Bandwagoners

[Dave]

DM mentioned the probable return of the BWs if the Swans continue their good form.

This can only be a good thing IMO as it will add to our home ground advantage and at the very least improve the club's financial position.

I only get annoyed when people buy season tickets and dont bother turning up "because I don't think the Swans will win this week" and you have to stare at empty reserved seats that can't be used.

[Ganjaman]

If we are still top four towards the end of the season we will be getting more than a few bandwagoners coming to the game. Sydney loves a winner and the SCG will be pushin' 40,000 soon, cause we are so good.

It will only help to convert more people to the best footy in town. As long as we are winning!!

[Sanecow]

Bandwagon jumpers are great so long as they don't fall off.

[Nico]

I reckon our next game in Melbourne against Carlton will see the southern bandwagoners turn up in droves. Happened in 96 and is ready to explode in 2003. Have to get there early to get the cheap seats.

[TheHood]

Bandwagoners are great and lets face it, we need the dough!

It doesn't really pay for diehards to get precious about bandwagoners because frankly thats often from where diehards start.

I like a bandwagoner that puts their money where their mouth is...getting to games, getting to know the club, the rules, the personalities. If the bandwagon is busting at the seems come Round 22, I personally will be licking my chops!

[desredandwhite]

Bring it on (as they say in the classics).

TheHood is dead right. If it wasn't for "the bandwagon", we'd be in a lot more trouble financially now than we already are!!

I will admit that I only really noticed the club after the brilliant 1996 season. Before that it was always "that team playing that weird sport who always lose a lot". You have to get people interested, and what gets people interested is a strong team they can get behind. If 10,000 extra "bandwagonners" join up next year, and 2000-3000 of them stick around for good, that's a good thing IMHO. Have to play the numbers game. The more people go to have a look, the more "stayers" you will end up with.

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Re: Bandwagoners

Originally posted by Dave
I only get annoyed when people buy season tickets and dont bother turning up "because I don't think the Swans will win this week" and you have to stare at empty reserved seats that can't be used.

If we took away their set-seat priviledges and make it like it is in Melbourne, first in best-dressed, then we would NOT have this problem.

Have set-seat members in the grandstands. And unreserved seating in the outer. You watch the crowds lift in size and atmophere when people can invite friends on the day to come and sit with them.

Seriously, think about it. Call me stupid, but one of the reasons I'm involved with SSI is to have eventually develop more feedback with the club in relation to membership packages. Personally I think the situation is not only flawed, but it stunts unalligned attendees from getting involved by going with their friends.

JF

PS:- We bitch about the bandwagoners, but this year they simply haven't been around, especially at the SCG. AFL is no longer on the tip of everyone's tongues. RU & RL is again.

[Charlie]

I'm going to echo both Des and JF.

The bandwagon is great for the Swans - there's still enough of the 96-97 vintages around to keep membership numbers alive... there's at least 3 members here that I can think of.

And the seating arrangements - AND THE PRICING - are killers at the SCG. We need to get that ground functioning more like Victorian grounds, if we are to return to the days when 30,000 seemed modest.

[Jon]

Termites are ESSENTIAL for any team, not just the Swans. It's the ones that come out of the woodwork that make the difference between a paper bothering with a small column at the back of a paper or going with a full page article with colour photos!

The seating issue for friends is a nightmare. I brought a Newbie to Telstra last week, and he rang me up saying he'd love to make it a regular thing. Wonderful. But so far, the only way this happens is when someone else DOESN'T turn up.

So far, you have to ring the club. They then RELEASE a seat nearby (if there are any) THEN you have to ring ticketek and hope you can get that seat before it vanishes.

It's almost as if they ENCOURAGE us to buy a ticket at the ground and sneak a friend into one of the 8-9000 seats available every week!

[penga]

its all fine and dandy for u sydneyites that dont have to travel far RE: set seats... but when u have to travel 1.5 - 2 hours to get to the scg, it is so much better to have the security of being able to walk straight into your set seat than what it would be without...

I VOUCH NOW, THAT YOU WOULD LOSE A LOT OF OUT-OF-SYDNEYITES DROPPING THEIR MEMBERSHIPS AS IT WOULD TAKE ME, FOR INSTANCE A GOOD 4-5 HOURS TO GET THERE, AND GET THERE IN TIME FOR A GOOD SEAT... JUST ANOTHER REASON WHY SSI SHOULDNT EXIST!!!

me and my family are 96 converts

[swansrock4eva]

I can see where JF is coming from Penga - right now the vast majority of the supposed 42,000 capacity is dedicated to reserved seating - a hangover from the days of 97-98 etc where it was a necessity. Iirc, there is the churchill and brewongle stand and concourse, MA Noble, Bradman, Messenger and O'Reilly Stands and their concourses that are ALL reserved seating. These days not all those seats are used, and the unused are sold to the public but at pretty steep prices. If we were to cut back on reserved seating, people would be able to squish up a bit more and give up a few more seats for general admission, which is what will be needed if we keep winning and the bandwagon really gets rolling again. Also, as has been said, no-one can bring friends unless they have a spare seat near them with the setup right now. I'm all for reducing reserved seating because it NEEDS to be done at the moment. And if it means people have to rock up a bit earlier, then so be it - having people rock up half way through the first quarter "just because" is ridiculous, and too many people do it up here.

[Charlie]

Just had a horrible thought... what if the bandwagon doesn't happen again??? It was what made the difference, in the end, in whether or not the Swans would be persevered with, imo. But what if success this time doesn't do the job? Do we have anything to say that it will? What would happen then?

[liz]

I don't have a problem with people rocking up midway through the first quarter - so long as they rock up!

Agree with the thrust of the thread but I would be exceedingly pissed off to lose my reserved seat. Back in 1996 we were members but didn't have reserved seats and used to sit in the top deck of the MA Noble. By the end of the season we had to turn up sometimes two hours before kick-off to get decent seats.

Nowadays we have excellent reserved seats in the O'Reilly. I sit with a group of around 30 loosely connected souls - various friends, friends of friends, and sometimes their friends - and we have had the same seats continously since 1997. The composition of the group has changed, but each year someone doesn't renew we have no problem finding others to join the group.

Some of the group attend more than others, but personally I've only missed 3 homes games since I had the seat and they were all at the start of 1997 while I was back "home" in the Motherland.

If we were to lose our reserved seats, the chances are I'd rarely get to see most of this group. We all arrive at different times to the game, and though I see most of them only once a fortnight or so, I've got to know them during this time and enjoy sitting with them. And several of them love their footy, attend regularly but aren't absolute fanatics. They do like to turn up just as the first bounce is happening. They'd probably just stop coming - not to mention stumping up their membership cash to the club - if they couldn't come knowing they've got a good seat to go to.

There's no easy answer, but the club would seriously pxxx off lots of members if they reduced the reserved seating.

There's no easy answer, because I agree that its frustrating to see so many prime seats empty every week. With the crowds the way they are at the moment its probably not a big deal but if the bandwagon does start rolling it could become one.

One possible answer is to provide a bigger incentive to members to release their seats if they know they can't come. At the moment you get a credit to your membership which isn't a huge deal. And I think you only get it if your seat is resold. Maybe they could have a prize draw, with members having one entry for every time they gave up their seat, regardless of whether or not it was resold. If there were some decent prizes - not necessarily financially valuable but something related to club functions, or signed paraphenalia - it might motivate people to bother and wouldn't cost the club much at all.

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by penga
its all fine and dandy for u sydneyites that dont have to travel far RE: set seats... but when u have to travel 1.5 - 2 hours to get to the scg, it is so much better to have the security of being able to walk straight into your set seat than what it would be without...

I VOUCH NOW, THAT YOU WOULD LOSE A LOT OF OUT-OF-SYDNEYITES DROPPING THEIR MEMBERSHIPS AS IT WOULD TAKE ME, FOR INSTANCE A GOOD 4-5 HOURS TO GET THERE, AND GET THERE IN TIME FOR A GOOD SEAT... JUST ANOTHER REASON WHY SSI SHOULDNT EXIST!!!

me and my family are 96 converts

Penga, that is nothing more than a cheap shot. Especially whilst SHOUTING! It is my personal opinion that we should have more unreserved seating, not an organised statute of anything SSI has attempted to acheive as yet. So stop trying to stir up trouble like the sad majority of trolls in this forum re SSI.

Your situation may be unique Penga, but if you have confirmed 2pm starting times, even coming from the Central Coast would mean you should be able to get 4-5 seats for your family. You could also tell your friends to come along, without the stress of having to organise tickets weeks in advance. At the moment with the crap crowds we are getting you'd still be able to get perfectly good seats on the half-forward line in either the Brewongle/Churchill or O'Reilly concourse if you turned up at half-time.

But you are fundamentally against an organisation such as SSI, so I'll be darned if I could be bothered to stand up for people like you in relation to better starting times for matches, cheaper parking etc. You obviously have little interest in a better deal for members, so don't come whinging about things in future OK.

The typically Sydney "it's all about me" syndrome reigning supreme yet again.

JF

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by lizz
Agree with the thrust of the thread but I would be exceedingly pissed off to lose my reserved seat. Back in 1996 we were members but didn't have reserved seats and used to sit in the top deck of the MA Noble. By the end of the season we had to turn up sometimes two hours before kick-off to get decent seats.

Nowadays we have excellent reserved seats in the O'Reilly. I sit with a group of around 30 loosely connected souls-and we have had the same seats continously since 1997.

Some of the group attend more than others, but personally I've only missed 3 homes games since I had the seat and they were all at the start of 1997 while I was back "home" in the Motherland.

If we were to lose our reserved seats, the chances are I'd rarely get to see most of this group. We all arrive at different times to the game, and though I see most of them only once a fortnight or so, I've got to know them during this time and enjoy sitting with them. And several of them love their footy, attend regularly but aren't absolute fanatics. They do like to turn up just as the first bounce is happening. They'd probably just stop coming - not to mention stumping up their membership cash to the club - if they couldn't come knowing they've got a good seat to go to.

There's no easy answer, but the club would seriously pxxx off lots of members if they reduced the reserved seating.

There's no easy answer, because I agree that its frustrating to see so many prime seats empty every week. With the crowds the way they are at the moment its probably not a big deal but if the bandwagon does start rolling it could become one.

Excellent post Liz. Good to hear a well thought-out post from the "other side". As always, you may your points very well, even if I may not always agree 100% with what you have to say.

A possible suggestion, why not have say 3-4 bays of reserved seats for those who do wish for that. And then leave the rest of the ground as unreserved. With special incentives for those who want to sit in the concourse bays in the Messenger and Bradman Stands, as that is by FAR the emptiest pat of the ground.

I'd even be happy if they made the Bays from Bay 17 (end of O'Reilly Stand) to the end of Bay 22 unreserved again. But I think the club gets too much money from its $30 reserved seats in this area to consider making them G/A again.

JF

PS:- Still last night it was the O'Reilly GRANDSTAND who were the biggest offenders. Time to start whielding the axe at those who (don't) sit around you Mr Lee!

PS:- Play the ball and not the man Penga and everything will be fine mate! PEACE