(09-07-2015 08:36 PM)panama Wrote:  Opponents and winning are important but engaging the community and creating a great game day experience are even more important. It will be much easier for you being in a small city. But you will have to compete with the fans of your instate P5 schools.

Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

(09-07-2015 08:49 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:36 PM)panama Wrote:  Opponents and winning are important but engaging the community and creating a great game day experience are even more important. It will be much easier for you being in a small city. But you will have to compete with the fans of your instate P5 schools.

Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

I think he was talking about staff mistakes mishandled crowd, experience and concessions. At our inaugural game in 2010 they miscalculated how many would show up and there was a logjam at the ticket windows with not enough people to handle the crowd. Same thing with the student entrance. Ultimately many gave up and left. That 30k crowd could have been much larger. Its compounded when like GSU and USA you're using a municipal facility and you're having to tell them a week before or days before what size crowd to expect. Affects ticket personnel as well as resources for concessions stands. Dont want to tick off any first time customers. You only get one time to wow them or make them never come back.

The Georgia Dome. Where 10,000 fans always looks an awful lot like 400 fans.

(09-07-2015 09:04 PM)bamaEagle Wrote:  The Georgia Dome. Where 10,000 fans always looks an awful lot like 400 fans.

Well that was helpful...

(09-07-2015 08:49 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:36 PM)panama Wrote:  Opponents and winning are important but engaging the community and creating a great game day experience are even more important. It will be much easier for you being in a small city. But you will have to compete with the fans of your instate P5 schools.

Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

Yeah, I'd be interested as well as I don't recall the details.

Gonzo wants to expand KBS but is yet to identify how we would pay for it, left out that little detail.

(09-07-2015 09:11 PM)Saint3333 Wrote:  Gonzo wants to expand KBS but is yet to identify how we would pay for it, left out that little detail.

By how many? Arent you 29k?

24k seats if you count the temporary bleachers we set up each year, and then the hill can hold 5k+.

Most App fans would love to add seats but only if done right, we can't keep adding band aids or it will be an ugly stadium, but we are stil paying off the last expansion project.

I'd rather focus on growing season tickets and develop a master stadium plan which includes removal of the track and putting in seats to bridge the sides in the north end zone with premium seats at the top of those. That will take north of 10M to do it correctly and that's before spending g money of a track facility.

Almost every App fan wants the track gone, if done correctly it can be done with a small expansion by digging down. That will also make it a more intimate setting since the expanded seats will be closer to the action on both sides. This would add about 2 - 3,000 seats which currently is all that should be looked at since the hill is still the overflow.

The only way issue besides how to pay for it is, digging down in Boone is in art not a science, you never know what you are gonna get.

(09-07-2015 09:08 PM)CajunFanatico Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:49 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:36 PM)panama Wrote:  Opponents and winning are important but engaging the community and creating a great game day experience are even more important. It will be much easier for you being in a small city. But you will have to compete with the fans of your instate P5 schools.

Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

Yeah, I'd be interested as well as I don't recall the details.

Ran out of bottled water before halftime. Took a full quarter of play to get anything from the concessions due to how slow they were. Busses were late and not equipped to handle the volume- as a result, people who payed over $50-$100 for a ticket on the secondary market missed 2 quarters of action even though they were at the bus stop a couple hours before kick off. Just total failure all around.

(09-07-2015 09:45 PM)Tiguar Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 09:08 PM)CajunFanatico Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:49 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:36 PM)panama Wrote:  Opponents and winning are important but engaging the community and creating a great game day experience are even more important. It will be much easier for you being in a small city. But you will have to compete with the fans of your instate P5 schools.

Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

Yeah, I'd be interested as well as I don't recall the details.

Ran out of bottled water before halftime. Took a full quarter of play to get anything from the concessions due to how slow they were. Busses were late and not equipped to handle the volume- as a result, people who payed over $50-$100 for a ticket on the secondary market missed 2 quarters of action even though they were at the bus stop a couple hours before kick off. Just total failure all around.

Wow. Was the government running that operation? Sounds like it.

You joke but I guess technically yes since its a municipal stadium

(09-07-2015 09:50 PM)CajunFanatico Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 09:45 PM)Tiguar Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 09:08 PM)CajunFanatico Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:49 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:36 PM)panama Wrote:  Opponents and winning are important but engaging the community and creating a great game day experience are even more important. It will be much easier for you being in a small city. But you will have to compete with the fans of your instate P5 schools.

Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

Yeah, I'd be interested as well as I don't recall the details.

Ran out of bottled water before halftime. Took a full quarter of play to get anything from the concessions due to how slow they were. Busses were late and not equipped to handle the volume- as a result, people who payed over $50-$100 for a ticket on the secondary market missed 2 quarters of action even though they were at the bus stop a couple hours before kick off. Just total failure all around.

Wow. Was the government running that operation? Sounds like it.

Holy crap. That sounds like a nightmare.

It's been a big discussion of ours over on our message board of where the fans are going to come from and all the details of moving up to the FBS that make the fan experience better.

I'd hope we'd be able to learn from the mistakes of others. Thanks for the insight.

Get the city and surrounding communities involved and engaged. Make it "their" team. Host interesting opponents, win, have activities for kids. Get students engaged ASAP. Have them do stuff during orientation like TXST does. Don't ignore alumni and get their input and involvement. We posed of our SWT alum and not many of them stay engaged. (Southwest Texas State was our name until we went to Texas State in 2003. There are a lot of pissed alum about that to this day.)

Good lord there's no reason Georgia State shouldn't be drawing a hell of a lot more than 10k10k.

(09-08-2015 02:27 AM)Farmer Jack Wrote:  Good lord there's no reason Georgia State shouldn't be drawing a hell of a lot more than 10k10k.

1-24

It has been mentioned but we had a lot going against us. I'm pretty sure this was our worst attended opener in our history.

- Weather. It was absolutely pouring rain on the way to the stadium. We also had a 30 minute lightning delay before the game kicked off. The band wasn't even able to do the pregame show. Then we had another lightning delay in the first quarter. I'm sure some people never made it to Ladd at all with the rain, or stayed out of the metal structure with the lightning delays that were being announced before the game..

- Opponent. With all due respect to Gardner Webb, most people here haven't heard of that team. It wasn't a compelling name to bring more than the die-hards out.

- Competition. Both Alabama and Auburn are ranked in the top 10 (again) and both games overlapped our game. This might not be significant to a lot of the fanbases out there, but we do have split allegiances with some fans since we are only in our 7th season. Do they choose the team they've followed for decades? Or the team that hasn't even been around for a decade? Well maybe weather was the tiebreaker... Or maybe Wisconsin/Louisville > Gardner Webb was the tiebreaker...

Things will be ok at USA. I say weather was the biggest issue that we only saw 12k+. I live in West Mobile and like I said it was pouring for most of my ride to the stadium. My friend that was meeting me there texted me pictures of it storming at her house in South Mobile County, but I reassured her we'd be fine at the game. It is what it is.

(09-07-2015 10:41 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 09:50 PM)CajunFanatico Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 09:45 PM)Tiguar Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 09:08 PM)CajunFanatico Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:49 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  Last I was there a few years back we still had people show up in Carolina and Clemson colors.

What were the mistakes that Tiguar mentioned earlier in the thread?

Yeah, I'd be interested as well as I don't recall the details.

Ran out of bottled water before halftime. Took a full quarter of play to get anything from the concessions due to how slow they were. Busses were late and not equipped to handle the volume- as a result, people who payed over $50-$100 for a ticket on the secondary market missed 2 quarters of action even though they were at the bus stop a couple hours before kick off. Just total failure all around.

Wow. Was the government running that operation? Sounds like it.

Holy crap. That sounds like a nightmare.

It's been a big discussion of ours over on our message board of where the fans are going to come from and all the details of moving up to the FBS that make the fan experience better.

I'd hope we'd be able to learn from the mistakes of others. Thanks for the insight.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Experience is the best teacher... OTHER peoples' experiences.

(09-07-2015 08:29 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  Been lurking for a while since we joined.

What would Coastal need to do to help get our attendance up when we expand the stadium?

Offer free tickets when you buy a bucket of chicken!

(09-08-2015 02:02 PM)Shof Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 08:29 PM)JuicyMullet Wrote:  Been lurking for a while since we joined.

What would Coastal need to do to help get our attendance up when we expand the stadium?

Offer free tickets when you buy a bucket of chicken!

Didn't UTSA do that?