Gies Memorial Stadium

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#76      
kmunt09
hhoene said:
I'm pretty sure they told me 200 or 250 feet wide. I think that will fill up some of the dead space on either side of it
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The width of a football field is approximately 160FT, so that makes @Fighter of the Nightman 's estimate in this photo close, if it will be 200FT wide. That would span the entire width from section 113-119 (where there is a lack of rows 1-15). I also wonder if it will have a slight curve to it.

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I will say, it appears to be significantly taller than the existing scoreboard too. If seats were added, in lieu of @Fighter of the Nightman 's banners, at the same angle as the existing seats in the horseshoe, the angle would be way to shallow to reach the top of the scoreboard before you reach the point that you'd be seated BEHIND the scoreboard (therefore, unlikely?).
 
#78      
Mr. Tibbs
Todd99 said:
I thought we were getting a videoboard in the north end zone for next season?
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not to my knowledge

unless they’ve figured out a solution to the sun glare thst effected the one we had before , it’s a waste

fully 1/2 the time you couldn’t read it in an afternoon game 11-4
 
#79      
Todd99
Mr. Tibbs said:
not to my knowledge

unless they’ve figured out a solution to the sun glare thst effected the one we had before , it’s a waste

fully 1/2 the time you couldn’t read it in an afternoon game 11-4
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I found this press release from June of this year. It says a new board in the north endzone, not videoboard.

Must have been wishful thinking on my part. 🤷‍♂️


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#80      
Mr. Tibbs
perhaps it’s a basic deal with limited graphics

15 years ago it was literally unreadable when the sun was out
 
#81      
fuddrules
Looks like some updates on the Ifund and premium seating including GMS.

I don't see any pricing listed for any premium seating (same for basketball);

jointheifund.com

Premium Seating at Memorial Stadium - I FUND - Illinois Athletics Development

Premium Seating at GIEs MEMORIAL STADIUM Whether you prefer the outdoor environment of the Colonnades Club seating area, the amenities of the all-inclusive 77 Club, or the privacy of an […]
jointheifund.com jointheifund.com

And I can't find an Ifund benefits chart?
 
#82      
Pikeillinifan
hhoene said:
Work on on the south scoreboard has already started. I'm hearing for a cool 15 to 20 million we will have the biggest one in college football next season.
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I was bored, so I looked it up. If we are indeed at 200 ft, it will be the biggest in college football (depending on total sq ft). As of now, Oregon is #1 at 186' wide. Auburn's is 190' wide, but has fewer square feet than Oregon.

I'm sure TAM or Michigan will be bigger soon enough, but it would be cool to have the biggest one even if it's only for a couple of years.
 
#83      
Illiniguy74
RabidDawgClassic said:
In the 1980’s, tailgating at Illinois games was huge. This was the TailGreat era, and while I think that branding helped, a bigger factor was fun, winning football fed directly into the veins of a hungry fanbase.

Somewhere in the 90s tailgating died down. A large part of that had to do with a mediocre to losing product on the field but I think a more underrated factor in the tailgating reduction was the change in start times. In the 80s, most games began at 1pm. If you were the big game of the week, you’d start at 2:30pm. Occasionally you’d have a night game. Either way, those start times were conducive to arriving at your lot, firing up the grill, cracking open a brew and having lunch before kickoff. Now, with so many 11am kickoffs, any tailgate essentially breakfast. And the chillier it gets, the colder those early morning set ups are.
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I remember the 1983 season had perfect weather for every home game with the possible exception of the finale against Indiana (very cold but dry). That combined with a successful team and promotions such as Tailgreat made for an epic tailgating scene and experience. i can't imagine a better one in the country.
 
#84      
Bucktown
Todd99 said:
I found this press release from June of this year. It says a new board in the north endzone, not videoboard.

Must have been wishful thinking on my part. 🤷‍♂️


View attachment 45586
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I imagine there will be a noticeable difference in the noise level in the stadium. I can't imagine, the DIA would spend that much money and not do some acoustical studies not only on the ability of the sound system to be heard throughout the stadium but also for the placement of the new scoreboards to keep the crowd noise inside. Hopefully the band gets amplified as well.
 
#85      
Fighter of the Nightman
Bucktown said:
I imagine there will be a noticeable difference in the noise level in the stadium. I can't imagine, the DIA would spend that much money and not do some acoustical studies not only on the ability of the sound system to be heard throughout the stadium but also for the placement of the new scoreboards to keep the crowd noise inside. Hopefully the band gets amplified as well.
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It's beating a dead horse at this point, but my wife and I drove down for the disappointing Purdue home loss in 2022. This was obviously the game that killed our Big Ten Championship Game hopes, it was like 15 degrees and windy, the refs were awful and to top it all off ... Purdue brought its band and a very decent contingent of fans. We sat in either 124 or 125 in West Main, and the Purdue band was across from us in 109 in East Main. Map for reference:

Football_SeatingMap_2023_7uSwE.jpg

My wife and I were SO annoyed that you could hear the Purdue fans and Purdue band more loudly from where we were than you could hear either our student section or the Marching Illini. Hearing the PU band's sound amplify off of the brick wall to their left and East Balcony overhang above them solidified my burning hatred for the fact that we give visiting fans such great seats (on that note, I LOVE that we put USC's band way up in the East Balcony this year, as we should have!!). Meanwhile, it felt like the noise from both our student section and the Marching Illini was just disappearing into the wind, and it sounded diluted all game.

I'm no expert on acoustics and this kind of thing, but I would really like to see us address this issue. I distinctly remember the Marching Illini being much louder when they were seated in front of the Horseshoe, and given that this ugly space is still empty ... put them back there on some temporary seating and help fill that area and create more noise! Sell their current seats at a pretty penny to fans who want to be close to the action in an enclosed section, ala the Budweiser Bleachers in right field at Wrigley!
 
#87      
Ransom Stoddard
Fighter of the Nightman said:
It's beating a dead horse at this point, but my wife and I drove down for the disappointing Purdue home loss in 2022. This was obviously the game that killed our Big Ten Championship Game hopes, it was like 15 degrees and windy, the refs were awful and to top it all off ... Purdue brought its band and a very decent contingent of fans. We sat in either 124 or 125 in West Main, and the Purdue band was across from us in 109 in East Main. Map for reference:

[pic removed]
My wife and I were SO annoyed that you could hear the Purdue fans and Purdue band more loudly from where we were than you could hear either our student section or the Marching Illini. Hearing the PU band's sound amplify off of the brick wall to their left and East Balcony overhang above them solidified my burning hatred for the fact that we give visiting fans such great seats (on that note, I LOVE that we put USC's band way up in the East Balcony this year, as we should have!!). Meanwhile, it felt like the noise from both our student section and the Marching Illini was just disappearing into the wind, and it sounded diluted all game.

I'm no expert on acoustics and this kind of thing, but I would really like to see us address this issue. I distinctly remember the Marching Illini being much louder when they were seated in front of the Horseshoe, and given that this ugly space is still empty ... put them back there on some temporary seating and help fill that area and create more noise! Sell their current seats at a pretty penny to fans who want to be close to the action in an enclosed section, ala the Budweiser Bleachers in right field at Wrigley!
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That was my first year with season tickets after moving back to Central Illinois. I was in 107 or 108 and there were a ton of PU fans around us (more on that later), and 109 was packed with Purdue folks and their band. I have it on decent authority that Purdue will never be allowed to bring their band back to GMS because they would play while the MI was doing featured songs during a 3rd quarter timeout. It was very disrespectful IMO, and their fans were eating it up.

One of my huge gripes as a season ticket holder and IFund donor is the number of opposing fans sitting in our season ticket areas. I don't know the numbers, but there appear to be MANY IFund donors that buy the maximum number of seats just to put them up on SeatGeek to turn a profit. I'm all for capitalism, but it's a really bad look when we have so many opposing fans sitting between the 30s, on both sides of the stadium. I've talked to my DIA rep about it and she said that there's basically nothing they can do, since those donors are paying full tilt and account for a ton of revenue.
 
#90      
Shief
Zweebs said:
Could have been so simple.
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You beat me to it.

If the DIA were to do something like that, completing the 'bowl', the capacity would probably be in the ~70k range (60.2k [current] - 3.6k [current NEZ] + 2k [SEZ lower] + 12k [new NEZ horseshoe]). With this design, I would recommend also trying to add something behind the new NEZ to keep sound inside the stadium.
 
#94      
Fighter of the Nightman
Zweebs said:
Could have been so simple.
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I actually don't really like the Rutgers / MSU style where there is a complete (but small) lower bowl and two visually out-of-place balconies on the east / west sides. I think one way to maintain some of the "old" Memorial Stadium would be to always keep the SEZ bigger than the NEZ, so as to at least SOMEWHAT have a horseshoe shape.
 
#95      
Mr. Tibbs
I still think we are 2-3 years from doing anything as I think they want to see the new world of college football and our role in that, with a winning team finally. When that time comes , we need to embrace any plan that
- increases capacity a little
- modernizes the East side
- gets the SEZ closer to the field
- includes the NEZ into the stadium
- hopefully gets the east and west main close to the field
- increases seat widths an inch or two
- helps us contain crowd noise to make out house tougher to play for visitors

its a HUGE undertaking. JW and staff have a lot of fundraising to do if we are to do this correctly
 
#96      
Fighter of the Nightman
Don't really have a point relative to our logistical hurdles, but I thought it was interesting that one of the few stadiums I could think of that had similar "bones" to ours at one point was Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (FKA Florida Field). By similar bones, I mean the following, and I am just going to assume Florida's stadium faces the same direction as ours for the sake of this post..

1) East / west stands that are parallel with the field and not curved like a traditional bowl.
2) An upper deck-type setup on the east / west stands (yes, I get that Florida's isn't exactly a real balcony below).
3) A south end zone section that introduces a curve to the lower bowl and creates a horseshoe shape.
4) A stand-alone north end zone seating space disconnected from the stadium.

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So it might be somewhat revealing to see what they did with renovations.

Facing "South"
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Facing "North"
ben-hill-griffin-stadium.jpg


If we can justify the extra seats, I think we should follow a similar strategy, where the SEZ is properly tied into the rest of the stadium from a spatial and architectural standpoint, and the NEZ remains a unique looking structure (i.e., to prevent a boring bowl) but is as closed in as possible.
 
#100      
Shief
Also, I made the below image this summer when we got on a different stadium redevelopment discussion. In this setup I proposed rebuilding the SEZ and NEZ to create a finished lower bowl with seating down to the field and more seats added higher up/further back. The NEZ might have some premium sections (light blue) above the regular seats, the MI (yellow) just behind the tunnel, and smaller screens in the corners (maroon). The SEZ would have the main scoreboard (maroon) and some kind of signage (light green) between scoreboard and the towers (help keep sound in?). Some thoughts for the general discussion.

For @Zweebs, here is a picture from Google Maps of Irwin Dr. between GMS and the Arc looking west, the road probably rises ~10 ft to meet 1st St. If a NEZ horseshoe would be built, then the drive could probably be lowered a bit more and the NEZ's stands and fan amenities would be above the road. The space below the NEZ could then become a loading dock, storage, etc. area like beneath Soldier Field's northern stands (I toured Soldier last year for a work thing).

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