Real Salt Lake Relocation Adventure
June 25, 2008 by f4denz.
Supporter Groups
So I have to admit that couple weeks ago when the RSL front office offered the south end sections of the new stadium to be exclusive to supporter groups I was impressed. When we were offered a chance for the RCB to come out to the stadium last week, and then treated very well and allowed to pick tickets a week before the official relocation event, I was a bit taken back by the new approach of the revamped RSL front office. While an offering like this is a very new venture between the organization and the supporter groups, I believe it will lead to all the groups being able to grow, and RSL getting a solid supporter area that will help add to the environment that is so important to both the club and overall soccer experience.
Relocation Event
Today was my day to visit the new stadium site and deal with the relocation of my season tickets, well since I had put my deposit down last week during the RCB night at the stadium I was a bit torn on going, after all I was a bit peeved on how my priority number dropped a very large number of spot from what I was told last year. Then I figured why not, at least I would be able to go out and see how the organization was handling what could have been a major disaster, and to see what types of seats I could get. During the 2005 season I was in the second row of section 37, and for the last 3 seasons I have been in section 38 on the front row, so what types of seats could I find at the new stadium?
So my time was 10:00 am and I hoped on the Trax just after 9 am to head that way. I arrived at the 94th South trax station and walked over to the stadium site, it took me about 7 minutes walking at a very casual pace, and that is going to be a very nice feature. So when I arrived there were a handful of people there and a good number of RSL staff members, I was asked to go sign in. The sign in process really was filling out a survey form, which I am sure RSL will use to establish some basic demographic data about their season ticket holders, and putting my info on the back of a ticket which went into the drawing for the cruises that RSL is giving away. So since it was still about 20 minutes before 10:00 I decided to take my tour early, and while this was not the same very behind the scenes tour one has to realize that it was a very active construction site. I got a chance to take a couple pictures:
(from just outside the site)
(the west side stands)
(the beautiful new sod)
(the logo’d seats of the north end)(I took this one on my second tour of the morning)
So after the tour I went back down to the office and RSL had set up a ticket sales room
and even had a merchandise table
One very cool feature was that each person was given a photo frame and for my time frame I was allowed to take a picture with Yura Movsisyan, and he signed the frame and they printed the picture in just a couple minutes. This was a great idea and major props to the FO. Within a couple minutes a ticket sales person (Spencer Warne) was available and I sat down to see what the best non-club seats available were and there were a few in section 21 (the section just outside of the premium seats) but most of the first several rows were full, impressive considering the $900 price for each seat. Next I looked at seats available in section 22 just north of the last section on the west side and at $500 each, the first several rows were sold out and it looked like the 6th or 7th row was where seats were open.
So I then asked to look on the east side of the stadium south of the $900 sections and section 3 had a couple front row seats and a few scattered around, not surprising since this is one of the $500 sections just next to the more expensive seats. I then took a look at section 4 which is similar to where section 38 is on the east side of Rice Eccles Stadium, there were some front seats still available, but I was looking for something on the row and the first open seats on the aisle was in row D (4) and both seats 1 and 2 were available there. So I plopped down some more cash and reserved these two seats, which I am sure my friends at work will use more than I do, or I can resell to others (reality is you will only get this one chance to get these seats without waiting years).
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(if you look real close two seats on the foot of the “A” in lake are yellow- those are my seats)
After I was done I went back into the main building to talk with Davy, Trey, and Kris to get a little info on how the relocation project has been going the first couple days. Here are a couple of facts:
- Despite daytime hours the first day saw the vast majority of people with scheduled times show up, that number dropped a bit on the second day but still the attendance was better than expected.
- People are increasing the number of tickets they own, this doesn’t surprise me since I have done this as well.
- On Monday several dozen “Club level” seats were sold as people upgraded to premium seats
- The number of $900 seats (both front row and sections) is impressive based on what I saw, it is higher than I expected.
- On July 1st the sale of 2009 season tickets will be available to the public, people should call or contact the front office to set up a time to visit the site
I then took a chance to take a second tour of the stadium going to the south end of the east side in order to get the picture of the north end stands, and spend a little time chatting about RSL, the new team in the front office, and other MLS issues. As I headed back down to turn in my hard hat and vest and say thanks to all the staff that had done such an outstanding and professional job, I was able to get another picture frame and take a picture with Alex Nimo.
Then it was off back to the trax station to head home to watch Germany advance to the finals of the 2008 Euros. I have to say I was very surprised, the last three encounters with the front office have been impressive and the changes in personal and attitude are a good sign for the future. It is clear that Kris and Bill brining in the “Nordstrom” attitude of customer service is taking root and will only lead to good things for the organization.
Blog Update
I am going to wait until this weekends match before I publish my updated player grades, sorry for the delay. I will also be working on a new design of my blog, this should be completed sometime next week. I want to thank everyone for all the support on this effort we are now averaging over 500 page views per day and often are over 700, and the number of unique visitors has climbed from a 150 to over 350 in the past few weeks. If you have any ideas or suggestions for the blog either leave a comment or email me at roguecavaliers@comcast.net .
OFF MY SOAPBOX