500 Person Venues If Things Ever Get Back to Normal? (Boston: sale, 2014)

[Japanfan1986]

It seems like around Boston there is a shortage of such venues for things like concerts. 200 person venues seem fairly common and then 1000+ venues there is no shortage of.

I’m a big big combat sports fan and look forward to going to see indie MMA/indie wrestling whenever it is 100 percent safe to do so. But some venues just might never open back up. Since 500 person venues tend to work great for these kind of events I’m wondering if these companies will have any place to go. It’s not like Aerosmith or even UFC/WWE where they can just play anywhere. A lot of combat sports companies are very venue based. So if these venues aren’t around the companies just go out of business.

To be clear there are some ritzy 500 person venues. But given that things like MMA and pro wrestling already have a stigma attached to them it’s usual tough enough for them to get into middle of the row places. Plus, those ritzy places probably price a lot of the smaller companies out.

So in short I’m not sure if I’ll ever attend such a show again.

[masssachoicetts]

There's 4 venues u/c in Boston, doubling what is currently there

[mdovell]

The small comes back before the large. Minor sports before major leagues

[id77]

Originally Posted by mdovell

The small comes back before the large. Minor sports before major leagues

Those minor sports better hurry up. The major sports have started taking fans in the stadiums again.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by id77

Those minor sports better hurry up. The major sports have started taking fans in the stadiums again.

12% capacity at Fenway for opening day. Bleacher seats start at $500 from what I've heard.

[id77]

Originally Posted by redplum33

12% capacity at Fenway for opening day. Bleacher seats start at $500 from what I've heard.

That depends on if you got direct or via secondary market. They did a pre-sale to season ticket holders at face value to 2020 ticket prices (or rather, what they would have been had they not been refunded/balance carried to 2021), but limited to 4500 total and were sold out before all season holders got a chance. At least they prioritized by seniority so the 40+ year long season holders didn’t get jumped by someone who started last year.

Based on the results of the pre-sale, I think some of the best seats also went to special friends/connections in a secret pre-pre-sale.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by id77

That depends on if you got direct or via secondary market. They did a pre-sale to season ticket holders at face value to 2020 ticket prices (or rather, what they would have been had they not been refunded/balance carried to 2021), but limited to 4500 total and were sold out before all season holders got a chance. At least they prioritized by seniority so the 40+ year long season holders didn’t get jumped by someone who started last year.

Based on the results of the pre-sale, I think some of the best seats also went to special friends/connections in a secret pre-pre-sale.

Was that just for opening day tickets? Because we were able to get tickets to 2 games in April for about what I think was face value in 2019 (maybe even less than that - $33/ea for a pair of RF Box seats and $23/ea for a pair of RF Grandstand seats). Normally, I won't touch Grandstand seats because they're the tightest and most uncomfortable in the park. But with 12% of seats being filled, I'm not too worried about being boxed in or squished by a neighbor.

[mdovell]

looks like the south shore music circus is still around and has plans. Mass mutual center delayed that country concert until next year.

It's somewhat like flying after 9/11 or richard reed. If you show someone how safe things are it's going to take awhile until it gets back to what it was.

[id77]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Was that just for opening day tickets? Because we were able to get tickets to 2 games in April for about what I think was face value in 2019 (maybe even less than that - $33/ea for a pair of RF Box seats and $23/ea for a pair of RF Grandstand seats). Normally, I won't touch Grandstand seats because they're the tightest and most uncomfortable in the park. But with 12% of seats being filled, I'm not too worried about being boxed in or squished by a neighbor.

No. It was a bit complicated this year.

Short version is there were two general offerings:

1. For dates besides Opening Day, season holders were offered packages instead of their usual 81-game spread (for obvious reasons). It was broken into blocks where you could buy the same number of tickets you usually did for season. Couldn't pick the games or dates within a block, and it was an all-or-nothing offer. It's also interesting to note that, because of how they're spreading people around, you did NOT get your exact same seats, though you got something generally equivalent. Infield Loge got Infield Loge, Field Box got Field Box, etc. These were offered prior to Opening Day (see below).

2. For Opening Day, it was a second and separate pre-order, done on a seniority basis. For those tickets season ticket holders whose first season was 1948-1986 (yes, someone has had seasons every year since 1948!!!) got to start pre-ordering at 3/26@10:00, 1987-2000 at noon, 2001-2013 at 2:00, and 2014-2021 at 4:00. 4500 total tickets available, and when they sold out they sold out. Exactly when they sold out I don't know. Must purchase 2 or 4 seats; season holders with 1-2 tickets had to buy 2 and holders with 3+ could buy 4. 1 transaction only, so even a holder with 8 seats could only buy 4.

I couldn't tell you what RF grandstands normally cost; I'm in infield loge. I can say that for loge (and presumably other sections), tickets are blocked into 5 tiers throughout the season and variable pricing based on which tier the game is. This is true even for full season holders, but since they're buying all games it's a moot point. In looking at the 2020 tickets (should games have actually been played), the lowest 2 tiers (again for infield loge) were $64 and $95, so a face price of $33 for OF GS seems plausible. It's also not that uncommon to take a loss on the lower tier games when dumping them on stubhub, particularly if it's last-minute or the weather doesn't look to be great so you could have also got them at below-face price.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by id77

No. It was a bit complicated this year.

Short version is there were two general offerings:

1. For dates besides Opening Day, season holders were offered packages instead of their usual 81-game spread (for obvious reasons). It was broken into blocks where you could buy the same number of tickets you usually did for season. Couldn't pick the games or dates within a block, and it was an all-or-nothing offer. It's also interesting to note that, because of how they're spreading people around, you did NOT get your exact same seats, though you got something generally equivalent. Infield Loge got Infield Loge, Field Box got Field Box, etc. These were offered prior to Opening Day (see below).

2. For Opening Day, it was a second and separate pre-order, done on a seniority basis. For those tickets season ticket holders whose first season was 1948-1986 (yes, someone has had seasons every year since 1948!!!) got to start pre-ordering at 3/26@10:00, 1987-2000 at noon, 2001-2013 at 2:00, and 2014-2021 at 4:00. 4500 total tickets available, and when they sold out they sold out. Exactly when they sold out I don't know. Must purchase 2 or 4 seats; season holders with 1-2 tickets had to buy 2 and holders with 3+ could buy 4. 1 transaction only, so even a holder with 8 seats could only buy 4.

I couldn't tell you what RF grandstands normally cost; I'm in infield loge. I can say that for loge (and presumably other sections), tickets are blocked into 5 tiers throughout the season and variable pricing based on which tier the game is. This is true even for full season holders, but since they're buying all games it's a moot point. In looking at the 2020 tickets (should games have actually been played), the lowest 2 tiers (again for infield loge) were $64 and $95, so a face price of $33 for OF GS seems plausible. It's also not that uncommon to take a loss on the lower tier games when dumping them on stubhub, particularly if it's last-minute or the weather doesn't look to be great so you could have also got them at below-face price.

Got it. In the single game ticket world, it didn't seem all that confusing this year. I signed up for the Sox newsletter a few years back so I'm an "Insider" (literally anyone who signs up for the free newsletter is an Insider) and had access to the pre-sale for April games on Weds 3/24. After you selected whether you wanted a 2 or 4 person pod, the purchase process was exactly the same as it always was and the tickets were surprisingly inexpensive relative to what I've seen in the past. Even when I checked on Thursday (when tickets went on sale to everyone), there was a lot of availability throughout the month.