GP final for the newbie

Winnie_20 said:

If you don't care about seeing Hanyu from a good spot, you can sleep in, but chances are if you are coming to see someone in another group who skates before him in the practices... It may be very busy. ;-)

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I think in "medium" size arenas like Marseille (or Barcelona the last two years)... almost anywhere is a "good" spot - if you actually just want to watch the skating. Nowhere is very far from the ice, and it won't be full for the practices either.

I think the rush/melee/battle is mostly between Ubers trying to get as close as possible to the object of their obsession :-D - especially seats close to where the skaters/coaches will stand when conferring... although the seats don't go right down to the rink, so there's nowhere that's very close to the ice either! :-D

I'm not the Uber/groupie type so I don't mind sitting further back... and taking my time in the mornings to have relaxed breakfast, leisurely stroll to the rink, etc... :-D

CoyoteChris said:

Next topic. Tickets and practice tickets. What was the upshot? Was there an all event ticket with a practice pass for all days?
Are they throwing people out between events?
At Boston worlds, I would climb the dead escalators to the upper reaches of the arena and hide out in the bathrooms to avoid getting thrown out and have to come back through security. When a security type came in and saw me in a stall, he said, "Worker or patron?" I said nothing knowing that most of the workers didnt speak English and the guy left.

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Someone posted in other thread that there might be some kind of "all-event" practice pass, but maybe only on sale on Wednesday. Otherwise, we likely pay 5e at the door for practices each day.

Separate practice tickets almost certainly means everyone will get chucked out after practices, to re-enter with competition tickets.

I note that at Trophee de France, there were two sessions on the Saturday with separate tickets for each - so they made us leave adn re-enter bewteen the sessions. Not sure it would have been possible to hide in the toilets there, I noticed security guys generally hovering near all of them, so I don't think anyone could get in unnoticed.

And apart from that, people who make a fuss about having to go out and re-enter... or attempt shenanigans...
delays everyone already outside, who are waiting to get back in
Because they won't let anyone back in until the arena is empty.

Security in France is serious business these days... and at TdF, security checked pretty much every bag, and body searched everyone... and repeated it all, when everybody re-entered for the second session. So it took long to get everybody back in. It might be similar in Marseille...

TV schedules and the like mean that the competitions won't wait until everyone's back in... so the faster you get out, the less chance you have of missing some of the competition, making others miss some of the competition, or disturbing people in the middle of a performance as you take your seat after coming in late...

Winnie_20 said:

If you don't care about seeing Hanyu from a good spot, you can sleep in, but chances are if you are coming to see someone in another group who skates before him in the practices... It may be very busy. ;-)

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If 1000 seats covered by blankets, bags, junk etc (but no people) counts as "very busy"... then yes it may be very busy haha! ;-D

YesWay said:

I think in "medium" size arenas like Marseille (or Barcelona the last two years)... almost anywhere is a "good" spot - if you actually just want to watch the skating. Nowhere is very far from the ice, and it won't be full for the practices either.

I think the rush/melee/battle is mostly between Ubers trying to get as close as possible to the object of their obsession :-D - especially seats close to where the skaters/coaches will stand when conferring... although the seats don't go right down to the rink, so there's nowhere that's very close to the ice either! :-D

I'm not the Uber/groupie type so I don't mind sitting further back... and taking my time in the mornings to have relaxed breakfast, leisurely stroll to the rink, etc... :-D

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Good point. I do know a few folk who are obsessed, if that is the right word, with individual skaters. I like to sit close to the ice as I like to watch the skater's faces, and the jumps and spins up close. I have noted that in a number of non-US arenas, there are very few seats close to the ice, which has always puzzeled me as I like being closer than farther. Many dont seem to mind being back aways....

YesWay said:

And apart from that, people who make a fuss about having to go out and re-enter... or attempt shenanigans...
delays everyone already outside, who are waiting to get back in
Because they won't let anyone back in until the arena is empty..

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That's ME! Mister Troublemaker..but I dont think they held up the entire show at the TD Garden due to me in a deserted upper balcony level ....I went through security like everyone else and I had all my tickets. I have been to comps where people with all event passes were thrown out and brought back in again, and comps where they let you stay...I am sure the security will be tight in France...hopefully tighter than it was at the TD Gardens where security varied from machine to machine, checker to checker...day to day. The hardest security issue to deal with is the soft target of jamming thousands of people close together in que waiting to go through security, with nowhere to run. Lets hope for a safe event.

YesWay said:

If 1000 seats covered by blankets, bags, junk etc (but no people) counts as "very busy"... then yes it may be very busy haha! ;-D

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Wonder is they allow insey outseys.

CoyoteChris said:

I went through security like everyone else and I had all my tickets.

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Yes, at TdF that was the craziest thing. Everybody was searched when they came in for the first session.

Instead of letting everybody leave the main arena area and immediately queue up in the (gated, and amply sized) foyer to simply have their tickets scanned for the 2nd session... they forced everybody to go through the foyer, and continue all the way out of the building (into the rain), go round all the barriers outside, come back in the entrance and be searched again... and THEN queue up in the (gated, and amply sized) foyer to have their tickets scanned!

OMG it sounds even more stupid when I write it down like that...

CoyoteChris said:

I have been to comps where people with all event passes were thrown out and brought back in again, and comps where they let you stay...

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Yes, I like the Finlandia way of doing it
- no extra ticket (or ripoff payment) for watching practices;
- the competition ticket allows you to watch practices;
- no need to kick people out after practices, because they already had to show their competition ticket to get in...

But if organisers are going to do the practice ticket / kickout thing, they should at least make it as fast and efficient as possible...!

YesWay said:

Yes, I like the Finlandia way of doing it
- no extra ticket (or ripoff payment) for watching practices;
- the competition ticket allows you to watch practices;
- no need to kick people out after practices, because they already had to show their competition ticket to get in...

But if organisers are going to do the practice ticket / kickout thing, they should at least make it as fast and efficient as possible...!

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For WC you must have extra ticket for practices cuz single event ticket include only competition, so there still will be some kick out, but agree about last sentence.

The kick out thing probably makes sense for events that sell all-event tickets and single-session. If they don't kick everyone out, you run the risk of people paying for a single session and staying for the entire day's worth of competitions. I also think it's the easiest way to make sure that doesn't happen since it'd be difficult for all the workers and organizers to check everyone's ticket inside the arena to see if they have all-event ticket or not.

VIETgrlTerifa said:

The kick out thing probably makes sense for events that sell all-event tickets and single-session. If they don't kick everyone out, you run the risk of people paying for a single session and staying for the entire day's worth of competitions. I also think it's the easiest way to make sure that doesn't happen since it'd be difficult for all the workers and organizers to check everyone's ticket inside the arena to see if they have all-event ticket or not.

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I agree with you that at some comps, especially with expensive individual tickets, the palace guards want to minimize cheaters staying for the evening skates when they didnt pay for them. If there is time to leave and eat real food and come back, stand in line and get in before the skating starts, I have no real issue with that. But if time is tight, and in many cases it is, I would like to see all event ticket holders given a lanyard and a credentialed nice looking ticket pouch so that they could have the option of being easily identified and sitting in say section 123 for 20 minutes while the arena is cleared and then patronize the wonderful arena food, with all the wonderful places to sit down at wonderful quiet tables away from the mongrel hoards circling the concourse....what? Oh....I just woke up...must of been a dream.....