. Many seats already gone, especially D and DD and other areas on the west side requiring no donation.Maybe Cal is holding them so ESP donors can not select them. Take a look and give us your opinions. The question is are ESP people selecting these seats or is Cal holding them for sponsors etc.

25% of the seats in HH, abovethe tunnel are unavailable, if I counted right.

It's hard to be sure what's happening with D and DD.

More than 1/2 of D is unavailable, and probably upwards of 2/3 of DD is unavailable.

Amazing. And discouraging if I'm reading this correctly. These are seats that should be available to non-donor season ticket holders. I'm wondering what will be available on the West Side.

With regard to seats selected in HH, the "pattern" seems to be too haphazard to be a deliberate withholding by the AD. It seems far more likely that the unavailable seats are the result of actual seat selections.

If last year is any indication buying early will not benefit the fans.

With that said, I don't think anyone knows exactly what the ATO is up to. Although letting everyone at any donation level buy up to 20 tickets should give you some indication of what kind of demand they expect.

What do you think about sitting in the first row above the tunnel/Walkway? I think row 27 in HH?

I think that those are good seats.

There are several advantages to those seats: easy access and egress, clear sightlines, and no one in front of you (you might be able to stretch your legs a little more than in other rows).

My only complaint would be that I might want to be a bit higher relative to the field. But that's a personal preference and would probably be overridden by the other significant advantages I cited.

FiatSlug;730465 said:

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My only complaint would be that I might want to be a bit higher relative to the field. But that's a personal preference and would probably be overridden by the other significant advantages I cited.

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Row 27 in the extra leg room donor sections appear to be the same height as row 34 in the old CMS - I say that since row 34 in the other non-donor sections is also the first row above the ADA seating (which are even with the main concourse throughout the stadium) and the number of rows in the non-donor rebuilt sections is the same as before they were rebuilt.

I remember you had a lot of section by section info on the old CMS configuration - do you happen to have the number of seats in a row of section T? Any section would do - I really just want to do a comparison to the new map to see how much wider things are in the old sections - especially since they aren't deeper. Section T has 25 seats in the first row and 28 seats in the last row now.

from the instructions

"The unavailable gray dots include seats that we allocate based on our university, team, department and conference obligations." So maybe the large blocks in D and DD are for team purposes? Families, visitors, university employees, etc (yeah, and the additional Pac12 referee review committee?? I keed ... I keed )? I'd agree that the others in F and HH are possibly ESP'ers buying extras - but think about it - do they also have to kick in an additional seat donation? I'd guess not, so those would be the next best available outside of the ESP spots.

OD, I'm in the same boat as you, trying to figure out how high up I'd want to be. Used to have seats in Row 33, and from what I can gather, there may be a 10 row or so difference in viewing angle - for example, someone in Row 23 now will have the same viewing angle as I had in 33. Make any sense to those of you who have been in there?

So in HH they guy who picked 20 in two adjacent rows, donates an extra $8k to do so. Lets hope they are not going to be empty most of the time and given out to "clients" for 1 game a year when USC is in town.

From what I have heard, pick 10 rows lower than where you were for the same view.The field is being lowered about 6 feet so maybe you can go lower than you think.

By the way, thanks for the DVD.63 was quite a number, wasn't it?

OldenBear;730471 said:

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from the instructions

"The unavailable gray dots include seats that we allocate based on our university, team, department and conference obligations." So maybe the large blocks in D and DD are for team purposes? Families, visitors, university employees, etc (yeah, and the additional Pac12 referee review committee?? I keed ... I keed )? I'd agree that the others in F and HH are possibly ESP'ers buying extras - but think about it - do they also have to kick in an additional seat donation? I'd guess not, so those would be the next best available outside of the ESP spots.

OD, I'm in the same boat as you, trying to figure out how high up I'd want to be. Used to have seats in Row 33, and from what I can gather, there may be a 10 row or so difference in viewing angle - for example, someone in Row 23 now will have the same viewing angle as I had in 33. Make any sense to those of you who have been in there?

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But I'm tremendously skeptical that the sheer numbers are exclusively for the purposes noted in the official language.

What I'm saying is this: something stinks. And I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this isn't rank speculation by someone acting as a quasi-ticket agency.

I do know that non-ESP season ticket holders have a limit of 20 season tickets. [U]I don't know if ESP ticket holders have a limit[/U] on the number of seats they can buy outside of the ESP section.

And what stinks the most about this is that many previous season ticket holders may be effectively shut out from Cal Memorial on a season ticket basis.

There are 7 designated sections that are for reserved season tickets with no donation. (D, DD, J, JJ, K, Q, and UU)

5 of those sections are on the West Side. (D, DD, J, JJ, and K)

4 of those West Side sections are mostly unavailable this afternoon, essentially a full week before Group 1 begins to choose their seat locations. (D, DD, J, and JJ).

If this information changes, I will update this post. But for now, something does not look right.

Thats alot of speculation based on last years demand.

FiatSlug;730480 said:

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But I'm tremendously skeptical that the sheer numbers are exclusively for the purposes noted in the official language.

What I'm saying is this: something stinks. And I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this isn't rank speculation by someone acting as a quasi-ticket agency.

And what stinks the most about this is that many previous season ticket holders may be effectively shut out from Cal Memorial on a season ticket basis.

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It's quite strange, but I don't see that season ticketholders will be shut out. It's only ~2k seats, but it will push every non donor that much further away from the center. Or push non-donors to put up some $$ and get better seats (now that would truly be shady if the seats then go unused).

Seems way too organized and complete of a block off to be scalpers - if demand were higher (ie Cal winning more), the ESP system could totally be gamed by someone who buys ESP for the first year, then buys up a ton of prime location no-donation seats, cancels the ESP, then keeps the others.

It would be pretty amazing and bold for someone to snatch up hundereds to thousands of seats at $300 for the season in hopes of re-selling them. Odd year schedules are good (UCLA, Oregon, Furd) but IMO not that good. Then again, next year is also a great home schedule with USC and Ohio State. The problem is that with a couple of bad losses, seats would be really really cheap.

No seats in those sections are up on stubhub... but I did see 10 tickets in section T already up for sale at over $200/ea for the BG, UCLA, Oregon and Nevada opener.

For starters, as of 5:30 PM, 65.1% of Sections D & DD are unavailable; gone. That's 1,522 of 2,338 seats greyed out. Next, Most of what's left in D and DD is in the rows closest to the field. In other words, the lion's share of the most desirable seats in those sections are gone; probably 80% or more.

Another 794 seats are unavailable in Sections J-K (622 alone in J). In combination with what's gone in D & DD, that's ~2,300 seats, gone. When you consider that there are 9,282 seats total in Reserved Non-donor sections, that's 25% gone, unavailable right off the bat. And the vast majority of those unavailable are rows above the ADA decks.

Further, if you go through the "available" sections one at a time, the top 2 rows in each sections are entirely unavailable. They're grey already, even as we type.

What's the explanation, then? And why are the Reserved Season Ticket sections limited to 7 sections with single game sales and group ticket sales designated for 7 other sections (KK, L, LL, M, PP, V, and VV).

People in Groups 2 and 3 are being squeezed (possibly squeezed out) and ESP ticket holders have only started their seat selection TODAY.

There's something very wrong here.

Those big blocks of unavailable seats in D and DD and being blocked off so ESP ers can not buy them now and screw the average fan who picks next week. I would not be surprised to see these seats available then.But that may be optimistic.

They may want ESP ers to pick seats for which they have to pay a donation per seat but feel there is no advantage in allowing them to pick non donor seats which will **** off the base for years to come long after some ESP ers jump ship.

Have you ever sat in that first row above the handicapped in the old memorial? It would seem if you had seats close to the aisle, the stair case might be a potential area of blockage, especially since the railings on the stair case seem to be higher than those that will go down the center of the aisles. Hard to know without being there. Center of the row might be good in that row . What do you think?

FiatSlug;730495 said:

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There's something very wrong here.

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I believe Cal maxed out at 46k season ticket holders which included students. 15k seats might be reserved for the furd as a trade for 15k for Cal seats in Stanford Stadium (likely less... maybe 10k reserved for furd). Still that adds to at most 61k. So no one is getting shut out.

I do think we'll have to see what is available when the Group 1 starts buying. There are some decent sized chunks taken out of the donor sections, especially in I and II. Given that these are the only expanded seats for non-ESPers, I do think there's a pretty good chance they sell out (though the 1200/seat is still quite a stretch).

Could another possibility be that the AD is holding the good seats in those non-donation sections for non-ESPers.

oskidunker;730501 said:

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Have you ever sat in that first row above the handicapped in the old memorial? What do you think?

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There were not elevated handicap platforms before in the old CMS just the small entrances it's all guess work. If you are talking about the on the side with the mini staircase, I agree that those stairs could be a blockage problem as would the aisle (those kind of stairs are definitely a problem at every pro basketball and baseball stadium I've been to). On the other side above the vomitory near the aisle, I think you are OK because even if people are standing and passing, they'd only block the very near corner of the endzone on your right.

It is hard to say without seeing as it's all new. My advice would be to sit in the center if you absolutely want peace of mind, but you could risk the aisle on the right because it shouldn't be bad. If it turns out just horrible, there will likely be turnover of a pair of 'non unique' seats nearby that you could move to the next year. If the seats on the aisle and/or front row are good, there will likely be no turnover of those seats until the next re-seat. Now if you were to go front row in the lower donation I, the screen/railings look quite annoying in the left side since that is towards the action. AND the stairs on the right are going to have people walking up them all game, so that's bad too. (side note, what's up with the person who chose of AA, row 41, seats 17-20? that will mean staring at people's legs all game!)

Also, if your donation level is more than the seat requirement to start with (perhaps due to basketball seats), you could even buy two sets and decide in person? A little bit of a pain, but if the second set is halfway decent, I'm sure you can get face for season tickets tickets EASILY.

Quote:

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Also, if your donation level is more than the seat requirement to start with (perhaps due to basketball seats), you could even buy two sets and decide in person?

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ColoradoBear, Could you explain this a bit. I have ESP Field seats, but my understanding is that I have to pay donations for any other seats I get.

ride525;730558 said:

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ColoradoBear, Could you explain this a bit. I have ESP Field seats, but my understanding is that I have to pay donations for any other seats I get.

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ESP is different - so yes you have to pay for other football seats.

For basketball, premium seats require one to be a donor at a certain level (golden C, coaches club, andy smith) to qualify for a set number of seats, which is slightly different than the per seat way they do football. As long as the proper levels were met (and done in the right time of year), the donations could count towards both sports tickets.

I would guess that a lot of people that will sit in the $1200/ seat locations at CMS are one who are not putting that $1200 down, but are donating money already as chairbacks.

The premium ticket blurb on calbears.com for basketball tickets states that 'endowment' gifts cannot be counted for premium basketball seats, so I would think that being ESP wouldn't help you get basketball tickets... though one never really knows until you ask.

FiatSlug;730480 said:

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But I'm tremendously skeptical that the sheer numbers are exclusively for the purposes noted in the official language.

What I'm saying is this: something stinks. And I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this isn't rank speculation by someone acting as a quasi-ticket agency.

I do know that non-ESP season ticket holders have a limit of 20 season tickets. [U]I don't know if ESP ticket holders have a limit[/U] on the number of seats they can buy outside of the ESP section.

And what stinks the most about this is that many previous season ticket holders may be effectively shut out from Cal Memorial on a season ticket basis.

There are 7 designated sections that are for reserved season tickets with no donation. (D, DD, J, JJ, K, Q, and UU)

5 of those sections are on the West Side. (D, DD, J, JJ, and K)

4 of those West Side sections are mostly unavailable this afternoon, essentially a full week before Group 1 begins to choose their seat locations. (D, DD, J, and JJ).

If this information changes, I will update this post. But for now, something does not look right.

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so as of this morning, 9:25, some of the seats in F are highlighted as in a cart i.e. someone in the ESP section is selecting these as extras. 3 seats here, 1 seat there. I didn't see any of that yesterday - admittedly I wasn't watching all day. So I still think the large blocks in D and DD are being held out for some reason. And I'd agree w/ FSlug and others that something's rotten here.

OT to OD - yup, 63 points, and I still don't believe it, and I was there like you and saw it.

Looks like half the aisle seats in f and HH are gone in the upper bowl.

I question allowing ESP people to buy all the best seats and giving them a whole week to do it. Millonaires to whom $400 is nothing giving the seats to friends and realatives. I understand it but don't like it.This may backfire if non espers find nothing of value to choose from .

What is alarming is that when you go on the site you don't see much activity but when you come back later huge blocks of seats are gone. These people are not buying just 2 seats.

I suspect HH and F will sell out half way through next week, except for very low seats.A friend who used to buy 10 seats in GG told me he could only affford 2 ESP seats and place the rest of his family in HH. When you consider there are not that many ESP people, maybe this is what is going on. H seems too expensive for ESP to want to buy them. AS I suspected, these will probably go unfilled.

We may see the East side largely unfilled as an aging fan base wants comfortable seats with more leg room. It happened at ATT. The East side is priced right, I hope it sells well.

I pick on April 6th @ 3:40....Was hoping to upgrade from our old section EE to F maybe...But I was wondering what justifies the extreme jump in cost from F to FF and from HH to H. The tickets jump about double in price for what seems minimal field position gain...Is there bar service in FF and H, or what!:beer:

And consider this. Stanford requires NO donation for any seats other than those between the 40's. Try section H, right next to HH. The price goes up from $400 to $1200.00

Stanford Stadium had alot more private funding. I understand Ariaga gave so much they agreed there would be no advertising in the Stadium.It must be nice.:Monty

oskidunker;730861 said:

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And consider this. Stanford requires NO donation for any seats other than those between the 40's. Try section H, right next to HH. The price goes up from $400 to $1200.00

Stanford Stadium had alot more private funding. I understand Ariaga gave so much they agreed there would be no advertising in the Stadium.It must be nice.:Monty

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This goes back to the point I made in the other thread. IMHO, it's pretty hypocritical for anyone to, on the one hand, complaint that the product on the field is not good enough, and then, on the other hand, spend a lot of time complaining about the donation requirements, and/or figure out how to scheme around them. If we had an Arrillaga, the AD wouldn't have the financial problems it has. But we don't, so people who can afford it need to pony up, even if they don't think it's worth it.

People can only pay what they can afford. I have already donated the money for HH or F. The question now is , what will it buy next week?I have never complained about the quality of play. I went to every game during the Holmoe years. I love the experience. Winning is nice but not necessary. Others, I fear have a different feeling, thus cost vs Benefit comes into play.

Plus allowing current season ticket holders/donors to buy up to 20 seats at one time but not enabling long-time groups to sit together without most members losing their BB points. I was listed in the 1% of BB donors but if I buy the seats for my group they lose their BB points...not worth much but they have been earning and donating for years and don't want to 'lose' them. Now, instead of picking early Monday morning, I (might) have to wait a full week for all of us sit together. I am not even sure there will be 10 mediocre seats together at that point.

I'm having problems viewing the Instructional Video. Is it just my cookie blocking or something else? Can everybody see the video?

It is easy to do without the video. I signed onto my account and go to "instructions" and at the end of line 1 of step 1 on the right there is a button that says 'here' that will take you to the stadium map to see what's up...

I was just curious about the video and why I can't see it.

I can't veiw it either! Great job ATO!

I also can't see the seats that have been "grayed" out.

Oh well no need to get upset until I find out where my seats will be.

murraymcleod;730845 said:

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I pick on April 6th @ 3:40....Was hoping to upgrade from our old section EE to F maybe...But I was wondering what justifies the extreme jump in cost from F to FF and from HH to H. The tickets jump about double in price for what seems minimal field position gain...Is there bar service in FF and H, or what!:beer:

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I was wondering the same - the donation required jumps substantially. Maybe it's just that the barricade is so low between FF and the ESP seats that you can jump over, get into the lounges, grab a beer, then run back down and jump back over to your seat?

I pick Tuesday the 3rd in the morning. At the rate the F seats are disappearing, I may not be able to get in there. That'd be ..... well, I'd be pretty p*ssed off.

:headbang

OldenBear;731033 said:

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I was wondering the same - the donation required jumps substantially. Maybe it's just that the barricade is so low between FF and the ESP seats that you can jump over, get into the lounges, grab a beer, then run back down and jump back over to your seat?

I pick Tuesday the 3rd in the morning. At the rate the F seats are disappearing, I may not be able to get in there. That'd be ..... well, I'd be pretty p*ssed off.

:headbang

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Doh. If you early pickers are already not getting seats you want, the ripple effect down will be pretty big just like at AT&T. I don't pick until far later and I'm trying to get next to a pair of friends, but we want to be in a relatively young (standing) section and not wind up with worse seats without jumping up a donation level.

Looks like somethings going to give. Time to talk to the wife and friends about putting up more money!

murraymcleod;730845 said:

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I pick on April 6th @ 3:40....Was hoping to upgrade from our old section EE to F maybe...But I was wondering what justifies the extreme jump in cost from F to FF and from HH to H. The tickets jump about double in price for what seems minimal field position gain...Is there bar service in FF and H, or what!:beer:

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Consider:

Benchback seats
Sections F & HH - $400 annual donation plus Season Ticket costs
Sections FF & H - $1,200 annual donation plus Season Ticket costs

ESP Seats - Section FF, Section H (30-year Annual Fees)
closest to Press Box
Stadium Club B - $6,854
Stadium Club C - $5,140
Field Club B - $3,427
Field Club C - $2,741
closest to Field Level

That jump in annual donation from Section F to FF and Section HH to H in the Benchback sections doesn't look so insane when you compare Benchback seat costs in Sections FF and H to ESP seat costs on the other side of the wall in those same sections.

I think that has to be reserved for the faculty discounted reserved seats, as well as other player seats that they get. I doubt that the ESP folks are buying those.

Geezus, I looked at the seating chart for the first time just now (since seat selection began) and it's pretty discouraging. I wanted to try the lower-priced benchback seats this year. At this rate, when I pick on April 12 they will all be gone. I'm willing to pay the price, but it looks like I won't get the chance. I want to sit on the more comfortably-spaced benches, but if they're all gone, I may just give up on season tickets and just buy individual tickets to the non-sold-out games, which is most of them anyway. :p

It's pretty frustrating to see that Group 1 seat selection hasn't even started, and half the benchback seats above concourse level are already gone. :headbang

Not sure which section you have your eye on.F seems to be selling a little faster than HH. Don't give up. Keep in mind some people prefer the East side, some will pick lower seats and some won't pick anything at all.Just because someone has a time slot doesn't mean they will renew season tickets. Some will forget, some will be out of town.

Also the field has been lowered so you might take a chance with some seats in the lower level. A friend has row 19 in ESP and we used to sit in row 49.

I would suggest if you have to take lower than you want, you might try it for a year and see how you like it.