Standing room only at Lambeau Field
GREEN BAY - You can put standing-roomonly into the Lambeau Field ticket mix this season.
For the past two season the Green Bay Packers have made 300 SRO tickets available for each game to those on the waiting list for season tickets.
Now those tickets are showing up on secondary market sites, where the general public has access to them.
SRO tickets generally are cheaper because, well, they don’t have seats. But they still are being offered for resale for more than face value of $100. The cheapest SROs for the Seattle Seahawks, Cincinnati Bengals and Chicago Bears games are $119, $141 and $117. The most optimistic re-sellers want more than $200 for the Bengals game.
The Packers tested standing room only in the 400 and 600 sections of the south end zone but eventually settled on the 400 level, behind the group-sales section.
“We have patrons there that change from game to game and don’t establish regular patterns,” said Aaron Popkey, Packers director of public affairs. “Behind the 600 section, where we have regular seasonticket holders who develop a pattern, we determined it would be best not to do standing room.” Ticket prices falling:
Ticket prices gradually have fallen as the start of the season draws near.
At SeatGeek, the median price of tickets for the season opener Sept. 10 against the Seahawks has dropped 15% during the past month. Tickets for the Bengals game Sept. 24 are 2% lower, and tickets for the Sept. 28 Bears game are down 1%.
The Falcons game is an exception to the rule. The median price for the Sept. 17 game in Atlanta rose 18% over the past four weeks.
“That game is fairly unique,” said Chris Leyden of SeatGeek. “It is the first regular-season game in the new (Mercedes-Benz Stadium), it is the first home game since winning the NFC championship last year (also against the Packers), and it is against one of the best road-drawing teams in the NFL.”
The Thursday night game against the Chicago Bears is the best early-season value, said Julia Litz of VividSeats. VividSeats has the median price at $315 and the minimum at $130.
At VividSeats, the Atlanta game is the most expensive in the first quarter of the season, with a median ticket price of $494.
“That’s a lot more than any of the median ticket prices for games at Lambeau Field,” Litz said.
It is second most-expensive game after Cincinnati. Those lowest average seat price for that game is $215.
The Bengals are not one of the best teams on the Packers’ schedule. However, the 3:25 p.m. Gold Package game hits a fan sweet spot, said Dennis Garrity of Event USA in Ashwaubenon.
“People really love Sunday afternoon games in September and October,” Garrity said when the schedule was released in April.