John Hendow

Yesterday I attended four basketball games… a personal record. As much as I enjoy the NCAA tournament, four games in one day is pretty much a caboose-killer. The four victors of round 1 (Purdue, WKU, UW, Gonzaga) looked pretty good. I especially found WKU impressive; they had an amazingly fast game and adapted well. They also had an awesome pep band and easily the best mascot of the entire weekend (although no one seems to know exactly what it is). The day was broken into 2 sessions, each with 2 games. Ten hours of great basketball.

The Rose Garden in Portland is a great venue. It has excellent sight lines and is the perfect size for basketball. The MAX rail line made it very easy and convenient to get to the games. The level of fan support is wonderful and I had a lot of fun being at the games. However, there were a few things about Thursday’s experience that were disappointing:

• The food vendors were unprepared for these events and didn’t seem to have considered the logistics involved. On Thursday the basketball games ran from late morning until late evening. People were trapped onsite throughout the entire day. If you left the venue during the morning session or the afternoon session, you would not be re-admitted. No outside food or beverage allowed. This meant 20,000 attendees were trapped inside the building with the vendors being our only option for food. The concession stands were understaffed, undersupplied and inefficient. It was typical for a food run to require 30+ minutes of standing in line, with some waits closer to an hour. Vendors ran out of food at various times. The lines were disorganized and blocked traffic from getting past the concession area.
• Between session 1 and session 2, the building had to be completely emptied, then ticketholders were admitted (actually, re-admitted, since most people held tickets for both sessions). All of this had to take place in 20 minutes! Utterly ridiculous under the best of circumstances. With limited exit doors available (why?) and limited admission doors open (why?), this was chaotic and annoying. Woe unto anyone who thought they would just trot out and get a bite, then return for game 3.

It seems to me a moderate degree of planning could have improved the experience for everyone. An investment in controlling the line flow, bringing in extra concession support, and planning for logistical resupply would have been great. And for the gold star, taking a look at the game start times and half-times would have given the organizers some idea of when to expect 20,000 attendees to simultaneously storm the counter. With the average food purchase around $10, I’d estimate that a 10% increase in efficiency would have justified the expense of having that planning meeting.

As for emptying / readmitting this size of crowd… seriously… those handheld scanners are PORTABLE and WIRELESS! Great Zeus… can’t you just have people move out into the concourse into a designated holding area, then station a few people at various points to scan and admit ticketholders? Those without tickets could be shunted to a patrolled queue that went directly to an exit door. Apparently I’m in the wrong business and should be a consultant to event venues 🙂

Saturday we’ll be attending the next round of games. I’m sure the games will be every bit as good.