Croke Park Seating Layout

[Bud Wiser]

Am I on my own in thinking that it is about time the  GAA copied the way soccer stadiums sell their tickets in relation to the layout of the grounds.  Instead of paying Ticketmaster sell them from Croke Park like Man Utd etc.

Wherever they sell them from, or whoever sells them they need to cop on as to what they are selling and stop taking the easy option. As an example if you go on the IRFU site to book tickets you can book a ticket for the Cusack  Stand for 80 euro.  But where in the Cusack Stand? Are you going to be in the front row middle lower or up with the pigeons in the top left corner of the uper tier? There are a number of reasons why they should get off their arses and sort this out and stop taking us all for granted.

1.  Myself for example finds it difficult to follow the ball in hurling because the old eyesight is not great so I could  not watch a game from the upper tier.   I remember one time giving a Mayo man tickets for an AIF and he worked for a certain city council. He had to be facilitated with a downstairs ofice in his work because he suffered fro vertigo and he could not use the seats.  That is one or two reasons why people may not want to use the Upper Tiers.

2.  This year will be a hard sell to get people into Croke Park other than when Dublin Hurlers are playing. Price and cost of attending matches at 75euro a head have a lot to do with this so if for example there was a football game on and a few lads were betwixed and between whether they would go or not they might say, ah sure we will go into town and have a few pints and go to the cheap seats and watch the game.  That is a reason why more people would go to games.

3.  There is a layout of Croke Park on a number of websites which is useless because all tickets are priced the same.  The areas should be colour coded into Left Lower, Centre Lower, Right Lower etc.  Other Stadiums use incentives like a "Quid's In" to allow a child under 7 into the cheap blocks for a pound with an adult at some of the less attractive games.

My reasoning has nothing whatsoever to do with snobery or moaning for the sake of it but say if six guys decide to pay the guts of 500 euro to go to Croke Park for the first time and they end up stuck in bad seats they will not go back. Please don't tell me there is such a thing as a bad seat in Croke Park because my second last experience there is the reason I post this.  If everyone knew what area they were buying tickets for then the GAA would sell more of them and if Man Utd can sell their tickets from their stadium I am at a loss to know why there is not a box office at our HQ.  If the GAA continue to think that every ordinary everyday supporter has a Credit Card then Croke Park will continue to be half empty for Leinster Finals.

[laoisgaa]

But there are cheap kids tickets for years - I remember benefiting from them back in the day. I agree with the rest of the points made though

[laoisgaa]

No - for the Leinster games you'd just go straight to the Leinster Council

[laoisgaa]

Yeah for the non All-Ireland stages games

[Bud Wiser]

Just two things on the replies above.  The childrens thing the GAA have had up to now is a joke because father and childer were sent off to the Nally Stand.  They have no way of controlling the different sections in terms of offering different prices. There is no way that the back row seat in the furthest corner of the Cusack Stand is as valuable as the front row middle of the same stand.

Leinster Council allocate the tickets for all Leinster Games up to and including the Leinster Final.  Now say Laois are playing Dublin and apart from the block booking by clubs and Hill 16, does anyone in their right mind not think that the boys below in Portlaoise are not going to give all the good seats in the lower middle front of the Hogan Stand to their own, because that is what they do.  All tickets for all games in Croke Park should be sold from Croke Park.  And, as i say, if they want to get people into Croke Park this year the very least the punters deserve is to know what they are paying for.  They could have set up a very professional Ticket Allocation syatem for 1.3Million. 

I bought tickets for a Man Utd game last year and every other week I get an email saying tickets for next weeks game are available in such and such a section - because they have a database of previous purchasers and it costs thyem nothing to send the emails.  Ticketmaster do not want to know who went to Croke Park or create a database because they could not care less if it is full or empty.