TrueBlue

Interesting note I just realized today, and apologize if already mentioned: Greg Ellingson has been in the league for 3 seasons and his team has made it to the championship game in all 3.

Ray and I were talking about doing something Thursday - if anything, it's probably going to be Spirit of Edmonton. Friday is an unknown but again, it'll be something. Saturday, we'll be downtown. We'll be figuring out our plans. And figuring out when we're doing an LC run for you two, so give your preferences now. Guess I missed the memo...

Two locations actually: Victoria Inn as well as the CC.

Look guys, I am clearly making more enemies here than not because it's evident in this thread that people think there has been mismanagement with tickets sales and pricing/discounts. A lot of things factored into why the prices are what they are, and the people have spoken, and have shown their discontent by not purchasing their tickets. I wish I could make right for everyone here who has been wronged by this and those who regret buying their tickets or signing a three-year commitment. A lot has been learned over the course of the season and many things will be discussed at future meetings over the off-season. It could be a long time before we host another Grey Cup, or it may not. I just hope that people remember this next week for the national event that this is and make the most of it. This is the first Grey Cup at our (nearly) new, logistically challenged stadium, and being run by a new team of people. I hope to be here for the next one, and I'll fight Jesus himself to make sure the same mistakes don't happen again. None of this will convince anyone, nor should it. We've lost the respect of many for various reasons and have to earn it back one by one however long that takes. No one will forget that. I'm going to leave things at that here because this week will be very busy and quite frankly this thread has run it's course for me. The game will be a sellout and that is all that matters to me.

In hindsight a seat similar to yours in BC last year would have been $225, or $249 in Regina the year before, or $250 in Toronto in 2012. Prices are comparable to what they have been in recent Grey Cup games for most sections. Prices are actually more expensive for this year's Grey Cup when you look at comparable seats in Vancouver last year. ----------------------- Vancouver-----------Winnipeg lower bowl $315 $399 w/dsct betw. 30s lower bowl wo/dsct betw 30s $350 $499 lower bowl w/dsct. $315 $299 30s - goal line and upper deck goal line to goal line lower bowl wo/dsct $350 $399 30s - goal line and upper deck goal line to goal line lower bowl corners $225 $249 w/dsct. lower bowl corners $250 $350 wo/dsct. upper deck corners $225 $200 w/dsct upper deck corners $250 $300 wo/dsct end zone lower bowl $135 $199 w/dsct end zone lower bowl $150 $299 wo/dsct end zone upper deck $135 $175 w/dsct. end zone upper deck $150 $175 wo/dsct. THe bolded are the more expensive price points so as you can see in almost every case other than two, comparable seats are more expensive than last year's Grey Cup. IN several instances, it's quite noticeable especially when we are looking at non-discounted tickets. Vancouver had nearly ten thousand or so seats available in the month leading up to the game and had to give away thousands to military and volunteers and charities. They also had to discount thousands to business and individuals. Wade and the Grey Cup committee should have paid attention to this. Instead, they decided to charge a higher average price - so high in fact that they had to resort to cutting capacity by 3000 or so to have the lowest Grey Cup capacity in 40 years. Not only that, I have heard they were giving businesses (not sure if it was specific sponsors or something beyond that) $100 discounts on tickets given the slow sales. I have also confirmed from someone else who recently bought a pair of the cheap seats in the temporary end zone ($175 each) that they were upgraded to the next highest price point ($299 lower bowl end zone) at no additional charge. In essence they were given a $125 discount on tickets. So factor in who knows how many giveaways have been offered to military, charities and volunteers and this will be a rather hollow sellout. If Grey Cup organizing committee had paid attention to recent history and offered an extra price point and some better discounted and non-discounted prices - not to mention get rid of the stupid 3-year commitment to get said discount - then they wouldn't have had to reduce capacity and resort to huge discounts and giveaways. A sellout will be a hollow victory. Touching on some of your points because I feel that that you share information without knowing all the facts. 1. NOT factoring in the temp seating, the average price is about $270/ticket for this year's game and was about $238/ticket in BC last year.Source? So if you do add in that the $175 tickets would drop that $270. So it is a little more. You concede there are only two price points that are lower for this year's game, but they are the most important ones: the seats between the goal lines, which are mostly season ticket holders. Most of the seats between the goal lines in the upper deck did not sell for the reduced price of $299 though for this year's game. I saw the number of blue seats available on ticketmaster back in May and June and over half the seats were still unsold. Therefore most were to be sold for $399 - an increase of $50 over comparable seats at BC Place last year. Same thing with the upper deck corners - most of those remained unsold when the season began so it's safe to assume that almost all those seats were sold (or at least attemped to sell) at the non-discounted price of $300 - more expensive than the non-discounted prices for the upper deck corners are BC Place. My source is doing math. I've taken the time to do this kind of research before and I am a numbers guy. I know the sections and number of seats in BC Place and likewise for IGF. Not that I counted each seat in each section, but I did take a rounded approach based on sections of the same size. That's why I said "about". What's your source for saying that "Most of the seats between the goal lines in the upper deck did not sell for the reduced price of $299 though for this year's game." You say you saw available seats there in May/June, which is true, but to say that most of those seats since then were bought for $399 by non-season ticket holders wouldn't be true. 2. Again cutting the capacity of the stadium for the game had nothing to do with the sales. The temp seating has been the hottest sellers and even if it wasn't going to be a sellout, another 3000 in the north end zone, if it was viable would have made more sense from a business standpoint. When the sales of 24,000 were announced to the general public back in August over half the seats in the temporary end zones were still available on ticketmaster. Since ticketmaster often holds back seats for a variety of reasons (corporate sponsors, other teams, travel packages), safe to say there was even more available than what appeared on the site. They reduced capacity because of the poor demand exacerbated by high prices. Nice try though on the hottest seller bit though. Can't seem to convince you of otherwise here on this, since you've formulated your opinion and refuse to budge based on theories that were propagated and that's fine None of the corporate sponsors or teams will be sitting up there based on tickets that were held back. 3. Discounts offered to corporate sponsors, most of whom have multiple season tickets, would be given the $100 discount just like regular season ticket holders. Others may have had it written into their contract if they signed on just this year as well. A discount to Nissan this late in the game? For 1000 tickets? Somehow I doubt that would have happened if the Bomber organization had priced the tickets correctly. Those tickets would have been sold out long ago. I think you answered your own question there. Obviously if the game had been sold out long ago, there wouldn't have been 1000 tickets to sell to Nissan to be given away. 4. And the people you know who were upgraded, were done so because either they had purchased in the non-existent north end zone temp seating, or had purchased in the south, but had to be moved after the actual seating was constructed and the seating was reconfigured. These fans were all informed by email, but obviously some would have been surprised by this if they had never read the message. Will have to get back to you on this individual who received the free upgrade. I don't believe he received the discount offer by email. The email would have been informing him his original temp seating seats were removed, and thus was receiving a different seat in a 100 level section for no extra charge. I would imagine this does happen at other events as well when seating is put in place only to find out equipment and/or other obstructions may have to supersede some seats. If that does happen I would always hope the organizers would provide better or equivalent seating somewhere else for nothing extra. Your opinion is that will be a hollow victory and that is your opinion. The fact is though is that we will have a sold out stadium at a higher than last year's price point, in addition to the premium sections (loges and suites) all being sold to max capacity. Whether it happened now or two months ago is really not that important. What's important is that the game will be sold out, and the football club will make a nice profit, and that is a hard earned victory for everyone involved. Perception is everything. If the league is concerned about Winnipeg's ability to sell out the game at such a late time compared with the most recent hosts it could compromise the city's ability to host the event in 7-9 years. Instead, we might end up waiting an additional 5 years or longer due to the concern of poor ticket sales for this year's event. Winnipeg doesn't have the advantage of a domed stadium, mild winter weather or an abundance of hotel rooms to overlook this factor. Can't argue with you here. I for one am surprised that we didn't sell out weeks, if not months ago, and I do have a feeling this may reflect on when we do get the Grey Cup again. On the other hand, I know of a few situations that have occurred over the past several months that may contradict that thought. Your idea of a nice profit is what exactly? If it's $5 million that to me is disappointing. That would be half of the previous 2 Grey Cups in BC and Sasky. Anything less than a $7 million profit would be a letdown. We need to remember that despite the club's $3.9 million operating profit last season they were still $600,000 short on their annual $4.5 million stadium repayment plan. An extremely successful Grey Cup with a profit of $7 - $10 million would help bridge the gap each season until the club next hosts the Grey Cup. A less successful Grey Cup (some would say a failure) with a profit of $3 - $5 million increases the likelihood that the Bombers will have to reach into their meagre cash reserves at some point prior to the next Grey Cup hosting year. I'd like to say $10+ mil, as I obviously want the clout of saying we did better than Regina. Yes our stadium will have about 8,000 less fans, but I would guess we have more premium seating than they do at Mosaic so maybe that offsets it a bit. We'll see. See bolded. See LARGER italicized.

It was 1000 tickets and it would have been a taxable write off for Nissan since the tickets were donated. Nice that you spin this story in a negative way, when there are now 1000 students (lots from lower income families) that will now get the chance of a lifetime to see the championship game live with their teammates. This wouldn't have been possible without Nissan's generosity. I didn't "spin" anything. It's what I heard. I was asking if anyone knew if the story told to me was true, that's all. That's the way your post came across to me. Yeah, well you work for the Bombers & it appears that you are extra sensitive. If you're going to be this way maybe you shouldn't be a mod here as it is a conflict of interest. Just a member. I was just asking a question, nothing else. Not extra sensitive at all. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. It's when people want to corroborate on something they've heard that defames the club when they don't know the true facts, that I feel the need to correct it. I would do this in any case, whether I worked for the team or not. In having said that, if you don't want me to be a mod here, then voice your feelings to the admins here and they can address it. I've never used my powers here for evil, or have ever deleted or moderated any comments that would be to the football clubs interest. That's not my prerogative at all. Finally, I'll retract my previous statement and give you the benefit of the doubt with your initial inquiry, my apologies for taking it out of context.

It was 1000 tickets and it would have been a taxable write off for Nissan since the tickets were donated. Nice that you spin this story in a negative way, when there are now 1000 students (lots from lower income families) that will now get the chance of a lifetime to see the championship game live with their teammates. This wouldn't have been possible without Nissan's generosity. I didn't "spin" anything. It's what I heard. I was asking if anyone knew if the story told to me was true, that's all. That's the way your post came across to me.

It was 1000 tickets and it would have been a taxable write off for Nissan since the tickets were donated. Nice that you spin this story in a negative way, when there are now 1000 students (lots from lower income families) that will now get the chance of a lifetime to see the championship game live with their teammates. This wouldn't have been possible without Nissan's generosity.

In hindsight a seat similar to yours in BC last year would have been $225, or $249 in Regina the year before, or $250 in Toronto in 2012. Prices are comparable to what they have been in recent Grey Cup games for most sections. Prices are actually more expensive for this year's Grey Cup when you look at comparable seats in Vancouver last year. ----------------------- Vancouver-----------Winnipeg lower bowl $315 $399 w/dsct betw. 30s lower bowl wo/dsct betw 30s $350 $499 lower bowl w/dsct. $315 $299 30s - goal line and upper deck goal line to goal line lower bowl wo/dsct $350 $399 30s - goal line and upper deck goal line to goal line lower bowl corners $225 $249 w/dsct. lower bowl corners $250 $350 wo/dsct. upper deck corners $225 $200 w/dsct upper deck corners $250 $300 wo/dsct end zone lower bowl $135 $199 w/dsct end zone lower bowl $150 $299 wo/dsct end zone upper deck $135 $175 w/dsct. end zone upper deck $150 $175 wo/dsct. THe bolded are the more expensive price points so as you can see in almost every case other than two, comparable seats are more expensive than last year's Grey Cup. IN several instances, it's quite noticeable especially when we are looking at non-discounted tickets. Vancouver had nearly ten thousand or so seats available in the month leading up to the game and had to give away thousands to military and volunteers and charities. They also had to discount thousands to business and individuals. Wade and the Grey Cup committee should have paid attention to this. Instead, they decided to charge a higher average price - so high in fact that they had to resort to cutting capacity by 3000 or so to have the lowest Grey Cup capacity in 40 years. Not only that, I have heard they were giving businesses (not sure if it was specific sponsors or something beyond that) $100 discounts on tickets given the slow sales. I have also confirmed from someone else who recently bought a pair of the cheap seats in the temporary end zone ($175 each) that they were upgraded to the next highest price point ($299 lower bowl end zone) at no additional charge. In essence they were given a $125 discount on tickets. So factor in who knows how many giveaways have been offered to military, charities and volunteers and this will be a rather hollow sellout. If Grey Cup organizing committee had paid attention to recent history and offered an extra price point and some better discounted and non-discounted prices - not to mention get rid of the stupid 3-year commitment to get said discount - then they wouldn't have had to reduce capacity and resort to huge discounts and giveaways. A sellout will be a hollow victory. Touching on some of your points because I feel that that you share information without knowing all the facts. 1. NOT factoring in the temp seating, the average price is about $270/ticket for this year's game and was about $238/ticket in BC last year. So if you do add in that the $175 tickets would drop that $270. So it is a little more. You concede there are only two price points that are lower for this year's game, but they are the most important ones: the seats between the goal lines, which are mostly season ticket holders. 2. Again cutting the capacity of the stadium for the game had nothing to do with the sales. The temp seating has been the hottest sellers and even if it wasn't going to be a sellout, another 3000 in the north end zone, if it was viable would have made more sense from a business standpoint. 3. Discounts offered to corporate sponsors, most of whom have multiple season tickets, would be given the $100 discount just like regular season ticket holders. Others may have had it written into their contract if they signed on just this year as well. 4. And the people you know who were upgraded, were done so because either they had purchased in the non-existent north end zone temp seating, or had purchased in the south, but had to be moved after the actual seating was constructed and the seating was reconfigured. These fans were all informed by email, but obviously some would have been surprised by this if they had never read the message. Your opinion is that will be a hollow victory and that is your opinion. The fact is though is that we will have a sold out stadium at a higher than last year's price point, in addition to the premium sections (loges and suites) all being sold to max capacity. Whether it happened now or two months ago is really not that important. What's important is that the game will be sold out, and the football club will make a nice profit, and that is a hard earned victory for everyone involved.

What cops are stopping you over provincial borders? I've never had that happen to me ever. The sampler collab looks intriguing, but I'm not sure why they wouldn't include the new Portage & Main IPA in there. Does Portage & Main IPA come in a smaller bottle? That might be why.

The game is going to sell out at these prices.

In hindsight a seat similar to yours in BC last year would have been $225, or $249 in Regina the year before, or $250 in Toronto in 2012. Prices are comparable to what they have been in recent Grey Cup games for most sections.

If you're actually making the road trip and not flying (which I thought you were), you should do a beer swap with Ray & I. We'll put you together a package of some of Winnipeg's finest craft and you bring us some of Alberta's. How do I get in on this?

We'll only play Saskatchewan twice in each of the next two seasons.

Dat would be the record completion percentage in 2005, Bob! That and his stupid ******* facial hair choices and his giant dumbo ears... he just looks like someone you'd want to punch right in the face. Don't you find this statement ironic Noeller??

Ha, if you're saying that I can't handle my beer intake, I'd have to correct you.

I've gotten into some stouts, but I just can't enjoy them most of the time. That Phillips sampler has good variety, but I keep just falling back to the IPAs anyways. I'm biased. Dave will try and sway you toward the ESBs....I'm a big fan of Red's. There's a new one from Village Brewery called "The Huntsman" that I really enjoy. Earthy....ton of flavour. I'm a fan.... I've had a few ESBs and I liked them. I even enjoyed one so much (the Super Cooper 14 Year Special that Phillips did) that I bought another one. Some good reds out there too. Just not a lot of options at my local LC, they're big on the IPA train right now. We'll be getting in late next Weds night for GC Week, and one thing I'm really stoked for is wandering the LC to see what kinda options they have while we're home. Curious how the selection compares to some of the "private" stores we have here, in terms of craft beer... In my opinion, it's gotten better, but it's still not great. For the size of the stores here, they would have to clear out all the crap to make room for a great selection.

True. Myself personally, I would find it hard to separate so many in a short period of time. If I'm going to binge on the weekend, I'm usually going to keep it to 1 or 2 different brews, max.

You tried all those over the weekend?? Indeed I did. It was a slow weekend. Good for you. Wait til you have kids.

You tried all those over the weekend??

They're MLCC generic.... http://www.liquormarts.ca/retail-marketing/growler-bar

Anybody else think Owens doesn't re-sign in TO?

For those in MB, I picked up a Growler recently at the LC and have been trying the few crafts they have on tap filling it up with something different each time. Tried the FGB Hop Therapy ISA this past weekend. Pretty decent if you like dry hopped beers.

But youre assuming that because they're on a winning team that they're in a good situation. What if Brady is tired of being in Milanovich's shadow. What if Condell is getting stressed out with Austin yelling at him every time something goes wrong with the offense.What if they're not? What if they are? What if they're not? Thank for giving me yet another example of what irks me about how you post. In this case Logan makes a valid point and asks a very valid question and you completely dismiss it, instead of addressing it. Then JBR tries to redirect you back onto the point at hand, and again you completely ignore this and post the same comment back. Then you expect an answer to your question? I don't know if it's just ignorance, disrespect to the poster, or both. Like seriously....

Or this.