MB Stadium?

travgt01

travgt01

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
549
Location
Buckhead
Thought? I wasn't impressed. Sitting in the upper deck you can't get a full view of the video board. When you do, all that's on there is tweets and ads. Playclock, down and distance is like playing where's waldo. Game stats displayed maybe every 20 minutes

Concessions were a nightmare. Half the coke machines ran out of coke in the first half. The other half ran out of ice. Tried to get some peanuts right when we got to our section and the lady said "we never received any". No napkins to be found. No pizza, no fries.

Exiting the building was a nightmare. Took us an hour to get out. Is there really only a small section near the front that you can exit? Not all the way around the building? Game ended at what, 1130? We didn't get home until 2, and I live in buckhead (thanks csx for having a train come through at 1230 and sit on the tracks for 30 minutes).

Overall, I thought they were extremely unprepared. I'm sure it will get better but I do think they are going to have to raise the price of concessions. Based on all that and the awful way we lost I'd say it's the second worst experience I've ever had at a game, only to jacksonville in 06.
 

Jay Alexander

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
271
I was in the 200 section and my experience was great.

The halo board was easy to see and the overall stadium aesthetic was spectacular.

I agree on the game clock and down and distance. Seeens like they forgot that fans might want to know the situation in an actual football game.
 

danny daniel

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,613
Jay Alexander said:
I was in the 200 section and my experience was great.

The halo board was easy to see and the overall stadium aesthetic was spectacular.

I agree on the game clock and down and distance. Seeens like they forgot that fans might want to know the situation in an actual football game.
Click to expand...

I was in row 11 upper deck and half of the scoreboard stats were out of view. It was trouble getting out of the stadium and retaining walls and fencing at street level made small funnels and resulting log jams for walkers.
 
plangineer

plangineer

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
233
Ditto - was on the 300 level and was really disappointed. All flash. The actual functional design of the stadium is a disaster.

Went to 3 different staircases / escalators on one level because the ushers kept telling us to go to other areas OR completely closed the exit in the middle of the line. Even if all the exits, if there was a real emergency / fire / what have you, I think the majority of the fans in the 300 level would be injured / dead.
 
laoh

laoh

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
777
It's a looker from the outside and the openness of the inside that lets you see all the way up to the 300 level from the first floor makes you go wow. But it's too dang big. I had a 300 nose bleed seat and it's like what you'd expect from the upper seat of a big stadium. Things appear like dots tiny. No price gouging on food is nice. Free refills on fountain drinks. Can of 20oz bud was $7 which is expensive however. Restaurants galore, very quick and efficient. You can buy CFA from the stands (if not a Sunday I'm guessing? lol). There is a full rectangular-shaped bar with seats on all sides on 200 level... it was quite impressive. Some of the hallway parts of 300 level were more narrow than other areas of the same floor which caused a massive pileup in bottleneck areas... I really wondered about the design decision of that. Same issues with sound delay like Georgia Dome due to it's closed nature. Plus it's so big, you can't really hear the band from the other side of the stadium and c'mon guys, you can still hear the band enough to sing along the fight song but some of you guys can't keep rhythm! But all in all, I'm just glad Bobby Dodd Stadium isn't like MB. MB stadium is way to big... makes you wonder how things are at places like Tenn, Michigan, and OSU with gargantuan stadiums. One last thing - I looked up at the steel beams at the roof and noticed small pieces of the blue painters tape still there from during construction. Apparently they never bothered to take off all the tape. Bothered me for the rest of the game.
 

axegt

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
6
It was bright and shiny but probably the worst stadium experience I've ever had. The flow of people in and out of the stadium is a complete nightmare. We exited out of the stadium only to find concrete barriers blocking our path. My 74 year old Dad had to jump over the barrier to get out. We bought parking through the Falcon website and the lot is listed incorrectly on the website and through Waze which the pass tells you to use, so we had a pay for other parking. The upper deck is super high and far from the field. The A/C worked well, concession prices are great and love the big screen but I would only go back to watch GT. They have a lot of things to figure out.
 

southernhive

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
500
i sat in section 230. It was a nice view of the field and the video board. Loved the A/C and comfortable seats. Game was over at 11:30ish, and we were on 75 headed south about 12:30 that included a 20 min walk to our car. Soft drinks were $4 with a commemorative cup, but instead of UT vs GT on the cup, it had the Falcons. :banghead:. Other than the outcome, my overall experience was good.
 

takethepoints

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,098
I also wasn't impressed.

It wasn't the place's size, but the (mentioned above) atrocious acoustics, the concessions, the endless ramps, and one other problem. That problem = there's no flag pole. I know this is going to make me sound like some kind alt-right luddite, but when the national anthem is played, I don't believe that an automated display of cartoon flags is appropriate. An actual, you know, flag is what's needed. It should be right in the middle of the fanzone too; plenty of space and a good place for focusing your attention.

I don't care about the Super Bowl, I wouldn't tear down the Dome for this turkey.
 
GTChE92

GTChE92

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
87
We were on the first level endzone - thanks GT. I would have much rather had my BDS section 107 seats.

We thought the stadium was nice enough, if you don't care to hear the announcements. My biggest complaint is the arm rests on the seats. Bright shiny stadium with cheap plastic seats and sharp edged armrests. My elbows took a beating.
 
katlong

katlong

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
467
Location
Kennesaw, GA
I agree with most all of this. We sat in the 300s. Couldn't see the stats on the boards, and I couldn't read the player's jersey numbers well from that high up. The seats were an ok size, and I was happy the concessions were not outrageously priced; however, I too, experienced the no ice problem at first quarter.

traffic out of the stadium was mind-boggling! Why would you try to thwart the effort of 75,000 people leaving a place with concrete barriers?? The walk was long and mostly in silent, as I think most TN fans recognized that while they won the game which is something to celebrate, their defense got stomped! 655 yards!!!

acoustics were horrible!!!

I really don't understand what was so bad about the Dome that we needed another one right next to it.

That said, other than being indoors, I'd take Bobby Dodd any day!

Does anyone know the ratio of GT vs Tenn fans? It was hard to tell. Our side had some orange mixed in, but there seemed to be more empty seats on their side. Definitely after halftime we were dominant. :)
 
Chris Freeman

Chris Freeman

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
128
Location
Hampton, Georgia
I totally agree with the original posters assessment. Also, I fully understand that I'm not a big AT fund donor or whatever but I've had season tickets since 2003 and was seated on the very top row (26) of the 300 level and down around the goal line. I don't expect 50 yard line seats but come on, that was a little ridiculous in my opinion. The halo board was completely useless for me. I couldn't see the stats at all and there were replays where I could literally only see the players' feet. You couldn't hear a thing up there either. The music from the bands and even things like the referee speaking were completely washed out in echos and crowd noise
 
Chris Freeman

Chris Freeman

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
128
Location
Hampton, Georgia
Also, I thought this stadium was supposed to have some amazing, fiber optic, 300 access point wifi. I only saw an AT&T connection and it was unavailable. i had also read that there was supposed to be USB connections in the seats etc. that definitely wasn't the case... or at least not for us that were seated in the rafters
 
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takethepoints

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,098
Oh, and there was one other thing that constituted a real bother for me.

I'm a stats guy. One of the things I really like about Grant Field is that I can look behind me at the scoreboard and see the rushing, passing and total offense stats anytime I want. I had to wait for the 4th quarter for those to show up at MB. They didn't even have the totals at the half, something every football stadium in the universe (except this one) is able to produce. I was also insulted - I paid for this experience, you know - that the scores from the Saturday games they showed hadn't been updated since the Bama - FSZoo game. I didn't know the final for the LSU/BYU match and was non-plussed to find that (apparently) the game had been suspended at the half and was still going on.

This has nothing to do with stadium design, of course, but I pledged on the spot that I would never be a Novalis or OOBrand(?) customer if I could help it.
 
Supersizethatorder-mutt

Supersizethatorder-mutt

Banned
Messages
13,443
Location
Augusta, GA
I sat in section 215....GREAT seats with a GREAT view. First time I have ever had to wait in line just to get into a men's room, and yet the adjoining women's room had no line at all. Acoustics were terrible. I like the cheap concessions, but, as others have mentioned, they ran out of refills on the cokes. Also ran out of paper towels in the men's room in the 3rd quarter, and they were never replenished, even though I pointed it out to the attendant. Entrance and egress were ATROCIOUS. Are there really only 6 to 8 gates for the entire stadium? It took close to an hour to get out, and a lot of that time was spent just standing and waiting. There is no way people could have gotten out in an emergency situation. The circular jumbotron was spectacular, but seldom any stats, and when they did show them, they weren't up there for long. I definitely won't be going back unless Tech is playing there again.
 
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