The AFL Grand Final is the hottest ticket in town right now, whether you’re in Melbourne prepping to paint yourself Bulldogs red, white, and blue, or in Sydney frantically trying to attach yourself to a plane’s landing gear in order to get down and represent the Bloods.
The unfortunate reality, and this is a yarn that gets repeated every year, is that tickets to the AFL Grand Final are held, in the majority, for corporate partners, sponsors, AFL family, friends, and those fortunate enough to have the mythical MCC Membership.
Unless you’re lucky enough to know someone who knows someone (life is never about what you know, remember), the chances of you getting through the gates of the MCG on the big day are remarkably slim, even if it’s your favourite team playing.
Despite the Sydney Swans having some 56,000 club members, and the Western Bulldogs (making their first Grand Final appearance in 55 years) having just under 40,000, the AFL only allocates 15,000 tickets per team for club members. 30,000 seats in total, out of the MCG’s capacity of 100,024.
That ain’t much. And it makes getting in tricky as hell. Which makes the lengths people go to to actually snare a ticket even greater.
For starters, if you’re thinking about rolling on over to eBay or Gumtree to pick up a sly tickie, you can bloody well forget it. Gumtree might as well be the Simpson Desert as far as tickets are concerned: there ain’t one to be seen for miles.
Meanwhile over on eBay, you’re gonna need to be both a) quick, and b) rich as shit. The two tickets listed for sale over there are going for eye-watering amounts of money.
One single ground level ticket went up mere seconds prior to writing this sentence, and was listed at $1,500.
There’s a fair chance that if you’re reading this, it’s already gone.
Meanwhile a fancy-shmancy corporate package, including two tickets, entry to an official function with guest celebrity speakers, and the kind of seats where the dress code is so tight they’d probably kick you out for wearing flashy undies, will set you back a cool $7,500.
Both eBay and Gumtree are littered with desperate punters pleading for tickets, offering to let potential sellers name their price in exchange for a taste of history.
In fact, if you’re absolutely gagging to get in, your best bet might actually be dropping $500-odd to get near the stadium and take your chances from there.
Multiple sellers have listed tickets that’ll get you into the Carlton Draught Front Bar: a pop-up bar that sets up in Yarra Park just outside the MCG.
That’ll get you a pretty swish plastic picnic chair on some grass about 50 metres away from Gate 3, a shedload of piss, and maybe – just *maybe* – the chance to get into the game itself. Apparently they give away tickets to big dance to a lucky half-sloshed punter inside there, leaving everyone else to watch the game on a large screen, thoroughly confused by the roars from the crowd not lining up with the 5-second broadcast delay.
If you are lucky enough to have an MCC Membership, the blessed creature that you are, the pain of Grand Final Day does not escape you either, of course. Owing to the MCC’s highly-regarded tradition of “ALLOCATED SEATING IS FOR SUCKERS,” members have to lineup (sometimes for hours) ahead of the gates opening at 8am on Grand Final morning, at which time the rich and privileged begin fighting and scrapping for the best seats like the basal animals they are.
Luckily for you, if you don’t feel like slumming it with the plebs, there’s someone on Gumtree that’s literally offering to stand in line for you overnight.
For $40 an hour, these intrepid fools will park their arses outside the ‘G from 10pm the night before, leaving you free to casually stroll up in the morning and take over, fresh as a daisy.
Who said small business was dead?
And naturally, the ridiculousness isn’t confined to just Melburnians and die-hard Dogs fans. For Sydneysiders not particularly keen on forking out $600-$700 per person for last minute return flights, someone will drive up to 4 of you to the game and back in a Mitsubishi 380 for just under $2k.
It’s the big dance, friends. And it don’t come cheap.
‘Course you could always take that two-grand you’d spend on what’s essentially a low-key cross-state Uber ride and go absolutely boonta watching it at the pub instead.
But the experience of being there to see the 2016 Premier lift the cup (particularly if the Footscray Miracle actually occurs)? That’s bloody priceless.
Photo: Quinn Rooney/Getty.
