Swim New Zealand is going to show the NAGS competition in Auckland via live stream. Photo/Photosport
Swim New Zealand is going to show the NAGS competition in Auckland via live stream. Photo/Photosport
Parents of Hawke's Bay swimmers have joined a chorus of national outcry at how tickets have been distributed for the National Age Group Championship in Auckland this month.
The province's parent body, Swimming Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay, has also questioned how the tickets were released via social media last Thursday morning, labelling it "embarrassing, to say the least".
Its chairman, Keith Bone, of Hastings, said the competitions and advisory committee of Swimming NZ "is a joke" and it should have applied some sort of criteria to avoid chaos.
"It's a national organisation that has been under scrutiny of High Performance Sport New Zealand and they still can't get it right," said Bone before the NAGS is staged from April 17-21.
A Wellington parent, Eugene Collins, lodged an 11-page "open letter of complaint" on March 30, which was posted on social media where many have echoed similar sentiments and expressed their frustration and disappointment in incurring astronomical costs in booking flights and accommodation to Auckland only to find they might be reduced to chauffeurs from hotels/motels to the Sir Owen G Glen National Aquatic Centre.
The lawyer, whose submission is in his capacity as a parent, has three children who swim competitively as members of Swimzone Racing Club in Lower Hutt.
Parents are questioning why it was posted on the eve of a public holiday at 10.44am on Swim NZ's Facebook site when entries weren't closing until midnight on Tuesday.
Swimming New Zealand CEO Steve Johns, of Auckland, said the aquatic centre had 1100 seats but were forecasting 700 athletes and at least 200 coaches and managers.
"We just don't have facilities that have big enough seating to accommodate all parents, unfortunately," Johns said.
Charmaine Soanes, whose son Marshall is a member of Napier Aquahawks, said the 14-year-old Lindisfarne College pupil was competing in his maiden NAGs and they were excited about it.
Soanes said she had tickets for the finals but missed out on the heats although there was no guarantee Marshall would make the cut, amid speculation there might be A, B and even C finals if the field was huge.
"I don't know if my son will go into the finals but I had to take a pot luck and get them because I'd run out," said the operations manager at Hawke's Bay Toyota.
Her parents are going to the meet to watch their grandson but don't have any tickets despite booking accommodation. She is expecting to spend about $2000 in the six-day stay.
"We're in that boat where you're asking, 'Is it really worth it?', so, yeah, we're pretty disappointed."
Soanes conceded it was a perennial problem but felt Swim NZ needed to find a more equitable way of dealing with the issue rather than letting it deteriorate into a lolly scramble.
"We had no idea it was going to be like this until it was too late," she said, after receiving a text from a friend at work to go on Facebook early afternoon last Thursday.
Soanes said many working parents would echo similar sentiments.
She suggested Swim NZ should have waited until all entries were in by the Tuesday deadline to see what percentage of athletes were competing from respective regions before allocating tickets accordingly to the parent bodies to share out to their affiliates.
While Swim NZ, Soanes felt, was going to release more tickets after the deadline, at midday on Monday ("two per person at 50 a session"), it was going to cause another electronic stampede.
"Some families may have known about it and bought heaps."
She is keeping her fingers crossed that between transporting Michael to and from the venue she'll be able to score tickets from parents whose daughters were competing at different times.
Deena Lansdowne, mother of Trojans Swim Club member Michael, got tickets that night when she stumbled on the site by "luck" while checking if there were other new entries in her son's grade.
"It said, 'tickets here', so I clicked on and I thought, 'Oh my god, I hadn't noticed that before. How long have they been there for?' so I bought them," said Lansdowne, selecting races where Michael was expected to make the finals and two $20 heats ones.
However, the generous mum has offered some of the tickets to parents who missed out and intended to do the same at the venue when Michael wouldn't be competing.
"I don't where all the tickets have gone. My idea is someone has gone on there and bought humongous number of them," she said.
Some parents, who did not want to be identified, suspected a "goodwill system" had kicked in to avoid Swim NZ reselling $5 tickets returned each day.
Lansdowne also warned parents attending NAGS for the first time to brace themselves for the carpark jostle.
Swimming NZ, she said, could perhaps consider staging the meeting in different age groups, gender, times and locations to ease the seating pressure. "People are even talking about going to Australia because their venues leave ours for dead," she said, adding catching a flight there would ensure parents would see their kids compete.
Collins stated in his submission Swimming NZ had reserved 10 all-session passes to each region on a first-come-first-served basis at $40 with a limit to three tickets an individual request.
Swimming Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay chairman Keith Bone. Photo/file
Bone confirmed HBPB administrator Sue Hewitt, of Waipukurau, had received the 10 passes but because he was travelling outside the Bay he wasn't aware of how she had distributed the tickets.
"As chair of the board and a fee-paying volunteer, I'm absolutely embarrassed and appalled with the way Swimming NZ have handled these ticket sales."
As an ex-swimming parent, he felt it was imperative for either one or both parents to be there to watch and support their offspring.
"I'm also an avid believer in competitors travelling as club teams with managers and chaperones so I think that's also a good way to toughen up our kids for success.
"But for those parents who have no ability to travel as a team and have booked accommodation and found out tickets have been sold from underneath them with opportunities to purchase is outrageous."
Bone said he could not see how it had become an oversight when Swimming NZ for years had bought into a data base to boost communication but suddenly switched to social media.
