(03-17-2015 03:47 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote: (03-17-2015 10:38 AM)MTalum09 Wrote: I only attended the Men's Conference Championship game. Birmingham isn't a bad city, but it does remind me of Memphis. Everything is just so run down and old. There really isn't much to do and downtown isn't really a "fun" atmosphere that draws people in. The game on Saturday seemed very unorganized. They sat MT fans in 2 different sections (across from each other) and scattered UAB people all throughout the MT sections and the rest of the arena (nobody sat on 2nd level). This automatically screamed "favoritism" to me. Put MT fans together and UAB fans together. It's not that hard. I've heard several MT fans (that spent several days) say that is was just OK. I think we need a destination city as well. If I want to take vacation time to travel to a conference tournament, then it better be somewhere with lots to do and see. I, honestly, think Nashville would be an awesome place to host. It just hosted the SEC Tourney so obviously it has something going for it. I also LOVED Fort Worth, Texas when we went to the Armed Forces Bowl. And though it would be far, anywhere on the Gulf Coast works well too.
You do understand that a lot of people just buy tickets at Ticketmaster or something and have no idea that they will be sitting with the MT fans, right? Do you also understand that the arena has no idea who the person buying a ticket roots for and really does not much care? All you can do is buy tickets from your athletic department and figure that most of your fans will be together then, but others who come later, unless they take the trouble to ask what section the others are in are going to buy the best available seats.
That's not favoritism, that's just how it works.
How many of you, before you went, stopped at Blazertalk and looked at the pinned thread on places to go, things to do, where to eat? Actually I think it got pinned on this board as well. How many of you griping read it and noted a few places that sounded interesting?
At the very least the ticket office should know what section your team is going to be seated in. That was not the case with this tourney. If you bought the full session you turned in the voucher to your will call table and got a ticket...all of those were in the same section.
Now if a Western fan walks up to the ticket office window as says.. "I want a ticket in the WKU section" there is no reason in the world they shouldn't be able to buy that ticket. Well that was not the case at all and my biggest gripe about the way the tourney was ran.
The person at the ticket office would have told the fan ..."we don't know where your section is" "buy a ticket and it's hit or miss". That's what I was told on day one and two. The kind lady did tell me to go by the ticket office at UAB and they should be able to tell me. I called and the only thing UAB knew was that Western was the home team for that game. Could not tell me which bench so I could have made a educated guess. So I just bought mid court seats.
After Western wins I go to the ticket office to buy game 2 tickets again no clue. So like a fool I buy the same tickets thinking Western fans will be seating behind the team bench like at every tourney sitting that I've attended. It was a bad move on my part because like a fool instead of asking people putting on the tourney...
I should have called a few people that would have known..Western people. I didn't want to bother anyone with something so simple...buy my mid court seats and move over a section.
Boy was I wrong...Western fans was sitting across the court from the section I had and across from our team. NEVER in my life have I been to a tourney and the teams fan section was across the court.
It's totally stupid for the ticket office and UAB not to know the section and have it posted at the ticket office,. If you are going to a tourney...spending 100s of dollars and $37 on a ticket you want to sit with your teams fans.