If noone were saving seats, just our normal bodily functions, love for food and desire to see teams in other arena's would allow for continual open seats. I don't have sympathy for "they'll be back in a few minutes". Our teams only perform for 2 1/2 minutes, and our backpacks don't pay admission. Backpacks should never get a better seat then a paying customer. Ticketing the seats individually would put the pricing at $150 or more per day in the arena just for NCA to break even with their open seating sales.
On priority sections, gyms could hand out a sticker that says "Marvelous All Stars" "Team Name" "Priority Seating" to family and to a limited amount of team members that would fit into the Priority Seating area in the arena. EP staff should have a schedule and if a person doesn't have the sticker, they don't enter the section (EP staff can check them while the other team performs). Also, this helps out the small gym who may not have a lot of fans or family members present, their athletes would finally get a cheering section at NCA they could see and hear. Adopt the "white board guy" (above) mentality for security staff and let them and crowd have some fun while enforcing it.