Southsiders VP Shares His MLS Supporters’ Summit Experience With AFTN

One of the great additional attractions of the MLS Cup is the Supporters Summit that takes place over the same weekend.

Supporters mingle, bond and share common grievances, whilst also getting the chance to put some of these concerns to MLS officials.

AFTN really must make the trip some time soon. It’s the Scottish ideal to be where the freebies are after all!

This year’s Summit drew many fans down to southern California and one of them was Vancouver Southsiders Vice-President Brett Graham.

We asked Brett to document his time at the Summit and share his thoughts on what went on and what he learned…

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This past weekend in Los Angeles football fans from across the continent gathered for the annual MLS Supporters Summit. They attended meetings, partied … oh and watched the MLS Cup Final between the LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo.

Each year the supporter groups of the home team work with their club and the MLS to plan the weekend activities. This year one of the LAG’s supporters groups, the Angel City Brigade, were our hosts. This meant they had the task of selecting the hotel, organizing our meeting and socializing.

The 2011 Summit was attended by supporters from all MLS clubs, with the exception of FC Dallas, as well as a number of supporters of NASL and USL sides.

I was lucky enough to have attended this weekend and represent the Vancouver Southsiders. This is my story:

I flew down to Los Angeles from Bellingham on the Friday. This a feat I managed by convincing the Homeland Security agent at the border that Major League is a real thing, and the TSA agent that I wasn’t a terrorist trying to blow up the plane with a stack of papers on balanced schedules. When I arrived in LA it was sunny and 17 degrees, quite a contrast from the snow I left behind in Vancouver.

That evening league sponsor, Budweiser, were throwing a party at our hotel. Not only did it include free beer and food, but also allowed us to see how Budweiser is made and allowed us to play Poolball.

Poolball is where nightlife and football combine in a giant pool table, where soccer balls are kicked instead of pool balls hit with a cue.

I must admit I likely am the worst player in the brief history of the new sport after I scratched on my second kick of the ball.

As much as ‘How to Make Budweiser’ might sound like an advertisement for real beer, I have to say it was the highlight of the night. We were given four bottles of Budweiser in different stages of its production and little cups of the ingredients. As each process was explained we were encouraged to taste the barley, rice, hops, and the beer at that stage. It was really cool.

The night ended with a raffle of items donated by the supporter groups with proceeds going to MLS WORKS. Although I must admit that despite buying a large number of raffle tickets, I had already been convinced to join a much smaller party upstairs before the draw started.

On Saturday I woke up blurry eyed and headed to this really sweet Mexican restaurant, with a life size ‘gold’ statue of a football player in the lobby, just a few blocks from the Home Depot Centre for the third Annual Independent Supporters Council meeting.

This meeting was attended by just the Supporters Groups and a full agenda of items important to the fans were discussed. At the meeting I was joined by La Doce’s Massimo Cusano, and the two of us combined to start a discussion advocating a balanced schedule.

Hearing about what issues were important to the other groups was not only interesting, but also very helpful for me as one of the leaders of the Southsiders. Learning from the experiences of others can only help our group. For people less involved, the food was great and there was a great selection of cheap beers.

Next up was a lunch and meeting between Supporter Group leaders and Club liaisons in the Presidents Club of the Home Depot Centre.

This meeting was chaired by Evan Dabby, MLS Senior Director of Operations, and included discussions on everything from away allocations, to the schedule, to changes in the format to the Summit itself.

The meeting was extremely productive as it allowed views to be shared between all groups. Not only did the supporter groups get to tell all the club representatives exactly what their feelings were, but it allowed them to tell us their views in return.

At this meeting I really pushed my Balanced Schedule paper. I truly believe that through meetings like this a lot can be accomplished in helping both the supporters and the League in getting what they want and where they ultimately want to be.

That evening the Angel City Brigade had organized a pub night out by the beach. Even better they had arranged a bus to constantly loop back between the party and the hotel. But even better still, there was booze on said bus!

Before that though Massimo and I went downtown to meet the Whitecaps Front Office for dinner at their hotel at the Westin. While a lot of the days topics were revisited from a local perspective, it was a far more social affair and great fun.

There are a lot of great and fun people working for our front office and it is nice to see them outside of a work context. The hotel also was the Official Hotel of the MLS Cup Final so all the glassware was branded, I’m not exactly sure how it happened but four pint glasses ended returning back to Vancouver with me!

After Dinner we returned back to our hotel, before jumping on the party bus with some new friends from Houston and heading out to see the band. Unfortunately by the time we got there people had moved on down to the Pier, a district just down the beach that was filled with nightclubs and beer halls.

I was able to find a group of Portland, Chivas, Colorado, Toronto and Chicago fans all hanging out together at an Irish pub and many pitchers of beer, onion rings, and stories were shared until we had to walk back to get picked up by the last party bus at 2.

Back at the hotel we were invited to an after party in a Chivas fan’s room which lasted until almost 5am when hotel security shut it down.

On Matchday, to be honest, I felt like death.

After a quick meeting in the hotel lobby about updating the Supporters Shield we were off to the Home Depot Centre for the big Don Garber Event. Unfortunately it was pissing down with rain, and we were seated outside for it.

Garber’s question and answer session really allowed the fans to voice their displeasure with the new schedule. I was both proud and slightly embarrassed when people started bringing up my paper on Balanced Schedules and holding them up in the air. Although I really didn’t like a lot of what he had to say, I have to admit I have great respect for the man for his willingness to put himself out there. After Garber’s session there was another with another group of League managers.

Following this all the fans received a free scarf and a lunch provided by a League sponsor. At this time everyone headed out to the massive tailgate being thrown by the LA Supporters. Everyone except for one supporter from each club who would take part in a pre-match presentation and who then spent the next two hours rehearsing in the pouring rain.

After that was finished though we joined the others at the tailgate. By then it was in full swing. On the other side of the parking lot all the League sponsors had pavilions set up. Myself and two girls, one from Colorado and one from Portland, went around collecting as much free crap as we could. I ended up with everything from scarves, to kit-bags, to tequila before heading back to the tailgate.

Before the match I had the great honour of representing the Vancouver Whitecaps on the field in a pre-match presentation. It involved me walking onto the field with a Whitecaps flag with 17 other supporters each representing their clubs … well except for Dallas whom didn’t have any fans at the match and thus actually were represented by a cute Timbers fan!

The match itself was pretty uneventful. As you know Houston were dreadful on the attack and the LA Galaxy were a far better team.

After the match we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up for the after party downtown at Staples Centre. What an amazing experience that was.

The entire floor of the arena had been converted into a massive nightclub with a massive round stage in the centre. There was free food, free booze and it was DJ’d by Will I Am.

The players were all in a roped off section celebrating with the trophy and we had a grand time. It was pretty spectacular.
I even managed to get a picture with the MLS Cup.

Monday it was back home but not before some last pints at LAX with some new and old friends.

The MLS Cup weekend was a fantastic experience and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Major League Soccer. It is a great balance of productivity and partying.

This was the second Summit that I have attended and I will be back again next time. Why don’t you join me?

Brett Graham (Vancouver Southsiders Vice President)

Seattle’s Invasion And The Lessons To Be Learned

We’d love to move on from Saturday’s defeat to Seattle. We really would.

Actually, we’d love to just move on to the end of the season.

Before we can do either though, there’s a point of much discussion which we’d like to address – namely, the Southsiders at Empire Field on Saturday evening.

A number of people have been critical of how the Southsiders were outsung by the ECS and Seattle fans and their performance on the night.

As a long time Southsiders, I’m not even to begin to sugar coat it. We were outsung in our own house by one of our fiercest rivals. Seattle’s fans owned Empire last weekend.

It’s not an uncommon thing in football though for the away support to be loud, boisterous and obnoxious as hell, and often they are much more vocal than the home supporters.

There is no doubt that the Southsiders heads went down during the game. The players have admitted that their’s did, so why should the fans be any different? Some will argue that it is the supporters group job to keep the support up for the full ninety minutes.

I disagree.

There are not many Leagues around the world where the supporters are cranked up to ten for the whole game. Coming from the UK, the singing, chanting and TIFO displays that we have here far exceed what I’m used to. It’s a welcome change but it doesn’t mean we have to be non stop.

Vocal support also has to be earned as far as I’m concerned.

The performance by the players on the pitch shapes the performance of the supporters off it and let’s be totally frank here, the performance of Whitecaps fans this season has been far better than the results, and at times efforts, from the team.

We had a lesser display against Seattle. So what? Deal with it people and let’s make sure that we don’t repeat it on Sunday against Portland.

I know that when the penalty went in, I was deflated and by the time the third goal crashed into the back of Joe Cannon’s net, I was pretty disheartened and could hardly muster up a chant for the rest of the match.

I also didn’t applaud the players off the pitch, as I didn’t think they deserved it. If you think that makes me a bad supporter then get a reality check. We’re not here to show blind faith. We need something back in return. We shouldn’t be sheep.

The atmosphere on Saturday and the noise from the Seattle support wasn’t helped by whichever brainiac at the front office decided to put the ECS under a fucking roof right beside the broadcast booth to amplify their noise both in the stadium and for the viewers at home. At least at BC Place we’re all going to be under a roof if it’s closed.

Watching TSN’s coverage, all you could hear was the Seattle fans. The fact that the Canadian station kept showing the American fans also didn’t help.

In the stadium, when we were singing, we couldn’t hear the ECS. Unfortunately, the rest of the stadium couldn’t hear us either for most of the game, only them.

People have complained about Seattle fans in amongst the Vancouver support. Who do you blame for that? The front office?

Frankly, I blame the Vancouver public who let Seattle fans get these tickets because they couldn’t be arsed going themselves or getting of their asses soon enough to buy them. You can’t blame the Club for selling tickets to whoever wants to buy them. The only exception should be no away supporters in the home team’s supporters section at any of the three team’s stadiums.

If you were a Seattle fan and not a member of ECS or Gorilla FC, then you weren’t going to get a ticket to the match, so you only had one other option. You can’t blame loyal Seattle fans for wanting to watch their team. If the situation was in reverse, I’d most certainly be buying a ticket amongst the Seattle support if that was the only way I was going to see the game.

Hopefully this will alert the Caps FO to the huge demand from down south and allocate a bigger section at BC Place for travelling support. Season ticket logistics may not make this possible though and having them placed in the upper tier above home supporters should be an immediate no-no. As usual with the Caps, the contingancy plan may not be in place.

The whole 500 away fans allocation and how it is handled needs to be seriously reviewed and revised for next season, but that’s an article for another day.

On Sunday, the vastly less obnoxious of the US Cascadians come a calling.

A lot of work has gone behind the scenes this week to try and get the Southside rocking and to create an atmosphere to be proud of at our new home.

Admittedly part of that was due to the fact that there was another ticketing fuck up. We haven’t reported this yet as it could actually work out as a benefit for the Southside, so we’ll see how things pan out on Sunday.

There are problems within the Southside with regards to creating an atmosphere.

We’re hoping that the move to BC Place will iron out some of these and the Caps seem to be a lot more receptive of ways forward involving Capos and megaphones, now that their shackles of the PNE have been removed.

The Southsiders now have four games to see what needs to worked upon next season but it should not all be up to this supporters group to build the right atmospheree at Caps game.

EVERY supporter is responsible.

There were a lot of comments from non Southsiders after Saturday’s game saying we didn’t bring it.

In case people didn’t notice, the Southsiders are not some performance artistes that you are paying your money to see. You want a better atmosphere, then play your part in getting it.

Not everyone wants to stand and sing. We fully accept that. We all support the Caps in our own way. Keep supporting them the way you are comfortable with.

Just make sure you do it and bring the noise and passion.

To nick a Canucks slogan, remember, WE ARE ALL WHITECAPS.

Vancouver Falls In Love With Whitecaps

“When I watch the Whitecaps, I go outta my head. I just can’t get enough”. And neither it seems can the rest of the Vancouver public.

After the years of anticipation, it was all over in what seemed like a flash. But it was epic (a word I seldom use) and worth every minute of that long wait.

When I got home last night I just wanted to gush out all my exuberance in the blog, but thought better of it. One swallow does not a summer make and all that. Time for some solemn Sunday reflections and not to get too carried away.

That said though, GIRFUY Toronto!

We’ll look at the playing side later, but for now we want to look at supporters gameday experience.

The whole day, the entire occasion was even better than I’d been expecting. Getting the three points, and in some style too, was just the icing on the cake.

A lot of the general feeling of contentment in Vancouver this morning is a direct happening of not just what happened on the pitch but also off it.

The atmosphere was electric and the excitement palpable.

Every supporter in the stadium was responsible for this.

It wasn’t just the Southsiders. All four corners of the stadium were bouncing, loud and proud as hell. It was a joy to behold.

Who would have thought that something as simple as the old-school call and response “White” – “Caps” chant could have not only been so effective, but also so deafening.

People have told me since I moved here that Vancouver is a “football city” and would embrace Major League Soccer with gusto. I had my doubts but was blown away by what I experienced yesterday. I never thought I’d see that here for a football match and I’m not alone.

Listening to the players post game, watching last night’s news reports, reading todays papers and trawling articles on the web, the one thing that is consistant is how much everyone enjoyed the occasion and the crowd were a huge talking point.

What’s even more exciting about it all, is that this is just the start. With the buzz yesterday created, the Whitecaps are soon going to become the hottest ticket in town outside of Canucks playoff action.

Even from just reading comments on Twitter, Canucks fans were saying that the atmosphere at Empire made them realise what hockey doesn’t give them.

No one who was at the game yesterday could not go home and wax lyrical to all and sundry about what a Whitecaps game is all about. That’s how we’ll grow the game in the city and the national TV coverage is how us and the TFC fans will help grow the game in Canada.

De-Ro was interesting after the game. Praising our fans, he made the just comment that he can only hope that people will come out to support the national team like that.

From a Southsiders point of view, the bigger surroundings led to some logistical kinks that need quickly ironed out.

Being all on the same page and in unison with the songs is a key to having an impact. It was loud as hell in our section but those just a few sections along couldn’t hear us in the wide open space. Even those a few rows up had no idea what we were singing.

We need to make sure that non members can know exactly what it is we’re singing, learn the words and tunes and join in on the ones that they want to. It’ll come. Early days.

Pre-match, at Oscars Pub, everyone was in full flow. The place was packed to the rafters and bar staff told us that they’d never seen the place with a crowd like that, even last year when the Lions had their first full season at Empire Field.

The Southsiders ‘March To The Match’ was also an amazing sight and it wasn’t just members of the group that took part.

As I looked around Oscars, the march and my section at Empire, I didn’t recognise most of the faces around me.

Every one of them though shared the same passion and excitement for the day, and season, that lay ahead.

The key now of course is to keep that excitement, those numbers and the amount of noise going and then to keep growing it. From what I saw yesterday, I don’t think we’ll have a lot to worry about.

Then of course there was ‘poncho power’.

The whole poncho thing backfired on the Club big time. Someone at the Whitecaps this morning must now be thinking “well that was a bad idea”. You don’t give sports fans, let alone football fans, something they can throw!

“Please refrain from throwing your ponchos onto the pitch” was not really a phrase I thought I would ever be hearing at the football.

It was fun watching the ponchos rain down from all four sides of the stadium. Almost as pleasing was watching the couple of attempts at a wave fail! (regular readers will know what a bugbear of mine this is)

Supporters like organic growth, not Club forced initiatives. It was good that the Caps wanted to do something to kickstart it, but I think it’s up to all us fans now to move this forward.

I lost my voice to the Whitecaps yesterday. The city lost their hearts.

[* You can find more photo’s on AFTN Flickr account. Videos will also be appearing on our You Tube channel over the course of the day, so check it out! *]

Positive Solutions Forthcoming For Away Supporters

It finally looks like we have some positive solutions to the issue surrounding Toronto fans ticketing for the MLS opener on March 19th, and hopefully for all other travelling supporters this season.

Following our blog on Monday, the Whitecaps finally addressed the problems and AFTN had a productive talk with the Whitecaps yesterday surrounding a number of the issues.

As we explained on last night’s It’s Called Football podcast, we’d much rather have a Club that admits they’ve made mistakes, listens and then corrects them than a club that is so pig-headed that it just ploughs on regardless, to everyone’s detriment.

The one thing which the Caps were keen to stress is that they want to welcome all fans. We’re all on the same page here. The Club, AFTN and the Southsiders all want healthy travelling supports at Empire, BC Place and throughout the MLS. It’s how to create an electric, must attend atmosphere and it’s the only way we will truly see the league move on to the next level.

The Whitecaps also confirmed that the Toronto fans will be based in sections 228 and 229. A healthy 250 seats have been put aside for TFC fans and this message has been conveyed to the supporters groups back east.

Tickets for the seats in the TFC area will go on sale on Thursday morning at 10am PST and away fans who are planning to attend the match in a group should call Tom Tompkins on 604 669 9283 (ext 2223) to get their tickets.

What is now important is that BC based Toronto fans also buy seats in that section. The Whitecaps want to point that they reserve the right to move away fans who are sitting in home designated sections, especially the Southside, to ensure a safe and friendly environment for all fans.

Let’s just hope that this message is properly conveyed to PNE security staff.

Another big area of concern to us around ticketing was the Ticketmaster website and the fact that both away support and families could end up unknowingly buying tickets right in the heart of the Southside.

The Caps admit that the current set up of it is not ideal and will be working closely with Ticketmaster to ensure that fans know exactly what kind of section they are buying tickets for. Until this has been done, the Club have tried to address this with an article which went up last night on the official site regarding supporters seating at Empire.

The Club want everyone to know just where the supporters group and the matchday atmosphere is going to be:

“There is no doubt that sections 216 – 222 (where our Southsiders, a South American drum troupe, and other supporters will be) will be among the loudest in leading the cheers at Empire Field, and I encourage everyone to join in. Empire is our home, now let’s get loud Vancouver!”

Carl Valentine explains that the Club want to turn Empire into a fortress. It’s a stadium that’s set up to enable that to happen. We all need to play our part in making that happen. Having the right seating arrangement will be a good start.

Whitecaps Ticketing Issues Just Won’t Go Away

Another week, another load of questions around Whitecaps ticketing issues. I know, we’re starting to bore ourselves with it all now.

Last week we raised the issue of Toronto fan ticketing for our MLS opener on March 19th and when we broke the news that there had been a “communication error” when it came to what section the TFC fans would be in, this was the first that the Toronto fans had heard of it.

Duane Rollins from the 24th Minute blog and It’s Called Football podcast, spoke to a Whitecaps representative last week who said they weren’t worried about pockets of BC based TFC fans being scattered around the stadium and that the concern had been of large groups of TFC fans but this was all in hand. I’m sure this was news to some of the Toronto fans who have been trying to finalise their trips.

All of this was just the latest in a long line of ticketing decisions and problems that have angered Whitecaps fans – and now fans of other MLS teams too.

With so much happening, let’s just bring everyone up to speed…

First there was all the furore about ticket prices, then the problems many fans had with trying to select their seats online through the software in place, followed by the problems of trying to get the Whitecaps to actually take payment for their tickets (I had to wait till mid January before the first half of my order was processed).

We’ve also had the Cascadia away fans ticket limits issue and the initial problems Caps fans had in getting tickets to the Cascadia Summit pre-season tournament in March, when the Whitecaps ticketing department only communicated to fans that they could indeed buy the Vancouver allocation of tickets from them – a week after the general sale had taken place on Ticketmaster.

Then came the Toronto fans ticketing issues around how many tickets they could get, how they could get them, what section they would be in at the stadium and what restrictions would be imposed on them.

Phew!

We should point out here that the individual ticket reps at the Caps have been fantastic, patient and tried to answer everyone’s questions as much as they can. I can’t speak highly enough of them. It’s those higher ups in the ticketing department that need to have a long hard look at themselves.

So on to the latest developments…

As we revealed what seems to have been ages ago now, Ticketmaster were advertising that Whitecaps single game tickets would be going on sale to the general public on Saturday February 19th. This information was later confirmed by the Whitecaps themselves.

However, on Friday afternoon, this all changed and it was announced that the general sale would be pushed back until 10am on Wednesday February 23rd and only tickets to the first three home games would be available to purchase. The reason given for the delay was that:

“Due to continued high demand for season tickets, Whitecaps FC have extended an exclusive window for season ticket holders to purchase single match tickets prior to tickets going on sale to the general public”.

A little late in communicating this fact but fair enough. You want to try and get as many packages sold for the entire season as you can and then open up the free for all for the single game tickets. No problems at all with that.

Some disagree with this decision, but as long as the season ticket holders aren’t planning on buying additional tickets to tout, I feel this was the right decision and a good perk for those that have shelled out for season tickets.

Most season ticket holders received an email on Friday afternoon advising them that they had an exclusive window to buy additional single game tickets for friends and family from 10am on Saturday until 10pm the day before the general sale begins this coming Wednesday. A special pre-sale access code was provided.

This though is then where the latest problems and concerns began.

Tickets for Toronto fans in their allocated “away” section are due to go on sale on Thursday February 24th (if this has subsequently changed, please let us know). Some TFC fans are worried about missing out or are wanting to finalise their trips but want to know that they definitely have a ticket first.

Many have talked about just trying to buy tickets in the general sale and the Southsiders Director of Events, who is repsonible for the group’s away travel plans, confirmed to AFTN that Toronto fans have been contacting him “like crazy” trying to get tickets for the match. Demand certainly seems to be higher than the 60 or so fans that the Caps FO think are going to be there to cheer on Toronto.

Many fans have been trying to find out the pre-sale code to get tickets even earlier and, somewhat worryingly, this code was easily found on a general football forum for anyone to use to buy tickets.

This is a huge to concern to both AFTN and the Southsiders. It should also be a big concern to the Whitecaps FO.

I’m not wanting any extra tickets for the first three matches, but I tried the pre-sale code just to see what it came up with. I was horrified that I could have bought 8 seats in my section of the Southside and not only that, there was no indication to anyone buying the tickets, whether they be Toronto fans or families, that this is in fact the supporters section of the stadium.

So basically, Toronto fans can buy tickets to anywhere in the ground and in blocks of up to 8 at a time as well. And they will, especially the BC based ones who aren’t members of the Red Patch Boys and U-Sector. Remember there has been trouble at the last couple of Voyageurs Cup matches at Swangard. If this method is not a disaster waiting to happen then I don’t know what is.

You can say I’m being a bit overdramatic but there’s none so blind as those who cannot see. I’m not a business expert in any way, shape or form. but my 20 years experience in it has taught me to always consider the worst case scenario. That’s what we have here.

ANY trouble at our opening game is not only going to affect Vancouver fans but also travelling fans league wide. It only takes two drunken idiots to start a big rammy. I hope it won’t happen and the best way to make sure that it doesn’t is proper ticket distribution.

Do the Caps want to see positive headlines about the coming of MLS or newspaper headlines screaming “Football hooliganism comes to Vancouver”?

Also, away from the TFC fans aspect of all this, I wouldn’t want to be the poor family or elderly couple that will now find themselves surrounded by an all singing, all dancing and all standing crowd in the Southside. Let’s just hope that the PNE security staff are properly briefed that this is what that section is.

I wonder what other ticketing trials and tribulations are going to occur in the next few weeks. I still haven’t received or been charged for my Cascadia Summit tickets and we have the whole season ticket distribution still to come. Call me foolish, but I believe that this will all go according to plan. I have to really, otherwise we’re going to have a very angry opening day line up at the will call windows.

It really is a shame that the marketing and media teams at the Caps are knocking themselves out with trying to raise the profile, promote the club and present a highly polished and professional image whilst at the same time the seemingly never ending ticketing clusterfucks are making the club look anything but ‘major league’.

Away Fans Ticketing Update – Communication Error Blamed For Confusion

Following on from our story on Sunday about the shambles surrounding Toronto fans getting tickets for the Caps home opener, we have an update.

Southsiders President, John Knox, has been in contact with Roberto Cabrone at the Whitecaps Front Office and he has confirmed that the section originally communicated to Toronto fans was incorrect and they are now likely to be in Sections 228 and 229 at the north end of the stadium and well away from the Southsiders.

It was also confirmed that the Southsiders will indeed be in the Southside of the stadium.

The sections now allocated to TFC fans (and we can assume all visiting supporters), looks to be in the non alcohol section, if things are kept at Empire as they are for BC Lions games. I’m sure that’s bound to please them! This is also likely to mean in amongst families, which is a bit strange in itself. Families who wanted to be at the opposite end of the stadium from the noise and language of the Southside, will now be beside visiting supporters and as an away fan, you always want to be louder and as obnoxious as possible to those roundabout you. Watch the complaints roll in.

The Caps FO are under the impression that we are only talking about 30 tickets here. From reading various TFC fans forums, and taking into account BC based TFC fans, I would say that we’re looking at much greater numbers than this. If any TFC fans could get in touch to confirm one way or the other, then that would be great.

Whilst it is good that this has now, apparently, been finally sorted out, the miscommunication is a worry and just raises more questions about exactly what kind of shambles the Whitecaps ticketing office is currently in.

They have confirmed that season ticket packages will be mailed by Purolator in the week leading up to the home opener, which doesn’t allow for much time if things go awry or are unable to be delivered to some fans.

The Southsiders are also organising a pick up event at the Lamplighter Pub on March 15th, and we strongly recommend this as the best option. You MUST RSVP in advance though, so please check out their website for more details.

More news on ticketing issues to follow…

Toronto Ticket Allocation For Season Opener Raises Raft Of Questions For Vancouver Fans

With less than five weeks to go now until the Whitecaps MLS era kicks off, questions are still arising about how the Caps Front Office are handling ticketing and some worrying news from out east is bound to raise a number of new questions amongst the Caps support.

There’s already a lot been written about the mess many fans faced when trying to buy their season tickets.

The Caps have been quiet on specific numbers of season tickets sold, but we are led to believe they’re happy with how things have gone. Now that the date has passed for payments of the final instalment on most people’s tickets, we’ll hopefully be able to get an accurate number from them.

Single game tickets are due to go on sale via Ticketmaster on Saturday 19th February at 10am PST. All games at Empire are currently showing as being available, but not the three games expected to be at BC Place, with prices ranging from $29.50 to $84.50 (which includes fees of $7.25). When we first checked the site on Friday, the highest prices tickets were being listed at a staggering $124.24, so at least that’s changed and must have been an entry error.

But what of the away support? Are they to buy their tickets this way or get a seperate allocation and what about us when we’re going to be away supporters?

Seattle and Portland fans have already been promised 500 tickets to the Cascadia Cup games in September and October. This is a while away of course and the first big away support is going to be for the opening match when Toronto’s U-Sector and Red Patch Boys will be making the journey to the west coast.

It’s not been an easy process for the Toronto fans dealing with the Whitecaps front office with regards to getting tickets for the game and the TFC fans are not being complimentary about how things have played out.

A U-Sector member told AFTN “The Whitecaps have been the hardest front office to deal with in terms of away tickets”. You have to feel a great deal of sympathy for them.

As soon as the fixture was announced, TFC fans starting making plans for the game, as indeed we would have if it had been the reverse, but this soon started to take a horrible turn for them. The U-Sector forum had this post from a member back in January.

Not allocating the supporters groups tickets or TFC fans an actual section would have been a recipe for trouble on the big day. Fans would have travelled anyway and would have been mixed in with Caps fans all over the stadium. Thankfully this isn’t the case.

After much wranglings back and forward, with the Toronto front office even having to get involved to get things done, parts of sections 213 and 214 at Empire have now been allocated to Toronto fans.

The Whitecaps haven’t brought out a seating plan for Empire yet (we’re only half joking when we say we’re expecting it after the first game!), but based on the Lions seating plan for last year, we’ve circled the section where the Toronto fans will be, according to the information on their sites.

Take a close look. Yup, you’re not reading that incorrectly, they’re going to be in the south-east corner of the stadium and that now raises one of three possibilities.

(1) The Toronto fans have been given the wrong section numbers

(2) The Caps front office are placing the Toronto support (and from that let’s just assume all visiting support) within literal spitting distance of the Southside

or that leaves one other option…

(3) The Southsiders are going to be in the Northside of the stadium at Empire

Let’s hope it’s option one and a miscommunication has been made somewhere along the line. Things do seem pretty firm at the Toronto end though as to where they’re going to be, but at this busy time, mistakes can get made.

If it’s option 2 or 3, then no-one is going to be happy and both seem insane thinking and planning to me.

Putting the TFC fans that close to the Southsiders is a recipe for trouble and could create a situation that would be used to beat the Southsiders, as a group, around the head with. Those sections are also situated close to families and will sandwich the TFC fans between the core Southsiders and the Prawnsiders (Southsider members who have chosen that section of the grandstand). It is also a bottleneck for entering and leaving your seat.

We need away support at the Caps games. We want away support at the Caps games. I personally would love to have the away support that close to us, so we can bait and taunt them for the 90 minutes like I’m used to back in the UK. This isn’t the UK though. There’s no segregation fence and any sniff of trouble would be disasterous for supporters groups throughout MLS. The fact that there is only one real entrance and walkway for both sets of fans at that end of the stadium would also be worrying.

For all those reasons and the fact that when I was having meetings with the Caps FO last year, they told us that they wanted away supporters as far away from the Southside as possible to avoid any sort of trouble, we have to rule the second option out.

That would leave option 3. One which would piss off the Southsiders no end and one I don’t want to speculate on until we know if it’s going to be the case or not. If the Caps did go with this option, let’s hope they’re prepared for the shitstorm that will follow.

Aside from the logistics of who’s going to be where and all the fall-out that could come from that, there’s another worrying aspect to the whole debacle. Take a look at the pricing and the restrictions that either the Caps FO or the MLS have imposed on Toronto fans travelling:

– Price per ticket is $35 (plus applicable fees and taxes)
– Tickets will be available to purchase on February 24 (that’s after fans can just pick up cheaper tickets elsewhere in the stadium from the general Ticketmaster sale)
– In the event that 50 or more people travel, a front office staff member from TFC is required to attend
– A list of everyones name who purchased tickets will be necessary

According to both the U-Sector and Red Patch Boys forums there were originally some other restrictions that they were looking to enforce. Curious as to what these were? Well here they are…

– Tickets must be purchased by calling front office directly and will require the information of each person assigned to each specific seat purchased
– Tickets are not transferable – ID will be required upon arrival
– Tickets will all be left at Will Call

It’s actually easier to emigrate here than go to a game!

The Red Patch Boys aren’t happy with what restrictions are being enforced. Commenting on their forum, their President Boris Aquilar said: Since late December the travel team has been gearing up for the new season with our trip to Vancouver. We have tossed around many ideas that would increase the number of RPBs and away supporters in attendance, however we are having a tough time getting co-operation from the ticket reps in Vancouver. It seems they do not have a supporter group plan in place.

We have been working with TFC front office in solving this, but were recently informed that MLS will require the information of each person assigned to each specific seat at the game. We were also told that if we have 50 or more supporters travelling on this trip, a front office staff member is required to travel with us.
We are not comfortable with any of this since it seems we are being faced with additional rules, making it difficult for us to plan a successful away trip to support our team.

Now, those restrictions that do remain make sense in some ways. When I’ve bought tickets for big games in the UK, my name is often printed on the ticket. If someone is coming with the intent of causing trouble (which I would hope is unlikely in Canada), then all they’ll do is buy their tickets elsewhere, so it’s not really going to stop that. We were also told last year that large groups of travelling supporters would require the respective club to provide security.

The big question from Boris’ comments though is do the Whitecaps have a plan for travelling supporters group and if not, why not?

We also have to wonder if these restrictions are going to be enforced on Caps fans travelling elsewhere. There’s a few games, especially the west coast ones, where we’re likely to have over 50 people travelling. This will be a pain in the ass for the Caps to have to provide someone from the FO to attend, especially if we organise a special non west coast trip. Of course, maybe it’s just because Toronto fans need a chaperone until they’re all grown up!

It’s expected, but not certain, that for the return leg TFC will offer Vancouver fans 150 tickets in a designated section as they always do. Their normal procedures would see them mailing the tickets out to a single representative of Vancouver supporters, and offer travellers a security escort into and out of the stadium.

This situation raise some other questions with regards to Caps fans travelling to other MLS stadiums. Are we going to have a seperate “away support” section at every stadium? How are we meant to buy tickets? (although I do know that the Southsiders are building up an excellent network of ticket reps at other MLS clubs). What other restrictions may be placed on us travelling to games?

With more and more travelling support becoming the norm in MLS, the clubs need to get their act together with this and quickly. There should be a standard league-wide policy. Creating the culture of away fans is what will give the MLS longevity and it’s important that the Whitecaps, and all of the MLS clubs, always have people that fully understand football supporters culture in the right jobs in the front office and especially in ticketing.

In the meantime, we need to find out a little more about what we’re actually going to be faced with at home first of all. I’m just going to be glad when March comes and we just have to worry about all of the stuff ON the pitch.

Cascadia Summit Ticketing Shambles, But Whitecaps Allocation NOT Sold Out

“You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re doing”.

That pretty much sums up how many Vancouver Whitecaps and Seattle Sounders fans felt about their team’s front offices after the ticketing shambles that developed this morning for the pre-season Cascadia Summit tournament in March.

There was much fanfare and all three Clubs championed the tournament when it was announced last month.

A few weeks later and trying to get tickets for the games has been a real pain in the ass for Seattle and Vancouver fans, with no-one owning up to responsibility as to where it all went wrong.

Vancouver fans were told that we were getting 1300 tickets for the Portland game on Saturday March 5th and 500 for the Seattle game the following day. Since then, the Whitecaps front office has been very quiet on the matter, despite tickets going on sale this morning.

Portland fans, who were promised the same ticketing allocations for their games, have had an altogether different experience with their front office. In fact, the Timbers helped the 107ist Supporters Trust secure their allocation, so that they didn’t have to go through the hassle of trying to get tickets this morning.

The Vancouver Southsiders supporters group were not able to secure group tickets before this general sale through the aid of the Whitecaps and today faced an arduous slog where they were passed from Ticketmaster to the Sounders to Starfire and then back to Ticketmaster before eventually being able to snap up just 50 tickets for the Seattle game. Portland tickets were then secured with the help of Portland’s Timbers Army. A huge thanks though to the Portland fans for making this happen.

Seattle fans had even more problems and since they’re technically hosting the tournament (since their US Open Cup games are played at Starfire), that’s even more unbelievable.

Two-game packages, seemed so few in number that they appeared not to exist. The Sounders say otherwise but that demand was so much for the Timbers game that they sold out making two game packages unavailable.

Many Sounders fans found themselves disappointed and unable to get tickets. You can bet though that a number of tickets were snapped up by clever Timbers fans, who not only secured their allocation but added to it in the free-for-all that was the general sale. It will be a real embarrassment for the Sounders if they are outnumbered by Timbers fans in their own stadium.

The way the sale was handled though throws up more pressing questions as far as I’m concerned.

Tickets are “general admission” and Ticketmaster did not specifiy whether you were buying tickets as a Sounders, Timbers or Whitecaps fan. What was the point in limiting allocations if fans could buy any amount that they wanted this way?

Since the front offices have previously expressed concerns regarding crowd trouble at the Cascadia derbies, why would the Seattle and Vancouver front offices not want to make sure that the tickets got into reputable hands. Worse case scenario, and hopefully unlikely, but these tickets could find their way into the hands of people hell bent on causing trouble and it will be the supporters groups that will be blamed for it. This could have huge implications on future ticket allocations.

Tickets have already made their way on to ebay, with one seller selling the $10 tickets for the Caps-Timbers game for $60 and $80 for the Sounders game. Incredible.

Whitecaps fans would never have taken the full 500 and 1300 allocations in the first place, so why did the Caps front office not get involved to help facilitate things early like the Timbers FO did?

Well we made some enquiries and AFTN can exclusively reveal that although the two Whitecaps games have sold out on Ticketmaster, this does NOT include the Caps ticketing allocations.

The Whitecaps are still finalising the details and should have more info available by Friday. If you’re looking at going, then I would try and get your tickets through the Southsiders first of all, but if they sell out then ask your Caps ticket rep.

We reiterate. These games are not sold out for Caps fans at present.

Why the Whitecaps have not made an official statement before now is a mystery. Now’s the time for them to do that. The Sounders front office have made TWO official statements on the fiasco now.

If only they’d kept the fans in the loop, it would have prevented a LOT of hassle this morning.