2008 World Indoor Champs

[nevetsllim]

http://www.rfea.es/competi/2008valencia ... ickets.htm

I was looking at the website and I came across the seating plan and over half of the seating has been pre-reserved for VIPs, athletes, delegates and organisation.

I just thought it was a very high percentage of seats. Is this normal?

At the European Indoors, about 40% of the stand looking over the finishing straight was reserved and they didn't even manage to fill that up.

[Flumpy]

Re: 2008 World Indoor Champs

At the European Indoors, about 40% of the stand looking over the finishing straight was reserved and they didn't even manage to fill that up.

They never fill it up. There's always loads of seats unused in any VIP section. Half the people who they're reserved for have no interest in athletics at all they spend all day in the bar. The athletes section is usually half full as well. Most athletes have no interest in watching or supporting their fellow competitors.

If we ever have crap tickets we usually go and sit in the athletes/VIP section. No one ever complains if you do it right and and it also means you get to have your picture taken with Nawal el Moutawakel

[Matt]

Is anyone planning on going to Valencia? Flumpy, I may need to get some blagging tips from you!

[nevetsllim]

Is anyone planning on going to Valencia? Flumpy, I may need to get some blagging tips from you!

Yes, I'm going if it doesn't collide with my geography coursework trip. I might also need some blagging tips as well!

[gh]

Good thing so much of Osaka was reserved for the VIP section; get rid of that and the backstretch would basically have been empty and the TV presentation would really have been shit!

[tandfman]

Re: 2008 World Indoor Champs

http://www.rfea.es/competi/2008valencia/eng/engtickets.htm

I was looking at the website and I came across the seating plan and over half of the seating has been pre-reserved for VIPs, athletes, delegates and organisation.

I just thought it was a very high percentage of seats. Is this normal?

At the European Indoors, about 40% of the stand looking over the finishing straight was reserved . . .

I imagine that at a given competition (World Ch, European Ch, etc.) the requirements for VIP's, athletes, delegates, and organization is pretty much a constant. If that's the case, the percentage will be a function of the size of the arena. The pre-reserved sections will be a much higher percentage in an arena that seats 8,000 than in one that seats 15,000. I don't know how big the Valencia arena is.

[gh]

My sense is that the "constant" for IAAF VIP seating has about doubled in the last 10 years.

[tandfman]

I've no idea. I didn't think the VIP block was so large at the last World Indoors in Moscow. It appeared larger in the one before that, in Budapest, perhaps because the arena was much smaller. Go back 10 years to Paris and again, I don't remember it being very large, but again it was a relatively large arena.

[BruceFlorman]

My sense is that the "constant" for IAAF VIP seating has about doubled in the last 10 years.

An interview with Sergey Bubka a couple of weeks ago in Sport-Express (http://www.sport-express.ru/art.shtml?146417) by Yuri Yuris contained the following exchange:

- You once told me that light athletics is much more comfortably suited to small arenas, where the spectators can literally hear the breathing of the competing athletes...
- And perhaps this isn’t so? What’s the sense of being in an 80-thousand seat Olympic stadium in Rome, if even for the "Golden League" they fill up only a third? You won’t find a better anti-advertisement for light athletics than running and jumping against a background of empty plastic armchairs. The man who sees all this on the television involuntarily thinks: There are so few spectators at the stadium, so I was right to stay home.

So I wonder if the new first Vice President will try to change the trend.

[tafnut]

Re: 2008 World Indoor Champs

If we ever have crap tickets we usually go and sit in the athletes/VIP section.

When I tried to walk out of my designated section at the Crystal Palace GP meet, I had several 'friendly' security guards informing me that I needed to stay where I belonged. I have never experienced that before. So I take it that London's 'rules' don't apply elsewhere?

[tandfman]

Indoors is different. I don't remember that they've ever had a problem with lots of empty seats when the World Indoors have been held in Europe, especially the last two days (Saturday and Sunday).

[Flumpy]

Is anyone planning on going to Valencia? Flumpy, I may need to get some blagging tips from you!

We're deffo going. Already booked. Mump used winnings from Christine's WC Gold!!! :mrgreen:

[Flumpy]

Good thing so much of Osaka was reserved for the VIP section; get rid of that and the backstretch would basically have been empty and the TV presentation would really have been shit!

In Paris '03 there was hardly anyone sat in the VIP the whole time we were there. We could however see crowds helping themselves to free food and drink in the hospitality behind.

[Flumpy]

Re: 2008 World Indoor Champs

When I tried to walk out of my designated section at the Crystal Palace GP meet, I had several 'friendly' security guards informing me that I needed to stay where I belonged. I have never experienced that before. So I take it that London's 'rules' don't apply elsewhere?

We're always extremely drunk and if you walk anywhere with enough confidence and acting like you're supposed to be there you can usually get away with it. Or you can always use mumps infamous ruse of making really lame conversation with Lamine Diack so you can walk with him into the VIP area. It went something like this........

Mump - "Thankyou, Mr Diack, thankyou"

Liam - "Thankyou for what???"

Mump - "Thankyou for World Athletics!!!"

It worked :mrgreen:

[mump boy]

Re: 2008 World Indoor Champs

When I tried to walk out of my designated section at the Crystal Palace GP meet, I had several 'friendly' security guards informing me that I needed to stay where I belonged. I have never experienced that before. So I take it that London's 'rules' don't apply elsewhere?

We're always extremely drunk and if you walk anywhere with enough confidence and acting like you're supposed to be there you can usually get away with it. Or you can always use mumps infamous ruse of making really lame conversation with Lamine Diack so you can walk with him into the VIP area. It went something like this........

Mump - "Thankyou, Mr Diack, thankyou"

Liam - "Thankyou for what???"

Mump - "Thankyou for World Athletics!!!"

It worked :mrgreen:

i'd forgotten that, probably my finest moment

it certainly did work and we met martine hellmann and ulrike meyfarth, what more could a boy want ?!??!?!

i've booked flights and hotel for valencia (Thanks Christine) proabably get tickets from centresport they always ahve the best ones