Yankee Stadium Needs To Improve

[Krylon80]

Overall a great experience yesterday, but the growing pains are and have been abundantly obvious. At just about every step of the way in the formation of this club there have been hiccups, delays, missteps, and near-disasters, and yesterday was no different. While it is a bit surprising given that A.) the club is run by two large, long-standing, successful parent clubs with large fan bases, and B.) the magnitude of the crowds, merchandise and concessions demand, etc. should have been better anticipated given the fact that records were broken for inaugural season ticket sales and just about the entirety of Yankee Stadium was sold out for the opener, this is still to be expected to a degree.

I'm not going to put on my powder blue-tinted glasses like some and pretend that everything went swimmingly yesterday (standing in a Disney World caliber, turle-paced mega line in the biting wind sucked ass), but I'm also not going to rake the club over the coals for what was by-and-large a very successful home opener. Thousands (that's not an exaggeration) of fans, including season ticket holders, missing most if not all of the opening festivities as well as kickoff is a joke. A joke that becomes no less absurd with 1,000 tifos or "Ole!" chants, and smacks of either those in charge being woefully underprepared or effectively admitting that they know they're going to make bucket loads of cash either way and the fans can sit and spin. I prefer to believe it is the former and that they will correct these early mistakes. If not, I will certainly not renew my season ticket.

 

[Krylon80]

Yeah, I was shocked at the number of empty seats in my section. Not only did the STHs not show up for the 1st home game ever, but they didn't sell the tickets either. Strange.

easy, they saw the lines and said "fuck this nonsense" and left, as i came very close to doing myself. the club did not even have the normal stadium staff working the security checkpoints. they contracted out to a private security firm who apparently sent in the b-team and about half as many electronic gates as necessary. at one point (kickoff) they opened the rails and instead of having to funnel thousands of people through 2-3 gates at every stadium entry point, they doubled the entry rate and started using the hand wands alone rather than after the security gate (which made no sense). what a novel idea!

 

[Krylon80]

It was a great night by the team and supporters, but not a great night for the crew at Yankee Stadium. On pretty much every possible measure, Yankee Stadium failed its first big test in serving a soccer crowd.

• There were huge delays trying to enter the stadium. Presumably, this was due to the new screening system that involved x-ray scanners and fans emptying their pockets. Still, this needs to get a lot better, and not just for soccer - baseball fans won't tolerate these delays either.
• Merchandise stands were insufficiently stocked and staffed. The long lines to get an opening day scarf or other memento were impossible to overcome, and where there weren't long lines, merchandise ran out.
• Food purchase was nearly impossible. The vendors were completely unprepared for a soccer crowd rushing for provisions at halftime. I left my seat right at the 45' mark at the end of the first half and got in line for a burger at Juniors. An eternity later, and with a kid melting down, I returned to my seat at the 60' mark. It is completely unacceptable. It was even worse for the people in the pizza line to my left. After about 20-25 minutes in line, and with the second half having just kicked off, it was announced to them that they'd completely run out of pizza. I kid you not.
• Parking was a disaster. Upon trying to leave our lot, the gate was broken. There was a long (15 minute) delay finding someone who could open it. Then, they insisted on checking out each car one-by-one and manually opening the gate, leading to more long delays.

None of this was enough to ruin a great experience, but none of it is acceptable either. The Yankee organization is a proud one, and these guys try to do the best work. Hopefully, they are aware of these problems and will improve over the course of the season.

i agree with most of this (i didn't even bother trying to buy food) and echoed much of it in my own statements. feel free to disregard anyone who disagrees with what you said.

 

[Krylon80]

I've never had to wait so long for food at any event I've went to. The Red Bulls games, Knicks, Yankees all combined didn't take that long. They were unprepared which is fine but you're making it seem like this is what happens at every single sporting event. You think day one at a restaurant opening or any retail opening theyre just going to say lets get by with just enough people, nothing extra?

100% agree. amateur hour.

 

[Krylon80]

• There were huge delays trying to enter the stadium.

I got into the stadium and to my seat in less than 5 minutes. True story. I entered the stadium at 3pm.

Unless your seat was made of white porcelain, I'm gonna go ahead and call bull shit.

 

[Goodfella]

left the Tavern for the match at 4:15, stopped to do a 10 minute video piece with NYCFC, entered the gate by Mohegan Sun, grabbed 2 beers in the concourse on the way upstairs and in my seats before kickoff. had a piss, grabbed 2 pretzels and more beer at 40', no line at the vendor behind my section.

 

[SFphoto]

Unless your seat was made of white porcelain, I'm gonna go ahead and call bull shit.

We literally got in in about a minute. We marched over with everyone around 3:30 and breezed right through security and into the stadium.

 

[roxfontaine]

Suite entrance. Phones and keys and watch through security. Elevator up. To my seat. Less than 5 minutes.

Always gotta be a naysayer. Get the details first.

 

[Krylon80]

Suite entrance. Phones and keys and watch through security. Elevator up. To my seat. Less than 5 minutes.

Yeah, the suite entrance was not crowded at all. All us pleebs had to wait in line, I guess. SMH.

 

[FredMertz]

What killed me with the metal detectors was the fact that there were three being unused at Gate 6 when the line started backing up. If you're not going to use them, take then away so you don't infuriate people seeing the unused lanes!

 

[Drainyoo]

Yeah, I was shocked at the number of empty seats in my section. Not only did the STHs not show up for the 1st home game ever, but they didn't sell the tickets either. Strange.

My section had some empty rows, including row 1 right on the field. Not sure why these folks didn't show up. The section sold out quick, too. Odd.

 

[NYCFCFan10]

The deep suspicion shown to the supporters section is really comical to me.

Is this 1980s England? Lol

I was reading a report about the game in the Wall Street Journal and it mentioned a Jersey Bull fan at the game saying he couldn't miss the game. They talked to a NE fan and he said he was excited for New York and thought the crowd was a great thing for NY soccer and MLS and then high-fived some NY fan.

This isn't England or Europe and we should be thankful we don't need a battalion of cops watching over our beer-less fans every game.

 

[Bronn FC]

easy, they saw the lines and said "fuck this nonsense" and left, as i came very close to doing myself. the club did not even have the normal stadium staff working the security checkpoints. they contracted out to a private security firm who apparently sent in the b-team and about half as many electronic gates as necessary. at one point (kickoff) they opened the rails and instead of having to funnel thousands of people through 2-3 gates at every stadium entry point, they doubled the entry rate and started using the hand wands alone rather than after the security gate (which made no sense). what a novel idea!

What's more is that there was no attempt to corral the line in any way. It was almost set up to create a bottleneck. I got on line about 4 and was in by 4:25, and I had a great time at the game. Really, I would do it all over again. But I find it inexcusable that anyone had to miss the beginning of the game because of the lines to get into the stadium. I don't think people who arrive even 20 minutes prior to game time should reasonably expect that they will miss anything. Hopefully this gets worked out, though as many have pointed out we are unlikely to see this big a crowd again this season anyway.

 

[Krylon80]

What's more is that there was no attempt to corral the line in any way. It was almost set up to create a bottleneck. I got on line about 4 and was in by 4:25, and I had a great time at the game. Really, I would do it all over again. But I find it inexcusable that anyone had to miss the beginning of the game because of the lines to get into the stadium. I don't think people who arrive even 20 minutes prior to game time should reasonably expect that they will miss anything. Hopefully this gets worked out, though as many have pointed out we are unlikely to see this big a crowd again this season anyway.

i got in line at gate 2 at about 4:15-20 and got in at some point after 5. as i was making my way up the ramp, i heard the game kick off. also, i felt really bad for this one poor sob who was in front of me for about 2/3 of that time only to suddenly be told (by an NYC cop, cause i guess it's their job now?) that he could not get in from that line if his tickets were on his phone. dude was pissed. he then had to go to the back of a different long ass line.

 

[Krylon80]

well, this should be interesting....

 

[Drainyoo]

Just got an email from the team with a link to a survey about the experience at the stadium yesterday. Looks like they are going to improve things.

 

[Krylon80]

really hope so.

 

[CGardner5]

i got in line at gate 2 at about 4:15-20 and got in at some point after 5. as i was making my way up the ramp, i heard the game kick off. also, i felt really bad for this one poor sob who was in front of me for about 2/3 of that time only to suddenly be told (by an NYC cop, cause i guess it's their job now?) that he could not get in from that line if his tickets were on his phone. dude was pissed. he then had to go to the back of a different long ass line.

We almost left... we started our Odyssey to get into the stadium around 4... got through the metal detector, and my wife got into the stadium using the PDF ticket they sent us on a phone, and as I was going in they yelled at us that we couldn't use electronic tickets (despite the scanner accepting it) and telling us to go to get them printed at the Customer Service Window (he actually insisted Gate 4, and that they would be able to print us tickets at the metal detectors there... which made no sense, so we successfully determined that we needed to be in the Customer Service Window line....). We then got printed tickets and had to wait again and go through security again, etc.

The most annoying part of all this is that we bought our tickets through Ticketmaster during a legit presale with all the ridiculous fees, etc (not via a second hand market or StubHub or whatever... not that there's anything wrong with that, but I digress..) and selected to have them send us printed, physical tickets. I got an e-mail midweek last week alerting me that they couldn't print/deliver the single match tickets and I'd be getting them via e-mail soon. So like Wednesday or Thursday or so, they e-mail us our tickets. We did try to print them, but the printer was busted and despite having black ink it for whatever reason wasn't printing the black (which doesn't bode well for barcodes, lol)... so we figured we'd just use our phones... like you can do pretty much anywhere else. Nowhere on there did it say anything about the YS policy against electronic tickets, not a single word. I read them over over today and read the actual PDF tickets too. Not a word. The whole process was exhausting and to get back to your original point... I imagine that a lot of people in our situation that started later than us may well have just given up and gone home. We almost did ourselves.

Overall, once we got in it was a fun experience, but man did they fuck up the gate/security/getting fans in situation.

 

[mgarbowski]

We almost left... we started our Odyssey to get into the stadium around 4... got through the metal detector, and my wife got into the stadium using the PDF ticket they sent us on a phone, and as I was going in they yelled at us that we couldn't use electronic tickets (despite the scanner accepting it) and telling us to go to get them printed at the Customer Service Window (he actually insisted Gate 4, and that they would be able to print us tickets at the metal detectors there... which made no sense, so we successfully determined that we needed to be in the Customer Service Window line....). We then got printed tickets and had to wait again and go through security again, etc.

The most annoying part of all this is that we bought our tickets through Ticketmaster during a legit presale with all the ridiculous fees, etc (not via a second hand market or StubHub or whatever... not that there's anything wrong with that, but I digress..) and selected to have them send us printed, physical tickets. I got an e-mail midweek last week alerting me that they couldn't print/deliver the single match tickets and I'd be getting them via e-mail soon. So like Wednesday or Thursday or so, they e-mail us our tickets. We did try to print them, but the printer was busted and despite having black ink it for whatever reason wasn't printing the black (which doesn't bode well for barcodes, lol)... so we figured we'd just use our phones... like you can do pretty much anywhere else. Nowhere on there did it say anything about the YS policy against electronic tickets, not a single word. I read them over over today and read the actual PDF tickets too. Not a word. The whole process was exhausting and to get back to your original point... I imagine that a lot of people in our situation that started later than us may well have just given up and gone home. We almost did ourselves.

Overall, once we got in it was a fun experience, but man did they fuck up the gate/security/getting fans in situation.

Damn that's annoying. And there's so many entities to point fingers at: NYCFC, the Yankees, Ticketmaster, Security. Just damn. Glad it eventually worked out for you.

 

[Bullhorns]

just let it be a learning experience, next time you will have a better idea on when to get to the stadium, where to go in, when to shop for merch, when to get food, etc. we won and thats what matters lol

Exactly. This was the first time I've ever driven to YS, and only my second time ever even being there (I'm a mets fan). I knew I'd get good feedback here and it will be a lot easier for the next game