Saving Seats Epidemic

[JamesSpencer]

Overall I believe most people’s championship experience was a positive one but there is one issue that we still need to fix as a community. Saving Seats! As members of an organization devoted to changing culture, the process of acquiring seating should not resemble a Black Friday sale in any way.

I understand the desire to keep your scouting/cheering team centrally located but sectioning off a segment of the stands is not the way to do it. In fact FIRST has specifically prohibited it in section 4.14 of the manual (note the bold underlined part).

4.14 BLEACHER RULES
Sitting together in a group during competition matches 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. Teams are not allowed to save seating space.

With this in mind, it is not permitted to hang banners or ribbons to designate such an area. We will remove and discard any banners, roping, etc... Please take turns sitting in the bleachers, if seating is limited. Share the fun. When you see there is a crowding problem, leave after your team's match and return later for another few matches.



Not to single the above team out but they were just the most visual example of what was happening. My own team anticipated the seating shortage and woke the entire team up at 5 and bussed to the venue to be in line by 6. When the doors were opened imagine our dismay when there were groups of four trying to reserve seats, in one case four individuals were trying to keep over 80 seats. I instructed my team to sit on the border between two of these groups as we had the entire team there and they did not. The situation became very confrontational and concerned some of the students. The team who felt their space was being stolen then informed me that my team and I were being not graciously professional as attempt to get their way, to which I replied that there is no saving of seats. In talking with them later, in a much calmer state, they said that they only section off their portion of the stands because they saw another team doing it last year. We need to stop this trend from continuing to grow further and we need to stop playing the GP card in an attempt to get our way. Hopefully we can find a solution in a non-inflammatory manner.

[Carl C]

FIRST needs to either allow seats to be reserved or implement a better system. This "Black Friday Epidemic" can be truly frustrating!


Copied from another thread:

We've run into this problem also. At Palmetto, there were 61 teams and hardly any seats, so there were many who acted ungraciously and darted in front of everyone, even going so far as taking other team's seats. What made this worse it the fact that no team was allowed to reserve seats for the next day (though many did it anyways), so this was a daily occurrence. We did not care so much about where we sat as ling as we all could sit together, but with a medium-sized teams with many parents, siblings, and mentors, this was nearly impossible.

At North Carolina, we had a similar issue, but thankfully Team 3196 kindly allowed us to use their empty seats before eliminations. Afterwards, however, our team was unable to sit together as we made a run to finals, which was rather frustrating.

It is probably up to the respective regional directors, but I hope this issue could be resolved at one point.

[Maldridge422]

As mentioned in this comment, saving seats is really bad for spectators. How can anyone be expected to attend an event if the only space in the stands is for people specifically associated with teams? Maybe having a sort of "scouting/media" section reserved for 5-10 members of each team would allow the rest of the stands to be clear of clutter and blocked off sections. Thoughts?

[Walter Deitzler]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I would like to take this time to thank 1114 and 610 for "doing it right". Both of those teams were doubtlessly awake before the sun even rose on the East Coast, and they took up as many seats as needed by their team because all of their members were actually present.

1114 and 610 (and 118 as well) did "do it right", and not only because they showed up early and had their entire team grab seats. They also, if they had any open seats, would allow spectators, such as myself and other members of my team, to sit among them. I was gifted the chance to sit with all three of those amazing teams, and made many friends while I was at it. It was definitely one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

If you are saving seats and a spectator wants to sit there, follow these team's examples, as it will most likely be a very rewarding experience for not only yourself, but for the spectator!

[dcarr]

It's an extremely tough problem - once somebody starts doing it, pretty much everyone else has to do the same in order to keep up and have somewhere to sit.

I think the quick answer is that if you're going to save seats, you've got to do it the hard way - by putting bodies in them.

[Moon2020]

How are we going to solve this issue?

Suggestions:
A formal lottery for reserving/swapping seats with teams of a similar size after matches?
Moving the events to bigger venues with more seating?
Limit the amount of people each team can seat to a max number based on the venue size (team members/mentors/parents take turns)?
All of the above?
Leave the chaos as-is?

[MagiChau]

As one way to help the problem I think a reminder to not reserve/save seats be sent in the FIRST email, team update before week 1 events, and Frank's FRC Blog would be a few simple ways to alert teams. It is clear having it in the administrative manual is simply not enough because not everyone reads it.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by MagiChau

As one way to help the problem I think a reminder to not reserve/save seats be sent in the FIRST email, team update before week 1 events, and Frank's FRC Blog would be a few simple ways to alert teams. It is clear having it in the administrative manual is simply not enough because not everyone reads it.

It's mentioned in the email sent out to teams every week during competition.

[Kevin Leonard]

The most important part for our team is getting seats that are good enough for the scouting team. Our spectators and spirit crew can find a seat somewhere (especially at champs) with a less ideal view of the field.

Originally Posted by Maldridge422

As mentioned in this comment, saving seats is really bad for spectators. How can anyone be expected to attend an event if the only space in the stands is for people specifically associated with teams? Maybe having a sort of "scouting/media" section reserved for 5-10 members of each team would allow the rest of the stands to be clear of clutter and blocked off sections. Thoughts?

I think this could be a great idea. Having a section of seats in ideal viewing location that is reserved for scouting teams and media people.
This would (for us at least) remove a lot of the stress that comes from needing to have a set of seats for the scouts.

That being said, that wouldn't solve every issue. Especially when you're talking about regionals with limited seating. The Connecticut regional has limited seating for the 56 teams that attended this year, and it becomes difficult to find enough seats for our entire team to sit. The scouting section idea might actually hurt here, as not as many teams scout at regionals as the teams that scout at worlds.

[iyermihir]

An announcement each morning during a regional could help prevent people from saving seats. I think that many people are not aware of the rule. Even people who are doing it with full knowledge of the rule may stop and think about it before saving seats.

-Mihir Iyer

[GaryVoshol]

We went to a Christmas program at a church once, as visitors. They had stated the time the program started, and when doors opened. We arrived a few minutes before the doors opened, and when let in found that all the good seats had been covered with coats to be reserved by church members. We never returned to that church.

Is that the image we want of FIRST? When the public come in, they are rudely told they can't sit here because it's reserved for a team? I wouldn't return.

[Ernst]

Hey guys. I'm from 1732. Those are our seat savers. Please let me explain.

I know they're bad. I know you don't like them. WE don't like them.

We simply didn't see any alternatives. As a team sending 84 (!) people down to St. Louis this year, we were unsure as to what our course of action should be. At the Wisconsin and Boilermaker Regionals we kept a general area of seating "reserved" by leaving piles of stuff there, rendering many seats useless, leading to people's things being stepped on, and, inevitable, losing things. We did, in the process, create a space for the scouts, spirit team, parents, mentors, and guests that came along. Unfortunately, we always had people sitting alone. We've struggled with seating for the past few years that I've been on the team, always ending up spread out. As a last resort, and after seeing many other teams to so, we opted for these felt, rubber band, and sticker combinations.

I never saw anyone who wasn't on our team shooed out of one of the marked seats. I remember, possibly the day that photo was taken, giving up entire rows because of the outrage over our seat savers. On Saturday we didn't bring them. We learned our lesson and sent half of the team to the venue really early.

I apologize.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by ZehP

Hey guys. I'm from 1732. Those are our seat savers. Please let me explain.

I know they're bad. I know you don't like them. WE don't like them.

We simply didn't see any alternatives. As a team sending 84 (!) people down to St. Louis this year, we were unsure as to what our course of action should be. At the Wisconsin and Boilermaker Regionals we kept a general area of seating "reserved" by leaving piles of stuff there, rendering many seats useless, leading to people's things being stepped on, and, inevitable, losing things. We did, in the process, create a space for the scouts, spirit team, parents, mentors, and guests that came along. Unfortunately, we always had people sitting alone. We've struggled with seating for the past few years that I've been on the team, always ending up spread out. As a last resort, and after seeing many other teams to so, we opted for these felt, rubber band, and sticker combinations.

I never saw anyone who wasn't on our team shooed out of one of the marked seats. I remember, possibly the day that photo was taken, giving up entire rows because of the outrage over our seat savers. On Saturday we didn't bring them. We learned our lesson and sent half of the team to the venue really early.

I apologize.

If you're bringing 84 people, then seat them in separate areas, seat them towards the rear or off to the side. Do you HONESTLY, expect to seat all 84 people in a prime, central location and then not expect to step on some toes?

- Sunny G.

[Kevin Sevcik]

First off, I'd like to point out that any suggestions of "first-come-first-served buuuut {reserved scout/media area, 6 prime seats per team, current match cheering section, etc.}" is pretty much an argument for the status quo. Teams reserving a handful of seats for scout aren't the problem. Teams reserving 40+ seats with 3 people are the problem. No matter your exception, there will still be teams with 40+ people they want sitting together looking for seats in the first-come sections. Making exceptions for small amounts of people is just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

Crazy idea:
Most complaints seem to center around people having to sit "alone". Sitting "alone" in this case seems to mean sitting somewhere not surrounded by people you've been stuck working on a robot with 12 hours a day for the last 6 weeks. Instead you're surrounded by people who've been stuck working on a robot for 12 hours a day for the last 6 weeks.

Surely all of us FIRSTers have enough in common that we're never actually alone in the stands no matter who's sitting next to us. Maybe if more of us made a point of spreading out a bit more and getting a bit more comfortable with all the other similarly crazy people in the stands, there'd be less worry about having to reserve completely contiguous, uninterrupted blocks of 40+ seats.

In furtherance of this, I think I'll spend more time at my next regional actively sitting just a bit away from my team. Feel free to call me crazy now.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

In furtherance of this, I think I'll spend more time at my next regional actively sitting just a bit away from my team. Feel free to call me crazy now.

As open minded as this is, it's not a way to build and share team spirit, to share the highs and lows with the people you've worked with, love, and care about. To me, a FIRST event wouldn't be the same without this.

Whatever changes are made to seating in the future, having teams be able to sit together, at least while their robot is on the field, is of utmost importance.