Al was right, I was wrong about ticket sales.

I was amazed they weren’t gone within a few minutes as usual, but to remain available for days is indeed somewhat breathtaking.

In fact, if you try to buy now you will get ticket #1671, so it looks like they’ve still got quite a few left to sell.

I also foresee taking another bath on my season tickets this year. If I had known this before the renewal deadline, I probably would have cancelled.

I completely agree with Jessica’s premise here. I am stunned that convention passes are still available today — in fact, if the sequence numbers are correct on the currently available passes, they appear to have sold none at all since early yesterday.

My guess is that the convention will NOT sell out. As of Saturday afternoon there are 168 passes on sale at Stubhub, at prices ranging from $85 to $475 (!) — those will go slowly if at all; if the sellers want to move them they will quickly go for below face.

Same thing on eBay. There are 28 listings for passes (some for more than one pass), average price seems to be somewhere around $100-$125 per pass. It appears that not one convention pass has sold at all via eBay listing — there are two completed listings, neither of which have sold.

What Jessica and I disagreed on is “marketing”. My contention was that marketing and “buzz” had nothing to do with the declining sales last year. It was the economy, the high prices for tickets, and a mediocre 2009 season.

Now, you are coming off a mediocre-to-bad 2010 season, the economy is still in the tank, and prices for many games went UP. They may do all right selling tickets to the “value” dates — but others, they’re in trouble.

She’s right — this is a warning shot. The Cubs may be VERY surprised on the Friday in February when single game tickets go on sale. They may not need wristbands at all.

if people that typically go to the convention are the types that would be big Sandberg fans and they are considering boycotting because they hired Quade instead of him. Just a goofy thought. I have nothing to base that on myself because I have never been to a Cubs convention. Any idea Cubs con goers?

I’m waiting for the Groupon alert and $32 convention passes.

I would love to know how many people canceled their tickets outright this year. Like the convention, I bet it is unprecedented.

Typically, Convention is early hope. This year I don’t have any. I believe the Cubs will try rebuilding like Minnesota, whom Tom Ricketts always talks about emulating. In theory I like that idea, however, as a fan paying top dollar to attend events such as the convention, games etc. I want to believe this will be the year. I don’t think that will be the case for 2011, in fact I don’t expect any big signings. Therefore, I’m willing to skip all the hype and hoopla and save money. I have always bought several tickets in Feb. but doubt I will this year. I think it will be easy to get tickets, possibly below face value at some point early in the season. It’s a gamble I’m willing to take.

Btw, felt like this about tickets, convention after 2006 until they went out and signed Soriano and, got a big name manager. I quickly got convention tickets and several game tickets…very glad, fun year. Although I wish the same for 2011, I think this time it will be different, and I’m saving my money as a result.

I wonder if the poor job is more related to MLB than the Cubs. The websites for teams has a Pravda feel to them if you ask me. Often, similar articles will appear simultaneously at different sites like the GM needs to be creative in FA. The writers put out fairly standard stuff and even touch on controversies once they become widely discussed, but I don’t expect much beyond that.

Regarding the headline to this fanpost: Be careful, too much praised and Al’s head will swell to Bruce Bochy like proportions.

sorry, not calling names, just re-imagining a famous political slogan.

By all accounts, it’ll most likely be the same faces and the same sorry team that’ll be lucky to take 3rd in the division next year…minus Sandberg and LouPa. Whatever you may think of those two, they did bring some measure of starpower.

I haven’t seen the list of Cubs attendees, but if it’s the current members and the same retreads (Hundley/Santo/Williams etc.) then why would anyone want to pay for this?

Maybe the Cubs will get Andre Dawson to show up to sell some tix, but unless his appearance fee is less than the sales bump I wouldn’t bank on it.

Point being, there is no reason to go to this thing because the outlook for the 2011 Cubs is less than positive.

I rec’d this post only because everyone else was and I didn’t want to feel left out. I’m a follower.

I haven’t been, haven’t I read horror stories of the convention outgrowing the Hilton?

I guess the good news would be that lower ticket sales means less of a packed feeling.

However, that would require Hell freezing over.

This will wake them up a bit. Let some of these events and ticket sales stunts and promotional gimmicks fail. That’s good. Failure sometimes is good. It will make them alter their approach.

Sometimes it takes utter and complete failure; bottoming out to depths not seen recently. It’s what they then do with it is what counts the most.

What are you celebrating, another crappy season? or a chance to rub elbows with weirdo memorablia collectors in the autograph lines?

Until the Cubs actually win something or Jim Hendry is fired, no Cub fan has any reason to pay real money for tickets to go to a convention of losers.

that’s just a convenient forum for “let the fans spill their guts” then we’ll get back to business.

Wanna make a real statement? Stay the hell out of the ballpark.

But I do like the title of the post, finally we have some closure to the hot topic from this past Feb/Mar.

About 30 convention passes have been sold in the last two days. Still plenty available.

Ricketts would probably raise bleacher tickets $10 a game in retaliation!