My mom and dad came to town yesterday evening to visit and do some baby squidging. Ray and I had been talking about going to a Grizzlies game, and dad had mentioned a while back he’d like to join us. So we headed to FedExForum for dad’s first NBA game ever, and our second time out of the house without Holden.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t bought tickets ahead of time because the Grizzlies were playing the Nuggets, and I figured there would be plenty of cheap seats left. I mean, at least three cheap seats. Because that is what experience has taught me. I don’t ever figure the Forum will sell out any ticket levels unless it’s the playoffs or some crazy popular team is in town. Not a lot of Denver fans around here, I’d wager. But maybe I’m wrong. <\/p>\n
Because when we got to the window and asked for three $5 seats on a non-goal side of the arena, the ticket lady did her computer search for a few seconds. Some dude in a suit was hovering behind her although I’m not sure that has anything to do with anything, other than it feeds my conspiracy theory. The lady told us they were sold out of $5 seats. Huh. What’s the next price level up? We’ll take that, we said. My dad forked over the $54 ($18 apiece) (he insisted on paying!) and we took our tickets and went inside, surprised at what a robust turnout a Denver game apparently inspired. <\/p>\n
Until we got to our seats. Our seats that might as well have been $5 seats, they were so nosebleedy. <\/p>\n
I don’t know if the Forum\/Grizzlies have changed their seating pricing or reduced the number of $5 seats (it’s possible, but I can’t find anything about it online), but we were seated more or less in the same place I have sat many times before for $5, except it cost us $13 more per seat. And the rub? There were rows and rows and rows of empty seats behind us and all over the Forum. Did all those seats really belong to $5 ticket holders who had just not shown up, or who had moved down a few rows to the $18 seats? (I know they didn’t dare get on to the club level or below; they police those levels pretty well.) Or did some scalpers have a bunch of $5 tickets they didn’t unload? Or are those seats now also $18 seats, all the way to the wall at the very top of the arena? (The item here<\/a> about a Taco Bell super saver seat makes me wonder if they really have reduced the number of $5 seats to just a small section. Even if they did, that section was not sold out. You can see it still fairly empty in this picture, on the left side toward the top.)<\/p>\n
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