Put UAM in charge of buses next time

[zipboy]

Not sure who all drove up vs who took the buses. I am usually not one to vent, but whoever was in charge of planning transportation should not be allowed to run anything ever again.

Buses were scheduled to leave Akron at 10:30 which I thought was pretty tight to begin with. Buses actually left Akron at 11:00. We stopped at a service station which meant with no traffic at all, we would have hit Detroit at 3:00. Unfortunately, we hit traffic. We get off the buses at about 3:55 PM. There is a line of about 500 people at the Akron will call. Joe Dunn was on my bus, I don't think that he got in until halfway through the 1st quarter. I felt real bad for him and some of the players parents who missed a good chunk of the 1st quarter. My option was to stand in line for 30 minutes to get my ticket or buy another one which I did. Unfortunately all that was left was in the upper upper deck and it cost $45.

This was such a feel good time and there were so many people who went who had not been to a game for a long time or been casual supporters. Even with the loss, a chance to have them there a couple hours before the game, eat, drink, mingle, what a priceless opportunity. Instead you had a bunch of people grumbling about poor planning, many of them had paid for the pregame party which they never went to, and everyone missed the all important pre game atmosphere of making this an event and not just a game.

Next time, please let the athletic dept be in charge of transportation for students and adults. They seem to be the only ones around here that have a clue how to run an operation.

[KeeprOFtheHous]

I MUST SAY will call was a total joke, if Akron wants a fan base and pushes them to support this team, then the crowd gets there and missed the start of the game because they are having ticket issues?????? IT should have been handled better.. hope this does not affect anyt ticket holders???

[Sergeant Zip]

I agree totally. The organization was pretty bad. I stood in line at the will call window for 40 minutes. What would have happened if it was raining or even colder ? I know people were not expecting the lines. They were dressed for a football game in the dome so they weren’t dressed for the cold. Luckily I did make kickoff, but I know the hundreds behind me probably didn’t. What did they have, four people passing out the tickets :blink: ? Whoever made the decision to pass out tickets this way is an idiot! For an educational institution to have a setup like that was pretty embarrassing. Let’s hope the stadium or MCB made that call.

The bus situation was pretty disorganized also. The buses were supposed to leave at 9 from the JAR but didn’t even arrive until 9. There was no one there to provide any instruction or answer questions. When we were going to leave after the game, no one new the order the buses were in or if the had moved, etc… As far as I know, no one was left behind. Our bus driver was okay, although he was chatting on his cell phone a few times.

I did appreciate the stop to stretch and eat lunch but the travel center we stopped at had two restaurants. So the 4 buses stopped in at one travel center with two restaurants. That caused some major congestion. People didn’t have much time to wait in line at the restrooms and then wait again in line for food.

One plus is that the bus ride was tame. I was concerned about drunken kids puking and being rowdy . I was actually impressed with the behavior on our bus.

All and all, I would do it all over again. Nothing was so bad that I would call it a failure, except the “will call†ticket line. That was completely asinine.