Olympic Trials fans, did anyone else receive lots of free tickets to the Trials by mistake that you didn't know about or use?

That person might have unknowingly booked via a TrackTown KidsClub offer that gave free kids tickets with the purchase of adult tickets.

Unrelated but, maybe not, when I went to buy tickets and didn't like prices or seats, all I had to do was refresh the page or go to a different browser to get better seats/prices. There were also 2 different sites to buy tickets. Directly via Ticketmaster or the Trials site. I got different seat options depending in which one I used.

Its possible. Oregon is known well for a VERY messed up statewide public government controlled and operated computer system. FUBAR thanks to Kate Brownstain. I also think its been well established that USATF has its own share of management issues across the board. Ticketmaster is no bowl of cherries either. So, combining all 3 "progressive efficiencies" this case probably falls into any combination of the 3 entities mentioned and probably a few others not. Worlds was a collossal goat fk as well.

I bought 10 tickets but received 20. Same story, the website kept crashing on me.

I didn't get charged extra, so too bad for USATF - their crappy system cost them a lot of money. Take it out of Siegel's salary.

We sold twice as many tickets as in the other years.

I think I deserve a little raise.

So when did you realize it? The emailer didn't realize it until he got there.

What did you do with the extra 10 tickets?

I noticed that my tickets (a good value at $45 each for the night of the Men's 1500m Final) were not in my Ticketmaster wallet/account but only in my Hayward Field UO account. That was weird too.

Of course, when it came time to get into the meet, I had no tickets (in Ticketmaster), so the kid working the gate sent me to ask his boss for help finding them. She was helping other people; I waited for like two minutes but she was still busy. So then I just went in. Nobody at that point asked or cared about my tickets.

Of course, once I sat down (in great seats), I found my tickets in the other account.

p.s. The ticketing website showed whole sections as "sold out" even though there was no way every single ticket was actually sold. The meet had a solid, "full" feel to it and it was mostly well-attended, but the fact that the website had entire sections 100% sold out is weird. Tech sucks sometimes.

Sometimes that is just blocks of unsold seats being held for later for the appearance of higher demand, or seats actually "sold" being held for groups such as local track teams.

Would be wild if USATF gave away seats like this and didn't even realize it until it was too late to fix, but would not surprise me. I suppose it is better than the same seats being sold twice (and payment collected - I've heard of that happening as well, years ago, and not a track event).

I wish I had known about this KidsClub offer! but confirm that is not how / why I got the extra tickets.

This does make me think there should be a detailed Eugene / Hayward planning and viewing guide thread for whenever the next big meet is there.

Thats not the way computers work. So who do you think does stuff like this? I'll give you one guess .....?

Tracktown, you mean. I don't think USATF had anything to do with the ticketing system or revenue from tickets.

???? this has nothing to do with the State Government in Oregon....

Bugs are very often reproducible, and given similar conditions, you tend to get similar results. I assume this is what rojo means by 'the way computers work'. If so, he is correct.

And since the hypothetical issue is caused by the system being under heavy load, the conditions that cause the error are likely to be experienced by many people at once. So, given anecdotal evidence of a single occurrence of this bug, it's not unreasonable to guess that it may have occurred many times.

Is her name really Kate Brownstain? What a terrible name to go through life with. Elementary and middle school must have been especially tough.

The childish comment from RichardRider was referring to the former governor of Oregon, Kate Brown. Is it really necessary to call people crude names? Aren't you better than that?

People keep talking about empty seats and they have no clue because they most likely have never been to the new Hayward Field.
1) The East grandstands are in direct sunlight and HOT! Most people who bought tickets there either move or they stand up top where there are always a bunch of people seeking shade.
2) Bathrooms and water lines. The lines to refill water are ridiculous and much longer than you would probably imagine. Th elines to get into the bathroom can be very long as well
3) Fan Fest. There is a whole dedicated area with vendors, exhibits, alcohol and where the awards take place. The USATF store is also there and lines most of the time are 100 people deep, and that's not an exageration. There were 300-400 people in the fan fest area almost always.
4) VIP seating. At variousl places around the top of the stadium there are VIP areas (Table chairs and a buffett with alcohol) These were full of people not in standard seating.
5) Agate street. Agate street was closed off and served alcohol and had food trucks with seating. With lines and people partaking in the spirits, there were at least another 500 people in there.

All of these people were ticketed but not in their seats, so when you see empty seats and don't believe the stated attendance numbers, this is why. It's not a conspiracy, there are a bunch of other places for peoplet o be other than sitting in their purchased seats. THe stadium was packed for the main events each day.

I heard from some of the staff at Hayward that there was also a fair amount of double booked seats so maybe some of those extra tickets we're duplicates.

I don't know about free tickets, but here's a novel idea - sit in the seats you purchased. Several nights I showed up to find people sitting in my seat.

Two other suggestions - if you have an infant, say under the age of 3 or so, find a babysitter, or maybe postpone going and taking them until they might be even curious about what's happening. Having infants scream in your ears, touching you, and dropping pacifiers and bottles on you can take the fun out of the meet.

The other, get your beverages and snacks before you sit down, not 3 minutes after you've made everyone stand up and move to let you pass to your seats. And actually spend more time watching the meet than going to the concession stand, restroom, or just wherever. Most evenings I felt like I was in Catholic Mass with all the standing and sitting, albeit without the kneeling.

Go and watch the final hour of the final day. There were tons of empty seats when Sydney was racing. I wouldn't expect people to be at fan fest during the 1 hour of 6 track finals on the final day. Everyone should be in their seats but probably like 10-15% were not.

There were WAY more empty seats than what we were told were seats sold. And then I start getting emails about computer problems.