State Farm Center Renovation

#101      

Giovanni

G
Giovanni
Dan said:
My question: Even with the height difference between the 2 sections, will the standing students in the new orange sideline seats obstruct the blue premium seats behind them? Guess we'll find out tonight :)
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Not even close to a problem last night. And I was told Monday night that a Krush member would have to be 6'-6" tall to come close to affecting that view.

Band seemed to have way more room than they needed. Keep the percussionist as is, then un-retract section 105 for the band. Then the 3 permanent rows of 104 & 105 could be more Krush seating. With the band on one side and the Illini family & visitors on the other (and the N tunnel in the middle) the amount of Krush in the N end was rather anemic.

Section 114 [SE corner] turned out to be the visitor's fan seating.
 
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#102      

Giovanni

G
Giovanni
IlliniWood said:
You saw a packed house against a name team during a grand opening. I would wait and see what happens with all of those 100-level seats on a more regular basis before saying the empty A-section seats issue has been taken care of.
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He was clearly referring to the TV camera view, which now is entirely Krush (behind the benches).
You can't have it both ways, kiddies. You're either on camera (preventing "empty A-section" shots on TV) or you're on the floor on the opposite side, like the 'good old days'. :tsk:
 
#103      

Oskee67

Oskee67
Champaign
Oskee67
Giovanni said:
Not even close to a problem last night. And I was told Monday night that a Krush member would have to be 6'-6" tall to come close to affecting that view.

Band seemed to have way more room than they needed. Keep the percussionist as is, then un-retract section 105 for the band. Then the 3 permanent rows of 104 & 105 could be more Krush seating. With the band on one side and the Illini family & visitors on the other (and the N tunnel in the middle) the amount of Krush in the N end was rather anemic.

Section 114 [SE corner] turned out to be the visitor's fan seating.
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I agree with the lack of Krush seating on the N end. They could add a couple rows of seats there. I also was disappointed to see that these prime Krush seats are given to the traveling teams' visitors. Put them behind the basket outside the view of the TV cameras and put Krush strictly behind the benches.
 
#104      

jrichisamazing

J
jrichisamazing
Oskee67 said:
I agree with the lack of Krush seating on the N end. They could add a couple rows of seats there. I also was disappointed to see that these prime Krush seats are given to the traveling teams' visitors. Put them behind the basket outside the view of the TV cameras and put Krush strictly behind the benches.
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Nearly every team in the country does this.
 
#105      

KrushCow31

KrushCow31
Former Krush Cow
Chicago, IL
KrushCow31
FeelYourPaign said:
Had the same thought
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Ya there were some games where we couldn't even fill in all of Orange Krush, which was what...400 seats? Especially if the team is bad...you will see a drop off pretty quick, probably even next week around finals.
 
#106      

OrangeDeeLight

O
Champaign Area
OrangeDeeLight
KrushCow31 said:
Side note: Krush is just as far away as everyone thought they would be, even with cheerleaders etc. The first row was probably where the last row used to be, plus another row or two.
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Yip. Totally ridiculous!!! It reminds me of the 70s before the Krush in look (empty) and feel directly behind the baskets . This is is the biggest fail imo of the upgrade so far. We had something awesome and unique with Krush standing on the court. That has totally been eliminated. Although I do think having more students down in the former A section in view of cameras is great it does not replace what we had before in any way.



Giovanni said:
He was clearly referring to the TV camera view, which now is entirely Krush (behind the benches).
You can't have it both ways, kiddies. You're either on camera (preventing "empty A-section" shots on TV) or you're on the floor on the opposite side, like the 'good old days'. :tsk:
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Why not? Why can't we have it both ways? We can have Krush along the sidelines and behind both baskets right on the floor like before AND have an entire section of Krush in view of the TV cameras. In fact, that is what we SHOULD have.

I suppose if we had built a new arena (or lowered the court) we could have changed the angle that the seats came down from the top so as the first row of seats were right at the edge of the court where Krush stood in previous years...kind of like OK State arena. But we didn't do that. So why not have both Krush in seats AND standing on floor? There is PLENTY of room to add standing Krush like last year in these areas. In fact, it would help fill in the empty space, visible grey concrete, etc.

Seriously, is there any thought to doing this (both) in the future?
 
#107      

IlliniRunIn07

IlliniRunIn07
Tampa, FL
IlliniRunIn07
I've been so excited for this renovation, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Being 1,000 miles away from AH, I will say that on TV it is a HUGE difference. It just sucks because the game was bad enough to take the crowd out of it. I'd love to see a big Illini game with the new setup, and I fear we won't get that this year. I'm not saying we won't play good teams and possibly beat them, but this season is pretty much over and you will see fan interest subside quickly. I'm not fair weather, I plan on continuing to watch, but a lot of people won't.

It's disappointing to hear a few negative reviews from the people that were actually in the Hall on opening night.

So what still needs to be done for next year? The scoreboard ribbons, the actual scoreboard, the lightning? Anything else?
 
#108      

Giovanni

G
Giovanni
Oskee67 said:
I agree with the lack of Krush seating on the N end. They could add a couple rows of seats there. I also was disappointed to see that these prime Krush seats are given to the traveling teams' visitors. Put them behind the basket outside the view of the TV cameras and put Krush strictly behind the benches.
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First a correction: Sections 114 and 13 (extreme end of Krush floor seating) are the visitors' seating areas.

As y'all saw today, WCU didn't bring enough fans and 114 sat empty. A problem that UI ticket peeps should be addressing soon (per twitter convo between ALionEye and Jason Heggemeyer).

I believe it's pretty much an NCAA rule to have opponent family/fans seating directly behind their bench. I imagine there's a minimum number (behind bench & total) as some schools have gotten away with a couple of rows behind the bench and the rest in nosebleeds. Maybe those numbers have changed recently cuz that looks like a lot of prime seats for opponents in the SFC.

Got a different view of the band today (on TV) than Wednesday (in the arena). I don't know if the number of band members is the same as before or not (but seems like more?). Either way, it still looks odd to use only one row of permanent seats in the left-hand section above the drummer. And I still think they could all fit in the right-hand section if those seats weren't retracted, especially if they still used the 3 rows of permanent seats. *shrug*
 
#109      

Giovanni

G
Giovanni
Giovanni said:
Thank goodness someone is finally concerned about the welfare of all the fatcats! ;)
Anyone who would have access to that patio area has a physical seat elsewhere in the arena premium seating--Traditions Club seating (East & West), Suites, Loge and Legacy.
Good view from the front ledge and reasonable from the first row of tables.
More tables in the concourse area but they'll have TVs if eating & drinking is their priority over seeing the entire game 'live' from their seats.
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Another correction: That ledge area is more wheelchair 'seating'.

Since I'm here, a word on Krush. Are they being told not to jump around a lot and not wave their arms? They were nice and loud Wednesday, but I didn't care/notice about motion. Today on 'tv' (i.e. computer screen) they looked rather passive much of the time--nice splash of orange, just not very active. I expected more of the constant hopping/jumping and other motion of (*puke*) Cameron Indoor, especially when the Illini are on D.

Another addition from the Monday preview (from the previous, locked thread): Not only do you have to go up & down stairs walking behind the east-side wheelchair seating behind the future ribbon board, but the stairs point back to the portal doors. So you'd also have to make 4 90-degree turns at each portal to keep going 'straight'. But I still don't see why you couldn't have upper & lower inner concourse flag races (William Tell) with the available semi-circles.
 
#110      

Oskee67

Oskee67
Champaign
Oskee67
Giovanni said:
First a correction: Sections 114 and 13 (extreme end of Krush floor seating) are the visitors' seating areas.

I believe it's pretty much an NCAA rule to have opponent family/fans seating directly behind their bench. I imagine there's a minimum number (behind bench & total) as some schools have gotten away with a couple of rows behind the bench and the rest in nosebleeds. Maybe those numbers have changed recently cuz that looks like a lot of prime seats for opponents in the SFC.
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Gotcha. If that's the case, it could be an easy fix if the benches were just switched to the opposite side of the court so those parents/fans sit off-camera.
 
#111      

Giovanni

G
Giovanni
Oskee67 said:
Gotcha. If that's the case, it could be an easy fix if the benches were just switched to the opposite side of the court so those parents/fans sit off-camera.
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LOL. I don't think any college arena has the TV cameras behind the benches.

Derek Neal (DIA guy) added: section 114 deal was only for the B1G-ACC Challenge contract, and Krush should have been in there today, but no one told the ushers. "won't happen again"
[edit] and you sure as heck can't have the cameras behind the scorer's table.
 
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#112      

ilphotog

ilphotog
The camera never lies
Champaign
ilphotog
After two games my take. For the Notre Dame game my job was to photograph the game from all over the arena. Minus the suite area of course. I took wide angle shots to show more of the backgrounds in the shots. With out a doubt IMO the look is 100% better. The Krush on the South end looks more intimidating if you will, it looks like a wall of Krush instead of a compact area as before. The East side Krush looks amazing and they are loud.
From higher up and seeing the seats closer to the courts on the East and West side, looks so much better, plus no empty grey seats.

Now to the physical layout, I'll admit I didn't see this being as challenging as it is. But I remind myself that I have 25 years of working in that building and the old set-up is still firmly entrenched into my brain. So it will take some time to reprogram. It was frustrating at times trying to get from point A to point B.
I'll use this analogy, I had my older laptop for 8 years, worked perfectly, and obviously knew how to do everything on it. A month ago it died. So I had to get a new one. LOL a lot has changed in 8 years. The first day I nearly chucked the new one out the window. Everything I had done previously now had a different way of doing it. It was really frustrating, but each day I learned a little more and each day it got a little easier. Now I can easily work with it.
So I'm going to take the same approach with the SFC. They will make adjustments and tweaks as they go along. You just can't anticipate everything.

A couple things I noticed walking around and brought to their attention and they adjusted them for today's game. 1. Where the Krush check in (North upper) they set up a table about 4' from the outside wall (old North wall/glass area on the upper concourse) then about 3' further in, was a walk through area for Krush members to go through to check in, then another table. This led to a bad bottle neck as fans could only get by basically going single file each way. So today Krush had only one set of tables and they were up against the outer wall, freeing up several feet of concourse space.

2. Not as much as an issue, but a couple of the concession stands they readjusted the space for people waiting in line, added about 2-3' more room for people to get by.
 
#113      

Konnie

K
Western Suburbs
Konnie
Yesterday was my first game at the renovated SFC. I sit on the east side in the 200 level.
A few comments:

  • It seems like the bathroom facilities are limited on the upper level of the east side. I will do a little more exploring the next time that I attend a game to see if there are bathrooms that I did not see or if there are bathrooms on the lower lever that are easily accessible to me.
  • It is strange to go up, down and around the stairs as one walks the east side inter-concourse.
  • Popcorn boxes are smaller. :)
Other than these small inconveniences, the renovation looks great.
 
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#114      

SycIllini

S
Sycamore, Illinois
SycIllini
Giovanni said:
LOL. I don't think any college arena has the TV cameras behind the benches.

Derek Neal (DIA guy) added: section 114 deal was only for the B1G-ACC Challenge contract, and Krush should have been in there today, but no one told the ushers. "won't happen again"
[edit] and you sure as heck can't have the cameras behind the scorer's table.
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Off the top of my head I believe Duke's camera angle is from behind the benches. Really can't think of another one though.
 
#119      

Giovanni

G
Giovanni
Okay, fine, a few oddballs.
You still aren't going to get 'Krush-on-the-floor' because the DIA will not give up the revenue from the fatcat Courtside seats--revenue that helped pay for the renovations and probably for the ongoing DIA operations.
And I'm sure Dook has high-priced seats opposite the "Crazies" Although, I'm not yet convinced they have K & benches off-camera--may have to tune in for a few seconds of one of their games--seem to recall it otherwise.
But yes, if you want to see fatcat Courtsiders in front of Krush, instead of seeing a small section of opposing fans behind their bench, it's possible but good luck with selling that idea.
 
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#122      

Oskee67

Oskee67
Champaign
Oskee67
Giovanni said:
Okay, fine, a few oddballs.
You still aren't going to get 'Krush-on-the-floor' because the DIA will not give up the revenue from the fatcat Courtside seats--revenue that helped pay for the renovations and probably for the ongoing DIA operations.
And I'm sure Dook has high-priced seats opposite the "Crazies" Although, I'm not yet convinced they have K & benches off-camera--may have to tune in for a few seconds of one of their games--seem to recall it otherwise.
But yes, if you want to see fatcat Courtsiders in front of Krush, instead of seeing a small section of opposing fans behind their bench, it's possible but good luck with selling that idea.
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I agree... I actually thought the same thing right after I posted. I may be wrong, but I believe I've read that opponent fan seating will actually be behind the basket and the ND game was just a one-time thing. If anyone has any insight on that, please share.

Overall, the renovations seem to be good. I can't wait for the finishing touches over the next year (especially the new lighting).
 
#123      

jrichisamazing

J
jrichisamazing
Oskee67 said:
I agree... I actually thought the same thing right after I posted. I may be wrong, but I believe I've read that opponent fan seating will actually be behind the basket and the ND game was just a one-time thing. If anyone has any insight on that, please share.

Overall, the renovations seem to be good. I can't wait for the finishing touches over the next year (especially the new lighting).
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Well visiting fans were behind the bench again for the Western Carolina game so I think that's here to stay.
 
#124      

ilphotog

ilphotog
The camera never lies
Champaign
ilphotog
Shooting the Women's game on Sunday they had 1.700. It was definitely a better feel than with the old set up. They only have the lower bowl open, so fans can sit in the Krush area's. They usually pick up more fans during the B1G season, hopefully getting 2,000-3,000 fans in there will make the place look good and louder. Hopefully more that, but we'll see.