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Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:02 am
by Jonathan Bryant
Chris Rice wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:17 am
Paid £70 for a ticket for Game 2 to replace someone who couldn't go. At the ticket office got issued with a blue wrist band and a little ticket to say I could go into the main theatre for 30 minutes (from 3.50pm - 4.20pm).
I had an exchange with Ian Rogers on Twitter about the limited access to the playing hall and other spectator issues at the venue yesterday.

In brief he said that he’d talked to a lot of spectators. “Everyone I spoke to was very happy with their experience”

https://twitter.com/gmianrogers/status/ ... 35141?s=21


To be fair he did later acknowledge that a number of people were “annoyed” and with good reason - https://twitter.com/gmianrogers/status/ ... 01856?s=21 - but in general I felt his shoulder shruggy response may have had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t had to stump up £70 to go in.
Rogers is def one of the better journalists working in chess but I found his response curious on this occasion.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:05 am
by Jonathan Bryant
Chris Rice wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 8:58 am
You are aware of the vast number of people that attend the events at Olympia. Now try and imagine the same number of people going into a building a tenth of the size with no A/C and you should get a rough idea of what its like.
The Classic has proved that there’s a big potential live audience for chess events in London. It’s a pity that Agon are throwing that away. But not massively surprising, perhaps

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:12 am
by Roger de Coverly
Jonathan Bryant wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:05 am

The Classic has proved that there’s a big potential live audience for chess events in London.
It's a slight cheat that there's a week long chess festival running alongside, particularly with the trick that their rounds start half an hour after the games in the theatre. But I agree that "tourists" will make a day trip for the event. Meeting up with participants in the Open etc. is part of the attraction as well.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:15 am
by JustinHorton
Jonathan Bryant wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:05 am
The Classic has proved that there’s a big potential live audience for chess events in London. It’s a pity that Agon are throwing that away. But not massively surprising, perhaps
They've never had any interest in building audience. Their whole idea has been to try and sell what they've got to people who don't really want to buy it. I don't mean that rhtetorically, I mean that's actually been their understanding, their business plan.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:22 am
by Graham Borrowdale
It sounds like a waste of £70 to me.
I saw nothing on the official site, or the Ticketmaster site, to say that the £70 price would not get you access to the playing hall for the entire game - small print on the ticket itself does not wash, since you don't see that until you have stumped up the money. And wooden boxes for 20 people in the commentary room? You could not make this up. I am just glad I decided against going. Let's hope the new FIDE regime sort out this shower, and let's be glad that the ECF is not tainted by association with this event.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:27 am
by JustinHorton
They might, and I think they'll give AGON the push, but I should say that I don't think AGON's is a particularly unusual mindset in the chess world: it manifests itself in different ways and different places, but its lack of vision is standard enough.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:42 am
by Richard Bates

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:47 am
by Richard Bates
The mandatory half hour thing just seems a bit unnecessary to me. It's pretty dull watching a single game of chess with no commentary and no access to computer assessments for a long period. A few people might want to sit there for the whole time, but if the capacity is 150 i'm sure there would have easily sufficient 'natural' turnover for everyone to get enough time in the live area for their needs. Limiting the ticket capacity to match the playing area capacity should be completely unnecessary IMO. More important is the limited space in commentary room etc.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:49 am
by Kevin Thurlow
"They've never had any interest in building audience. Their whole idea has been to try and sell what they've got to people who don't really want to buy it. I don't mean that rhtetorically, I mean that's actually been their understanding, their business plan."

Perhaps they saw Chess the musical

"https://genius.com/Chess-in-concert-the ... ers-lyrics"

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:59 am
by Leonard Barden
Richard Bates wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:42 am
Thought i recognised 10...Rd8 ;)

https://www.365chess.com/view_game.php? ... 1',725,625
Seems the rook move didn't terrify you as much as it did Magnus!

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 12:40 pm
by Mike Gunn
We've been spoiled by the excellent spectator conditions at Olympia, I think. Conditions at either the Savoy (Kasparov-Short) or the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith (Kasparov-Kramnik) were a bit cramped for spectators as I recall, (outside the theatre where the players were playing) although I do recall having to queue up for a seat at Hammersmith).

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 12:41 pm
by Jonathan Bryant
Graham Borrowdale wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:22 am
small print on the ticket itself does not wash
Agreed but it’s clear that on many tickets there wasn’t even any small print.

If people went along and had a good time that’s great. That doesn’t excuse deliberately withholding the information ticket didn’t equal access to playing hall or commentary room.

Either Agon are totally incompetent or they have no interest in building a positive long-term reputation amongst chess players because they don’t expect to be around that long and are just trying to grab whatever short term profit is going.

Or both.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 12:56 pm
by Mike Gunn
I have just examined my ticket for tomorrow and there is no small print about limited access to the theatre. The website gives the imprreession that you have unlimited access to the theatre, commentary room and other places (cafe, shop, area to play against your mates) in the venue.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:14 pm
by Nick Grey
When you buy a ticket for a top level football match, rugby international, cricket, concert, theatre, cinema, you get a numbered seat to watch.
Ok on stadium concerts there is a lot of standing tickets. Savoy was fine - there were many empty seats but then Short was 2/3 down when I went.

So why if is there not enough room for those with tickets to watch for tickets sold.
It can be some walk to find somewhere to eat gone 11pm - so have the tickets allowed own food & drink.

I think the lucky ones are those without tickets but even they should not moan about premium pay per view prices - that is common on major sports events & world championships.

Re: 2018 World Championship in London

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:38 pm
by JustinHorton
Mike Gunn wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 12:56 pm
I have just examined my ticket for tomorrow and there is no small print about limited access to the theatre. The website gives the imprreession that you have unlimited access to the theatre, commentary room and other places (cafe, shop, area to play against your mates) in the venue.
Naturally one wonders about the legalities here, apart from the general absurdity of selling people a ticket for an unspecified part of a game.