North End Zone project update

[yosef13]

I hope the athletic department uses UNC's "Blue Zone" as inspiration. Imagine something similar in KBS with the upper level being ~1,000 club seats and the lower level being ~2,000 regular seats.

Regrading the hill should be the next step after this. Once completed, there would be space for additional food trucks and a beer garden with our favorites from AMB.

UNC or Southern Miss

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/smi ... 26557.jpeg

http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w302011/addition.jpg

[SayYesToTheRock]

UNC or Southern Miss

I had forgotten USM. Theirs is better looking IMO, and fits better for App:
1. It connects two straight (not curved) stands. Kenan has curved stands, unlike KBS.
2. It seems to sit lower, which would not obstruct the view of Howard's Knob very much, if at all.

[AppinVA]

I hope the athletic department uses UNC's "Blue Zone" as inspiration. Imagine something similar in KBS with the upper level being ~1,000 club seats and the lower level being ~2,000 regular seats.

Regrading the hill should be the next step after this. Once completed, there would be space for additional food trucks and a beer garden with our favorites from AMB.

UNC or Southern Miss

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/smi ... 26557.jpeg

http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w302011/addition.jpg

Nice. Very nice.

[Saint3333]

That one is perfect!

[WVAPPeer]

So Miss's is really sharp ---

[tigersef]

Southern Miss offers a great example! The stands beneath the north end zone club level could rise no higher than the portals on the east and west sides of KBS resulting in a nice uniform look around 3/4 of the field. This design could accommodate a seamless extension of the concourse around the north end zone between the club level and the lower level stands.

[APPARJ]

There is a demand for both. A seating reduction does not meet both. 1,300 club and 3,000 permanents are needed. Yes, I understand we don't sell out every game. The students need more room, not including a wet hill, and the three games a year we do sell out, it's by a ton.

Temporaries in front of the north end zone expansion will meet the demand, but will look ridiculous. Might as well line the endzone with porta johns while we are at it. It seems we are one of the few schools that averages over capacity, and doing little about it.

We sold ourselves short during the last expansion. Let's not make the same mistake this time.

If there's a demand for both then why are there thousands of empty seats and a big promotion of discounted tickets for every home game?

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

The last thing we need to do is take seating away.

The need for boxes and suites in the north endzone is greater than for the temporary seats.

[bigCasu]

If there's a demand for both then why are there thousands of empty seats and a big promotion of discounted tickets for every home game?

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

The last thing we need to do is take seating away.

The need for boxes and suites in the north endzone is greater than for the temporary seats.

You're changing the subject.

How many of the 1,000 new club seats are new ticket holders?

[APPARJ]

There is a demand for both. A seating reduction does not meet both. 1,300 club and 3,000 permanents are needed. Yes, I understand we don't sell out every game. The students need more room, not including a wet hill, and the three games a year we do sell out, it's by a ton.

Temporaries in front of the north end zone expansion will meet the demand, but will look ridiculous. Might as well line the endzone with porta johns while we are at it. It seems we are one of the few schools that averages over capacity, and doing little about it.

We sold ourselves short during the last expansion. Let's not make the same mistake this time.

If there's a demand for both then why are there thousands of empty seats and a big promotion of discounted tickets for every home game?

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

No, he's definitely not misinformed. If we say we have a seating capacity of 25k, we have exceeded that 9 times since going FBS. Two of those games being UM and WFU, so 7 non P5 games. These stats disprove your notion of empty seats for every game.

DG's argument is based on season tickets. I understand that perspective and believe it's based partially in an attempt to boost more season tickets. That's his job.

Outside of the season ticket sales approach, I'm not sure how one can think more seats aren't needed. We might only need them for 3 of the 6 homes games per year, but that is okay. I'd rather have them than not. Also where will we be in 5 to 10 years? There is nothing wrong with expansion with the future in mind.

Again we are only talking about an additional 2k to 3k seat. Not 10k. Basically what we currently have as temporary. So it's really not adding anything. Just making it nicer. Our fans in the north end zone deserve that.

DG's argument is based on the fact that he has to consider the cost while MMB posters do not. If we were losing significant money because we couldn't meet demand then DG would know it. Statements like "we just need 2K or 3K more seats" are easy to make with no data (announced attendance numbers don't count) or no skin in the game.

[APPARJ]

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

The last thing we need to do is take seating away.

The need for boxes and suites in the north endzone is greater than for the temporary seats.

You're changing the subject.

How many of the 1,000 new club seats are new ticket holders?

No, I directly addressed your statement. Club seats and boxes are more beneficial than the temporary seats in the north endzone. Not according to me. As for the 1,000 new ticket holders... I have no idea. Do you? If they are current ticket holders on a waiting list without a box, they'll end up paying more than they do today for a box.

[APPARJ]

There is a demand for both. A seating reduction does not meet both. 1,300 club and 3,000 permanents are needed. Yes, I understand we don't sell out every game. The students need more room, not including a wet hill, and the three games a year we do sell out, it's by a ton.

Temporaries in front of the north end zone expansion will meet the demand, but will look ridiculous. Might as well line the endzone with porta johns while we are at it. It seems we are one of the few schools that averages over capacity, and doing little about it.

We sold ourselves short during the last expansion. Let's not make the same mistake this time.

If there's a demand for both then why are there thousands of empty seats and a big promotion of discounted tickets for every home game?

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

There have been plenty of games that are over our listed seating capacity, however. 30k for Coastal, but we had empty seats? I think we could pull in the same numbers we used to pull in FCS if we make KBS just a little more of a destination stadium.

On a kinda related side note: I think our stadium has outgrown the hill in its current form. The hill, at its furthest point in the center, is about 40 yards away from the end zone. It badly detracts from our overall atmosphere to have fans that far away from the action in a relatively small stadium. Re-grading the hill could go a long way to increasing the energy in the stadium, IMO, if it can be done within our budget. I’m going to email Doug Gillin about it soon.

Yes we had empty seats for Coastal. Anyone that wanted a ticket to that game would've had no problem. That doesn't mean KBS was empty. It just means spending millions right now on seat expansion isn't necessary IMO.

[yosef13]

If there's a demand for both then why are there thousands of empty seats and a big promotion of discounted tickets for every home game?

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

No, he's definitely not misinformed. If we say we have a seating capacity of 25k, we have exceeded that 9 times since going FBS. Two of those games being UM and WFU, so 7 non P5 games. These stats disprove your notion of empty seats for every game.

DG's argument is based on season tickets. I understand that perspective and believe it's based partially in an attempt to boost more season tickets. That's his job.

Outside of the season ticket sales approach, I'm not sure how one can think more seats aren't needed. We might only need them for 3 of the 6 homes games per year, but that is okay. I'd rather have them than not. Also where will we be in 5 to 10 years? There is nothing wrong with expansion with the future in mind.

Again we are only talking about an additional 2k to 3k seat. Not 10k. Basically what we currently have as temporary. So it's really not adding anything. Just making it nicer. Our fans in the north end zone deserve that.

DG's argument is based on the fact that he has to consider the cost while MMB posters do not. If we were losing significant money because we couldn't meet demand then DG would know it. Statements like "we just need 2K or 3K more seats" are easy to make with no data (announced attendance numbers don't count) or no skin in the game.

If you want to ignore attendance data, fine, but when you have temporary seats and porta johns in an endzone, you have a capacity issue. That's just common sense.

Yes, the cost should always be considered. So let's use some hypotheticals for arguments sake.

The overall campaign was advertised to be 60mm. Let's say 50mm goes to the north end zone. How much does 2k to 3k field level seating cost? It can't be more than about 5mm. That's only about 10% of the total project.

I have a hard time believing we can't afford to attached a few thousand seats to the back of a 88,000 square foot facility.

[APPARJ]

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

No, he's definitely not misinformed. If we say we have a seating capacity of 25k, we have exceeded that 9 times since going FBS. Two of those games being UM and WFU, so 7 non P5 games. These stats disprove your notion of empty seats for every game.

DG's argument is based on season tickets. I understand that perspective and believe it's based partially in an attempt to boost more season tickets. That's his job.

Outside of the season ticket sales approach, I'm not sure how one can think more seats aren't needed. We might only need them for 3 of the 6 homes games per year, but that is okay. I'd rather have them than not. Also where will we be in 5 to 10 years? There is nothing wrong with expansion with the future in mind.

Again we are only talking about an additional 2k to 3k seat. Not 10k. Basically what we currently have as temporary. So it's really not adding anything. Just making it nicer. Our fans in the north end zone deserve that.

DG's argument is based on the fact that he has to consider the cost while MMB posters do not. If we were losing significant money because we couldn't meet demand then DG would know it. Statements like "we just need 2K or 3K more seats" are easy to make with no data (announced attendance numbers don't count) or no skin in the game.

If you want to ignore attendance data, fine, but when you have temporary seats and porta johns in an endzone, you have a capacity issue. That's just common sense.

Yes, the cost should always be considered. So let's use some hypotheticals for arguments sake.

The overall campaign was advertised to be 60mm. Let's say 50mm goes to the north end zone. How much does 2k to 3k field level seating cost? It can't be more than about 5mm. That's only about 10% of the total project.

I have a hard time believing we can't afford to attached a few thousand seats to the back of a 88,000 square foot facility.

I do ignore the inflated attendance numbers. You should too. The data I won't ignore is the higher demand for club boxes vs. general admission seats.

They may not sweat 5MM at some P5 programs but shelling out that much for 3K general admission seats that won't always be full at $30-$40 per ticket is very expensive for App State.

[yosef13]

If there's a demand for both then why are there thousands of empty seats and a big promotion of discounted tickets for every home game?

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

There have been plenty of games that are over our listed seating capacity, however. 30k for Coastal, but we had empty seats? I think we could pull in the same numbers we used to pull in FCS if we make KBS just a little more of a destination stadium.

On a kinda related side note: I think our stadium has outgrown the hill in its current form. The hill, at its furthest point in the center, is about 40 yards away from the end zone. It badly detracts from our overall atmosphere to have fans that far away from the action in a relatively small stadium. Re-grading the hill could go a long way to increasing the energy in the stadium, IMO, if it can be done within our budget. I’m going to email Doug Gillin about it soon.

Yes we had empty seats for Coastal. Anyone that wanted a ticket to that game would've had no problem. That doesn't mean KBS was empty. It just means spending millions right now on seat expansion isn't necessary IMO.

This makes zero sense. Every seat was sold for that game. I don't care if they sat in their seat or on the toilet. They were there and they were taking up space.

[yosef13]

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

No, he's definitely not misinformed. If we say we have a seating capacity of 25k, we have exceeded that 9 times since going FBS. Two of those games being UM and WFU, so 7 non P5 games. These stats disprove your notion of empty seats for every game.

DG's argument is based on season tickets. I understand that perspective and believe it's based partially in an attempt to boost more season tickets. That's his job.

Outside of the season ticket sales approach, I'm not sure how one can think more seats aren't needed. We might only need them for 3 of the 6 homes games per year, but that is okay. I'd rather have them than not. Also where will we be in 5 to 10 years? There is nothing wrong with expansion with the future in mind.

Again we are only talking about an additional 2k to 3k seat. Not 10k. Basically what we currently have as temporary. So it's really not adding anything. Just making it nicer. Our fans in the north end zone deserve that.

DG's argument is based on the fact that he has to consider the cost while MMB posters do not. If we were losing significant money because we couldn't meet demand then DG would know it. Statements like "we just need 2K or 3K more seats" are easy to make with no data (announced attendance numbers don't count) or no skin in the game.

If you want to ignore attendance data, fine, but when you have temporary seats and porta johns in an endzone, you have a capacity issue. That's just common sense.

Yes, the cost should always be considered. So let's use some hypotheticals for arguments sake.

The overall campaign was advertised to be 60mm. Let's say 50mm goes to the north end zone. How much does 2k to 3k field level seating cost? It can't be more than about 5mm. That's only about 10% of the total project.

I have a hard time believing we can't afford to attached a few thousand seats to the back of a 88,000 square foot facility.

I do ignore the inflated attendance numbers. You should too. The data I won't ignore is the higher demand for club boxes vs. general admission seats.

They may not sweat 5MM at some P5 programs but shelling out that much for 3K general admission seats that won't always be full at $30-$40 per ticket is very expensive for App State.

It appears that you are ignoring the current situation the north end zone and hill too.

If you don't improve the fan experience for people, they will stop coming. The hill and north endzone seem to empty out faster than any other areas of the stadium. No coincidence there.

There is demand for club and GA. We can either address both or not. We have an approximate budget of 50mm. Make it happen.

[APPARJ]

There are not empty seats for every home game. You know that.

Our top 10 most attended game are over 30k. We seat 25k with temporary seats. Demand not met.

Commercial developers, hotels, resorts, and restaurants anticipate vacancies. None are constructed based on their worst expectation. They're developed based on averages or best expectations. We should do the same.

There have been empty seats at every game for the last several years outside of Miami and Wake. Gillin has said seat expansion isn't needed but the club boxes and seats are absolutely needed. Is he misinformed?

There have been plenty of games that are over our listed seating capacity, however. 30k for Coastal, but we had empty seats? I think we could pull in the same numbers we used to pull in FCS if we make KBS just a little more of a destination stadium.

On a kinda related side note: I think our stadium has outgrown the hill in its current form. The hill, at its furthest point in the center, is about 40 yards away from the end zone. It badly detracts from our overall atmosphere to have fans that far away from the action in a relatively small stadium. Re-grading the hill could go a long way to increasing the energy in the stadium, IMO, if it can be done within our budget. I’m going to email Doug Gillin about it soon.

Yes we had empty seats for Coastal. Anyone that wanted a ticket to that game would've had no problem. That doesn't mean KBS was empty. It just means spending millions right now on seat expansion isn't necessary IMO.

This makes zero sense. Every seat was sold for that game. I don't care if they sat in their seat or on the toilet. They were there and they were taking up space.

Every seat being sold for the Coastal game doesn't justify spending millions on more seats right now. We'll need more seats when people routinely can't get inside KBS without going over face value for a ticket.

[EastHallApp]

I agree on the need for facilities improvements. Having a bunch of portajohns inside the stadium is not good.

One place I have a different view with some is the idea that if there are ever games where some people who want a ticket can't get one, that's a bad thing. I think occasional scarcity relative to demand is good for ticket sales.

As for Coastal, what I suspect happened is that some people who bought season tickets didn't show for that one. That's probably happened at every game the past couple years, as App has used the Miami and Wake games (along with the elimination of mini-season plans) to drive season ticket sales to fans who don't actually plan to attend every game. Will be interesting to see how that plays out the next couple years, when we don't have such a showcase OOC home game to use as bait.

[APPARJ]

No, he's definitely not misinformed. If we say we have a seating capacity of 25k, we have exceeded that 9 times since going FBS. Two of those games being UM and WFU, so 7 non P5 games. These stats disprove your notion of empty seats for every game.

DG's argument is based on season tickets. I understand that perspective and believe it's based partially in an attempt to boost more season tickets. That's his job.

Outside of the season ticket sales approach, I'm not sure how one can think more seats aren't needed. We might only need them for 3 of the 6 homes games per year, but that is okay. I'd rather have them than not. Also where will we be in 5 to 10 years? There is nothing wrong with expansion with the future in mind.

Again we are only talking about an additional 2k to 3k seat. Not 10k. Basically what we currently have as temporary. So it's really not adding anything. Just making it nicer. Our fans in the north end zone deserve that.

DG's argument is based on the fact that he has to consider the cost while MMB posters do not. If we were losing significant money because we couldn't meet demand then DG would know it. Statements like "we just need 2K or 3K more seats" are easy to make with no data (announced attendance numbers don't count) or no skin in the game.

If you want to ignore attendance data, fine, but when you have temporary seats and porta johns in an endzone, you have a capacity issue. That's just common sense.

Yes, the cost should always be considered. So let's use some hypotheticals for arguments sake.

The overall campaign was advertised to be 60mm. Let's say 50mm goes to the north end zone. How much does 2k to 3k field level seating cost? It can't be more than about 5mm. That's only about 10% of the total project.

I have a hard time believing we can't afford to attached a few thousand seats to the back of a 88,000 square foot facility.

I do ignore the inflated attendance numbers. You should too. The data I won't ignore is the higher demand for club boxes vs. general admission seats.

They may not sweat 5MM at some P5 programs but shelling out that much for 3K general admission seats that won't always be full at $30-$40 per ticket is very expensive for App State.

It appears that you are ignoring the current situation the north end zone and hill too.

If you don't improve the fan experience for people, they will stop coming. The hill and north endzone seem to empty out faster than any other areas of the stadium. No coincidence there.

There is demand for club and GA. We can either address both or not. We have an approximate budget of 50mm. Make it happen.

That is true. The endzone empties bc it mainly consists of students who are stupid and leave games early regardless of the score. The hill empties early because it's a miserable existence sitting on the hill. Which investment will give App State the best return: enhancing the experience for those that will give and have given a LOT of money or enhancing the experience for the hill?

[boonetown1]

Yes, we need something like southern Mississippi. Except have a tunnel Coming out in the middle under the students from the locker room where the team can run out. The tunnel should have past players on the walls and a A logo with yellow lights above. Imagine that entrance

[yosef13]

DG's argument is based on the fact that he has to consider the cost while MMB posters do not. If we were losing significant money because we couldn't meet demand then DG would know it. Statements like "we just need 2K or 3K more seats" are easy to make with no data (announced attendance numbers don't count) or no skin in the game.

If you want to ignore attendance data, fine, but when you have temporary seats and porta johns in an endzone, you have a capacity issue. That's just common sense.

Yes, the cost should always be considered. So let's use some hypotheticals for arguments sake.

The overall campaign was advertised to be 60mm. Let's say 50mm goes to the north end zone. How much does 2k to 3k field level seating cost? It can't be more than about 5mm. That's only about 10% of the total project.

I have a hard time believing we can't afford to attached a few thousand seats to the back of a 88,000 square foot facility.

I do ignore the inflated attendance numbers. You should too. The data I won't ignore is the higher demand for club boxes vs. general admission seats.

They may not sweat 5MM at some P5 programs but shelling out that much for 3K general admission seats that won't always be full at $30-$40 per ticket is very expensive for App State.

It appears that you are ignoring the current situation the north end zone and hill too.

If you don't improve the fan experience for people, they will stop coming. The hill and north endzone seem to empty out faster than any other areas of the stadium. No coincidence there.

There is demand for club and GA. We can either address both or not. We have an approximate budget of 50mm. Make it happen.

That is true. The endzone empties bc it mainly consists of students who are stupid and leave games early regardless of the score. The hill empties early because it's a miserable existence sitting on the hill. Which investment will give App State the best return: enhancing the experience for those that will give and have given a LOT of money or enhancing the experience for the hill?

They will benefit from both. They will benefit financially by providing high end alum with needed club seats, and they will benefit the gameday atmosphere by providing fans in the north end zone, hill, and over crowded student section with a comfortable environment that they deserve. I don't think the answer is focus on the money and ignore everyone else. The answer should be focus on all of our fans. There are needs that are not being met, in club and general. We have an opportunity to make it better for both. I hope it happens.