David wrote:Great job as ambassador, sj-roc. Here are my (re-posted) thoughts on the game:
I understand that the Global BC Family Zone tickets sold out for the preseason game Friday. Not surprising when you consider those tickets were selling for just $10 each. I did not hear about the Gemstone Gridiron Deck section which had the same $10 offer, but I assume it would have been the same or close to it (the Global Family Zone normally offers a FREE hot dog and soft drink, but that was not part of Friday's offer).
These budget-priced areas have shrunk and shifted from what they were in 2013. Last year they extended vertically along every row of the upper deck from top to bottom. Now it seems these areas only include double lettered rows (
i.e., above the concourse access), and even some of the first few double-letter rows at the bottom end may also be cut off. The rest of the upper deck seating underneath these are red-zone priced, just the lower bowl seats directly underneath them (which is as they were last year, too).
The Family Zone last year was half of 446, all of 447, all of 448 and half of 449;
i.e., the equivalent of three sections.
This year it's half of 444, all of 445 and half of 446, less the bottom few rows of each. So less than two full sections. The inventory of FZ tickets looks to be only about half of what it was last year, and I assume this reduction is based at least partly on 2013 sales volume.
The Gemstone Deck was also shifted from its 2013 location closer to midfield in similar fashion to occupy what was red-zone seats last year.
Interesting to see how fans embrace these two new sections for Saturday's home opener. Certainly the 3:00pm start time favours families and out-of-towners, and has served the Whitecaps well this season, but it's a long weekend. That was an outstanding 3 hour advertisement for Saturday's regular season opener, just too bad there's not an extra week in between home games. Still - and I know there were plenty of discounted tickets around - with 26,445 in attendance Friday, the Leos had the 2nd biggest gate of the CFL preseason (and that includes two homer Rider games), just 658 shy of Calgary. But having watched both games, if there was anything close to 27,103 at McMahon Stadium to watch the Bombers, I'll eat my shorts!
Other thoughts from Friday:
* Love the orange "Home Of The BC Lions" "Pride Lives Here" shroud that now covers the lower edge of the endzones. That row always looked like empty seats, but it's really just a row that connects another section of seats that go right to ground level (that the Whitecaps use).
For anyone who didn't get a good look at it, they tweeted a close up of it last Thu night:
Sneak peak of night b4 preparations at @bcplace for the first @BCLions game of the season! #ourhouse #readytoroar pic.twitter.com/D7ieTq1TMz
* Was also impressed with how the Lions utilized social media on the big screen, showing all the recent "Tweets" about the game to @bclions (stuff like "here at Lions game with 4 friends. They look awesome so far!") as well as fans' Instagram pics. Great way to create fan engagement. Lots of young people at the game as well which was a definite bonus (NOTE TO MANAGEMENT - when you offer cheaper tickets, you encourage youth to come. When youth attends, you can become cool and relevant, and you keep the "CFL circle of life" intact).
You put tweets in quotes; does this mean you think the ones shown on the board (or at least some of them) were fake/staged? I wouldn't think they would need to do this as there ought to be plenty of genuine material to display. But yes, I agree it's a great idea. I'd always felt right from the start they were underutilising the videoboard so I'm glad to see initiatives like this. Remember that scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High where Damone is giving Rat his "five-point plan"? One of the points was, "Act like wherever you are, that's the place to be: 'Isn't this great?' " This is basically the same idea.
* Does anyone know what capacity is now? There looks to be fewer seats available as the only upper deck sections now open are between the goallines on the Lions' side of the field. Interesting to see whether it gets expanded for big games (i.e. Roughriders) or if they want to encourage a "sell out" like the Whitecaps do (hope not!).
Not sure but as you say it's definitely less than last year's, by five sections (as per how the budget seating has shrunk and shifted into what were once standard-priced areas), which I believe is about 2,500 seats.