Hundreds Left Standing After Super Bowl Seating Snafu

UPDATE: The NFL has offered these ticket-holders free passes to next year’s Super Bowl.
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Cowboys Stadium, which played host to Sunday night’s Super Bowl, is supposed to be able to seat more people than the population of Green Bay. But it still wasn’t enough, as last-minute problems left hundreds of ticket-holding fans having to stand or watch the game on monitors.

In order to expand its seating capacity to over 100,000, stadium management installed around 15,000 temporary seats. However, shortly before game time it was determined that around 1,250 of these seats were unsafe for crowds.

About 850 of these ticket holders were able to be moved to unused seats elsewhere in the stadium. Initially, the remaining 400 were given an apology, a refund of triple each ticket’s face value and then told to go home.

“The safety of fans attending the Super Bowl was paramount in making the decision and the NFL, Dallas Cowboys and City of Arlington officials are in agreement with the resolution,” the NFL said in a statement early in the evening. “We regret the situation and inconvenience that it may have caused. We will conduct a full review of this matter.”

Ultimately, those approximately 400 fans were brought into the field-level club to watch the game on monitors. They were also allowed to go to the designated standing-room areas in each corner of the stadium.

NFL Brings 400 Seat-Less Fans Inside [NYTimes.com]

Thanks to Howard for the tip

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