned off a large block, but were more than willing to make room for anyone and everyone who asked. (BTW, thank you)

If you want to ensure that your entire team sits together, have all members get to the dome early. It's really that simple.

[Jherbie53]

We save seats, but only for our team and we also will give seats to anyone who needs them. We try and get enough room but leave room to. This year I only attended two regionals, Boilermaker and West Michigan. There were about 12-15 students with around 10-15 parents and mentors at Boilermaker from our team. There was plenty of room there. At West Michigan we knew we would have around 70-80 people on Saturday, and that seats would be hard to come by.

As for how we saved seats, we try and have as many people from the team go to the stands first. We then try and save a little section thats around the size of our team.

From what I remember from nationals last year, it wasn't to hard to find seats, but that was last year. Anyhoo, its always hard to find seat during the elimination rounds, and awards ceremonies. As for saving seats, you should be able to save them, within reason. If your team has around 30 people at the event, don't try and save 40 seats, try and save around 25 seats or just make room when your teamates come by.

[ahirsch2589]

our team saved seats in atlanta, but we also gave them up to those who asked. we really didnt have a huge group, so we werent like the others saving like 5+ rows, but still, sorry if you tried to take a seat and a member of 108 was rude

[Zyik]

We saved two half rows, and ended up losing most of them so we had to sit in two places at Nationals. Because we have such a small team the people weren't just sitting there, we were scouting. That, and we were a Cal team and none of us had ever been that far from home, we didn't want to get spereated. Don't know what we're going top do next year then. We were having major drama back in the pits, so sorry if 973 gave anyone issues.

[Towel]

I still wish that that scouting section were made a reality

In terms of saving seats, I encountered a team in which they literally saved nearly six full rows of seats with no markers at all, just one person. When we were seated already, this person yelled and said something to the order of "Don't sit there! Those seats are saved!". Of course, the next day, I was told the entre scouting section went to the arena really early and managed to get seats for everyone without a problem

[Daniel_LaFleur]

We had the same issues at the BAE granite state regional.

I even saw a team turn away an elderly lady with 2 young children (looked like her grandchildren).

[Don Wright]

I hope it wasn't us...

[Nita]

I did inform a team about the rule, but my teammates told me to just forget about it. Now I'm not sure of what's right... following the rule, or following my peers.

[ChuckDickerson]

On this note I would like to draw attention to the utter ciaos that FIRST caused while, in my opinion, being very un-GP themselves by attempting to "save seats" before the finals and award ceremony in the section directly in front of the awards platform. Our team did not go to the Championship but myself and 2 other mentors traveled to Atlanta just to watch and checkout what was going on in the pits. Just before lunch on Saturday we grabbed 3 seats on the very top row of the lower section just in front of the awards platform halfway between the Galileo and Einstein fields. After lunch "officials" (some looked like FIRST and/or arena people and later some were even GA State Police) cleared the stands in that section 3 SEPARATE TIMES of all teams in front of us. They were (I think) trying to save seats for the teams that were going to make it into the finals on Einstein or something but they just had absolutely no control of the situation. They never "roped off" the area with yellow tape to let people know not to sit there so people would come and sit and fill-up the section and then the "officials" would go through row by row telling everyone to get up and sit somewhere else. They did this 3 separate times! Teams would have been sitting there for quite a while and then have to move. I can specifically remember all of 340 and 1880 among the dozens of teams sitting in front of us that were forced to loose their seats. When the awards ceremony started the whole section was empty and then it was basically just a free for all again. It looked kind of stupid when Woodie started the ceremony and the whole section in front of him was empty. The whole section of the "good seats" then only partially filled throughout the ceremony and final rounds. I thought this was totally unfair to the teams that were in the seats who were told they had to leave for no real reason just so that other teams (who wound up being just anyone not just the Einstein teams) only partially filled the section. If FIRST would practice what they preach then this kind of ciaos wouldn't have happened. The seats should have been first come first served rather than first come first removed, second come second removed, third come third removed, fourth come oh well go ahead and sit because everything has started and we have this big hole we need to fill because it looks bad in the photos and cameras to have a bunch of empty seats in front of the awards platform. It sort of ruined the whole photo op for endless sea for multicolored team uniforms. Since the 3 of us were sitting on the very top row on the walking level we watched this whole debacle unfold over and over in front of us. I don't know who's idea it was to "try" to save that whole section but it didn't work out so well.

[David Brinza]

The problems caused by saving seats might be alleviated by assigning blocks of seats to teams by FIRST. This was discussed in a thread last year:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37664

The "how" is a question that FIRST needs to consider. When teams register for the event, the number of participants/spectators should be included in the application. FIRST should establish some criteria or lottery process to determine "where" the blocks are assigned to teams. There should be some buffer space around the blocks to allow people interested in particular teams outside of the division in which their team is placed. Some additional space for scouts, general public, and others would be appreciated.

[Daniel Brim]

I'm not sure what this info is worth, but team 294 was forcibly removed (security guard) from a section where seats were "saved". I was not involved in the situation, but it doesn't sound like it was good on either side.

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by DanielBCR

I'm not sure what this info is worth, but team 294 was forcibly removed (security guard) from a section where seats were "saved". I was not involved in the situation, but it doesn't sound like it was good on either side.

I found out it was one of our students who had done this. They were ripped by myself and other mentors, and then not allowed to do alliance selections. On behalf of The Cheesy Poofs I'd like to apologize to team 294 for this unfortunate experience. If anyone on our team does anything like this again please let EJ, Cory, or me know so that we can deal with this. This isn't something we'd like our team to be known for.

[spears312]

I personally had no direct problem with saving seats this year (mainly because I was in pits), but as a scout last year, this problem popped up more than once. It really not fair when teams claim giant area and usually fail to even fill the whole thing out but still freak out when some one takes a seat. I believe that there are some times when seat saving is OK, such as when an entire team goes to lunch for a short period with the plans to return to the seats after. If a team insists on saving seats still, just do the GP thing and inform the person that they are OK for now, but when the previous occupants return, to please give the seats up, not telling them to leave right away.

[KTorak]

Originally Posted by DanielBCR

I'm not sure what this info is worth, but team 294 was forcibly removed (security guard) from a section where seats were "saved". I was not involved in the situation, but it doesn't sound like it was good on either side.

We were pretty upset with this situation. My team had seats in said sections along time before the ceremony with some saved for the drive team and others who crated up the robot. However, they were forcibly removed and we had no where to really sit. Eventually we ended up on the 2nd floor and wanted to go to the 3rd, but we were not allowed. We eventually found a FIRST official who directed us back to said sections and said they were open. But, the security refused to allow us to sit there...eventually we got the FIRST official, but they had finally let us sit there. I thought it was dumb how so many teams could barely see becuase they were on the outskirts, but these said sections were less than 1/3 full. FIRST definitely needs a better system such as a ticket system for seats when you register (like a regular sports event) or a lottery system where they designate rows/blocks for teams to sit.

[Jherbie53]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

The "how" is a question that FIRST needs to consider. When teams register for the event, the number of participants/spectators should be included in the application. FIRST should establish some criteria or lottery process to determine "where" the blocks are assigned to teams. There should be some buffer space around the blocks to allow people interested in particular teams outside of the division in which their team is placed. Some additional space for scouts, general public, and others would be appreciated.

Nationals are different from regionals, and I see your point on saving X# of seats for a team. Some teams don't know how many people are going to the event. But they usually have a better idea of how many are going to nationals than a regional. Like I said earlier, we were expecting 70-80 people for West Michigan, but thats our "Home" regional and families want to go.

Anyhoo, this is one subject, like many, that can be beaten to death until next year, without a whole lot of change to be seen.