As most of you know next season is a FULL reseating of Lane stadium for season ticket holders. Just got the call about changes for next season. Minimum donation is going up, per season cost of tickets is going up. For all club level seats there will be included food and beverage as part of your seat. You can start making payments towards Hokie Club in October to get extra priority points also.
https://hokiesports.com/news/2023/9/6/renewall-launch-renew-season-ticke...
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Redoing seating in the east for students fully it looks like. Student seating going all the way to the field. And taking away bottom of SEZ fully also.
Couple of thoughts. One that seems like a lot of student seats. Two that's great for the students. Three I hope this alleviates some of the issues getting in and out of the stadium, should be able to control the student sections a bit more.
It's about time they did this. Students being put in the top of SEZ was the dumbest thing on the planet. A close second was not having students go down to the field in East Stands. I imagine this will help alleviate a lot of the pressure on NEZ with overcrowding now that those aren't the only premier seats available for students.
Looks like Section 129 violates that rule about not having students within the first 30 rows behind the bench. IIRC, that's why they moved the bands to the endzones. (Or was that a Big East rule?)
It was definitely a Big East rule because WVU fans liked to throw batteries at the visiting team's bench.
When I was in the Corps, they had us and the MVs right behind the visiting team's bench. I don't remember when they moved students back but I'm pretty sure it's while I was at Tech. Maybe my senior year? It was a long ass time ago.
That's exactly what's going on and it's such |insert your favorite curse words of choice here|. My crew and I have had season tickets there for over five years now and we're getting displaced with this move. We've loved our seats because we have the wall behind us so we're not bothering anyone if we stand, jump, cheer, do the Hokie Pokie, etc. It's also been a blast having the students directly behind us too.
We as a group have discussed not going forward with season tickets and dropping our football donations after this season.Edit: Tech course corrected and gave us back our section!!! Link
I cannot tell you how happy I am. Time to re-up for another year!
It sucks for y'all's situation but overall it makes a lot of sense. It limits interactions even more between students and others, it allows them to increase number of student season ticket sales which will hopefully lead to more long term donors and season ticket holders. It means the lower seats all around Lane can go for higher donations and higher season ticket prices.
100%.
Unfortunately that hits me in my row HH seats.
I saw a seating chart today and didn't even notice it. I just renewed yesterday for those extra priority points, trying to break into top 2000.
I'm glad y'all got your seats back, but I thought the way they had it would have been better for students and season ticket holders. I hope they add additional security or some kind of barrier there to help keep students in their sections.
The alumni sections that are in front of students are all out the section tunnel and "down" below the rail. They will probably rope off and extra guard the stairwells there.
Worth noting on the fine print....
Every Season Ticket class except for Price Level 7 comes with a Complimentary Chairback Rental
That makes me feel a little better about the price bump but not a lot...
This is much better! Student experience should be priority.
I like the idea of giving the students more access given how much the game experience meant to me when I was a student. However, there won't be any way to hide when they leave at halftime and large swaths of the stadium are empty.
Guess we better start winning again to give them a reason to stay
This color blind guy is gonna need some assistance. lol
I got you
(in all seriousness I can make on with a color blind friendly palate if you need)
Tier 1 is (West) Lower 112, 111 , 110 (East) Lower 130, 131, 132
Tier 2 is (West) Lower 114, 113, 109, 108 (East) Lower 133 Upper 131,
Tier 3 is (West) Upper 113, 109 (East) Lower 134 Upper 130, 132
Tier 4 is (West) Lower 115, 107 Upper 114, 108 (East) Lower 135 Upper 133 (South) 206 205 204 203 202 201
Tier 5 is (West) Lower 116 106 (East) Lower 136 Upper 134 Lower 230 231 232 =
Tier 6 is (West) Upper 116 115 107 106 (East) Upper 135 136 (South) Lower [nosebleeds]
Tier 7 (East) 230 231 232 233 234 (South) Upper [nosebleeds]
Club (East) Upper 112 111 110 (South) Enclosed(?) 206 205 204 203 202 201
Students NEZ (East) 126 226 127 227 128 228 129 229
Unavailable Lower South
Visiting (East) Upper 233 234 All 235 236
can you see the below image?
Hint...
Oh no, please don't. lol
By giving out more season tickets to students, Virginia Tech has essentially reduced capacity going forward in Lane Stadium. Yes, there might be as many seats available, but the amount of tickets the general public is going to be able to get is going to take a hit. This also means its likely to become even more expensive than you think to attend games in the future, especially if we ever get back to having a competent team again.
Flip side of this is that with a growing student body enrollment you need more seats reserved for them as to not turn away students that want to attend games.
100% agree.
At some point in the future I do think that Lane will eventually be expanded. Not because we're expecting more alumni/public to fill the stands, but because we want to bring the number of alumni/public back where they used to be, and the easiest way to do it would be to expand the NEZ to fully separate the students from the public. Just expanding it another 2 or 3 sections higher would do it, and you wouldn't need more than more metal risers like we currently have.
Students aren't gaining an overwhelming number of seats I don't think. They are shifting three upper section to now be lower. So instead of 2/3 and 1/3 students sections it's full student from top to bottom.
Club seats are getting WIFI also.
What about cell coverage? /s
I haven't gone to a game in years, but WTF happened to the student section? I used to have 50 yard line tickets for games as a student.
The bigger issue is $800 for the best seats? only $800? Shouldn't that be for people donating $10s of thousands of dollars?
That's the minimum. If you give that and have been giving less than 20 years and have had season tickets less than 20 you won't get those seats.
ok, so if you've given $1 mil+ over 20 years you could pay 800+ 546 for the seats this year.
almost definitely. that level of donations will have racked up a lot of priority points.
Priority Points determine your spot in line for purchasing season tickets. Folks with a ton of priority points are generally donating significant sums, and have been for a while. They get first dibs on the best seats, and (I would assume) are in a financial situation where they can afford the $800 per seat license.
that being said, just donating $3200 a year (4x $800 seats) is a fairly significant donation that will equate to a decent priority point ranking in of itself. But maybe not enough to guarantee those $800 seats will be left when its your turn to pick.
Based on what I know friends parents were donating to WVU in the 90s, $3200 isn't significant. Not for those seats.
East stands in the 80s were almost entirely students and yes I had seats ranging from low single letter rows to the top row 5P and from one side of east stands to right next to the visitors section in 9/39.
Same for Cassell- the student section was the entire east side- 4500 of 10,000 seats. and again I had seats from midcourt first row up to upper corner top row. Lot more fun in those days (in the Metro with Louisville and Memphis State as our big rivals).
I remember this being the case in the late 90's as well, we would regularly get seats in the east stands around the 40 yard line half way up in the lottery.
I remember - long, long ago - we did not pay anything out-of-pocket for tickets as a student. Was just the "comprehensive fee" we paid each year or semester or whatever the time frame was that covered costs like the gym and student center and a few other things. And I remember sitting maybe 10 rows from the field at around the 10 or 20 yard line. Of course, this is in the mid-to-late 80s. And we had some really bad teams then.
Edit: guess I should ask, do students pay for tickets now? Assuming yes. Anyone know what it is? I'm just curious.
When I was in school (class of 18) we had two options. There was a free lottery week to week that either put you in SEZ or the nosebleeds of East (way more likely SEZ) or you could buy season tickets for I think somewhere in the $100-200 range and that's how you got guaranteed seats for every game and a way into NEZ. Seats were assigned based on seniority and GPA if I remember correctly and you could make a block of 30 people to sit together
A seat lottery? Man, in my day, they couldn't give them away! Of course, we were 2-9 my freshman year :-(
I don't know of anyone that didn't get a seat save for a Thursday night Miami game where the entire school wanted to be there.
My first game my freshman year in 95 we just walked over from Pritchard and got a ticket and went into the game. It was the Thursday night game (against BC I think) and the top corners of the east stands were empty. Of course we lost the game, and ended up starting 0-2, but then that ended up being an epic year running the table and winning the Sugar Bowl against TX. I still talk shit to my UT friends down here about that one.
There's an easy way to get into every home game for free, just join the Corps of Cadets! Couldn't be easier!
Outside of the price hikes for season ticket holders, I ultimately think this is a good idea by VT... Students always tried to cram into North section or the lower left portion of East since no one liked being all the way at the top of East, making the top left portion look empty.
IMO this should help with the student crowd control/trying to squeeze in too many people in rows/sections.
I've been saying for last few years that VT needs to seriously think about expanding Lane by maybe 5-10k seats. Not even with possibly B10/SEC expansion, but will help with students trying to cram into lower portions of Lane, plus as long as they give out enough/more tickets to students, they will always fill it out. Now will some still leave early? Yes. College student gonna college/party. I know we suck but look at our fanbase now. We suck and still sell out games. IF we return to being a good football team, selling out a 70-75k stadium would be a breeze. Could help with stabilizing ticket prices with more supply.
I'd like them to connect the corners on each side of South, something like Clemson did/does with one of their endzones
Outside of the NFL teams- Jets, Raiders come to mind.. VT's football ticket costs- donations, parking, etc could be the least proportionate to winning in sports. God our stuff is expensive for the product we have been getting .
You're not wrong... VT fans have not been getting any kind of value for their dollar recently... And that's also forcing most fans to drive 3+ hours.
We have a bad team now and are selling out. The question is for how much longer. If we don't improve, I am seriously debating the $1100 per ticket or $185 per game price.
Can't do that. They're at differing slopes. That was discussed back when the SEZ was being designed, but it was said that building codes no longer allow building stands at that angle, thus the disconnect between the East/West stands and the SEZ.
Yeah I'm not sure I fully buy that given Indiana was able to bowl Memorial Stadium in about 10 years ago, and it used the exact same blueprint of Lane.
Indiana and Virginia have different building codes.
Then you could go with the approach that NC State did with Carter-Finley when they built the suites/press box tower.... There's a gap between the two structures so that they don't actually physically touch, meaning you didn't have to bring the old up to code. There was nothing stopping us from continuing the seats right up to the edge, but not touching the existing structure. We didn't have to leave the massive gaps that we did.
With all of that said, I do think the eventual end game here is just to expand the bleacher sections of the North End Zone to accomodate all students, and to completely close off that whole area from the rest of the fans. It keeps them away from the public, which satisfies most of the complaints we hear from alumni, and it gives every student a guaranteed seat in the NEZ, which avoids the overcrowding we get when those with East Side tickets sneak in. Make the NEZ General Admission for every game and you're done.
Even if this means putting a 2nd deck of bleachers on the NEZ, it feels like this is the inevitable long term solution we will see. Especially if we end up in either the Big Ten or SEC with the visiting crowds we'd expect every game.
Absolutely love this idea. Nothing worse as a student than being stuck up in SEZ away from everyone else or in one of the lame East sections. Put all of the students together and you get a great hostile environment on NEZ and SEZ with the Corps.
I have the idea of a second deck of the metal bleachers. I have always thought they should just build a permanent concrete set of stands with or without gaps on either side that goes over the existing road to the north with enough clearance for vehicles underneath. This would however force the stands right up against the practice field and some sort of access would need to be left for scoreboard maintenance equipment.
I thought of this too... obviously would have to tackle the scoreboard and/or practice field behind it, but I could see them doing two slightly small video/scoreboards in each corner of endzone, kinda what Alabama did with their most recent expansion... Might have to do same on SEZ if you get rid of only scoreboard now or just one large above SEZ kinda like Tennessee's
I went to one game at UT's stadium years ago, and it is crap. During that whole race to the most seats they built up more seats into the concourse, making it harder to get in and out with the crowds. The "lines" for the seats were also like 15 inches apart, and you were literally crammed in there next to other people. It sucked, we left at halftime and went back to the tailgate.
Yea I saw a game at UT in 2021 and I wasn't that impressed with the stadium given the size. Very outdated.
Went to LSU last year. The stadium is massive and very cool as you drive up to it. However it is absolutely disgusting and a straight up maze underneath. It took my group of friends at least 30 minutes to navigate around to our seats after getting through security. It was great once you actually get to your seat but man is it terrible inside.
Didn't they just build on top of the old stadium, including dorms offices etc?
Not saying what you are saying isn't true, but I had heard that by structurally connecting the SEZ to either W or E stands, those would have to be brought up to modern building codes. Which at the time was way outside of VT's purse strings. But maybe both were true?
That sounds more likely.
Stadiums are going the other way. The only way I think we see any kind of increase is more club and boxes.
There are multiple projects around the country announced this year that show you're not exactly correct when it comes to college football. Pro? Yes, they are scaling back, but college is still full on expansion city.
FSU, Bama, UF, UGA, Miami among others have already reduced capacity or are planning on it with new renovations.
https://www.tampabay.com/sports/fsu-seminoles/2018/08/16/reduced-seating...
This is my opinion too - focus on improving the current experience instead of adding seats. I think watching football on TV is better than ever before, so we should lean into premium luxury experiences that will bring big money folks to the game.
Even if we don't go that route, improved logistics, better wifi, etc should come before additional seats IMO.
Regarding connecting sections in Lane, I recall someone saying if things got connected then the older portions would be subject to newer regulations (accessibility, etc.). I might be wrong, but it made sense when I read it.
As long as we are talking about Lane.....
Can we add the maroon and orange stripe back to the top of the walls around the field? Lane has never looked right since we took it off, and the whole program has been off since we did.
I was hoping this was going to be back this year.
Not all of his legs are from cheap pandering, y'all.
The one thing that I want to figure out how to do is to build a platform for Skipper between the SEZ and West stands over the tunnel on the field. Put skipper there for everygame.
Would certainly at some meaning to "they don't want none of that smoke"
Angled towards the visitor's bench, of course.
We just got bit by this, we reached out to the ticket office weeks ago and they finally called. We have been in Section 7 Row NN for the past eight years, after being season ticket holders for more than 20. We love our seats and have continued to increase our Hokie Club bribe to maintain them. Now those seats will no longer be made available at any price, and when we spoke with the "Ticket Office" (now outsourced to the Pacolian digital tickets vendor it seems) we expressed our displeasure at what has been a constant erosion of the Gameday experience they basically offered no solutions, and didn't even try and sell us on other locations. After careful consideration we decided that we won't be paying more for a worse location and will drop out of being Golden Hokies. We aren't the biggest donors but I would have expected some effort on their part to retain us. Oh well, we will drop down to $100 HC members and then try our luck on the secondary market for a while. I love Tech but when you're staring down a $900 per game cost (4x season tickets plus parking pass plus annual donation for the pleasure of purchasing) it's hard to ignore.
I get it I really do. We are still debating the 5k a year minimum or would cost us to keep our current seats. But I also see the athletic side of things. Demand for student tickets is up, demand for better seats is way up, demand for things like wifi and better concessions are up, Lane will need renovations in the bit too distant future and donations to Hokie Club for tickets only fund scholarships and the small stipend players get.
If we want a long term competitive program in football and other sports this is what has to happen
The thing I am most surprised about is that they didn't even try and up-sell us. We would have happily donated and paid more for equivalent or better seats. But there was not attempt at "we have this section on the south end 25 yard line we could look at" or "for $xxx more we could get you into club seats." Instead it was a straight up "well guess we can't do anything for you," type of conversation. I get it, like go up, money go up, etc. But if the plan here is to move people to donate/spend more they are going to have to start working harder. Hope it works out for them but the trend and demographics are pulling against in-person attendance across the entire college football landscape right now.
your anecdote is bothersome...the apparent lack of effort to build revenue streams raises questions, for sure. Maybe VT just needs to get some seasoned sales people on their side - also, maybe they don't want to come across as pushy??
It could also just be that the demand doesn't dictate the need to push for sales. We've sold out every home game this year. It just may not be worth it on VT's end to sell you into a new seat, because they have tons of people waiting at the door. I'm going back and forth on if I hate this tactic or not. On one hand, that's not the best way to treat your loyal fans. On the other hand, there's only a limited amount of seats in Lane and if everyone squats on their seats for 30 years young alumni will never be able to get season tickets.
it's a real damned if you do damned if you don't situation
I agree. I think overall it will be to the benefit of VT Football, however we'll have a few unfortunate casualties along the way like a few of the posters on this thread.
Virginia Tech Athletics marketing has been complete dog water for a long long time, so who knows what is really going on behind the scenes. I'm a 2000 grad, I was in school for peak VT Football and I have a powerful connection to that era. But I'm also 46 now, and I have other life stuff competing for my attention. And the 2020+ era has kind of broken my die-hard fandom a bit. Ten years ago we made it a point to go to every game, hit a lot of away stadiums, etc. Hell on two separate occasions I have flown home from business trips overseas and driven directly to games. The last time reseating happened we went big on our donating because we really wanted to secure our favorite spot. That ain't happening anymore especially with the changes that have been made over the past three years that have felt hostile to season ticket holders in our section in particular. Things change, feels a little bittersweet.
This surprised me, I've gotten two phone calls about reseating and renewing tickets and donation in just last 14 days and I'm only a silver Hokie and only had season tickets for 4 full seasons and mini plans two years before that.
I get what you're saying, but it's a reseating year. That means no one's seats are "safe." If someone has a higher priority number than you and has donated enough to pick your seats, they're welcome to do so. Should they have been better on messaging? Maybe. But in the same token, if you have had season tickets for as long as you have, you already knew everything I just pointed out.
dang.. I'll drink
Its a reseating year isn't it?
Why would the ticket office be trying to find you equivalent/better seats to move you into when you get to pick your own new seats in the spring?
Unfortunately, stories like this are becoming the norm across all of sports. I have had season tickets with the Carolina Hurricanes since they were terrible, and just this year they reclassified seats across the arena and told me I either needed to double the price I was paying, or find another set of seats in a building that is all but maxxed out in season ticket plans. It was a shakedown of people who had been grandfathered into paying cheaper prices to reclassify everyone into a more expensive tier. All of the options presented to us sucked, and while I did find something I also know I'm probably only going to be able to do this for one or two more years before they fully kick me out of the arena.
It is what it is, there are no other solutions. The only thing that will matter is if nobody goes, but there will always be someone willing to pay a higher price than us, and that's why they do this.
Not just sports either.
Most of Roanoke had the unfortunate privilege of only having Cox as an internet and cable provider and year after year it was "your bill is about to go up"
At one point I called them to ask how to decrease my bill by reducing services and all I got out of them was "You can't."
What do you mean I can't? I have a package that includes home phone (didn't have a home phone, but offered to drop it) and I had cable with an added sports package (I was willing to drop).
"Well, we can take all that away, how's that sound?"
"Great, what will that do to my bill?"
"Well, it'll actually raise your bill about $25 if that's ok."
"No, I want to decrease my bill.... I want to pay less...."
"OK, well actually if we change your plan at all to give you less, you have to pay more."
"That makes absolutely no sense, there's nothing you can do?"
"We can start you on a new one year plan we offer for new customers, that's only $xxx.xx per month."
"That's again, more than my current bill.... Tell you what, I will just cancel everything and go with GloFiber now".
"OK, cool, we'll just end your contract and you'll be ready to go.
I think places like that just have such a large customer base, they don't care about jumping through hoops to keep one customer.
I call BS. No way they let you end your contract that easily. ;^)
This little anecdote gives credence to the idea that cable TV still drives the bus and they're not feeling all that threatened by cable cutting
On a related note, Spectrum's stunt with ESPN was the last straw, finally cut them loose last month. Switched to YouTube TV and I am literally paying half what I was for all the same content that I had with Spectrum, HBO included. What a pleasant surprise it was to learn that the quality of video is leaps and bounds ahead of the chopped up signal Spectrum was dribbling out. I can request 1080p streams on all my TVs and the quad box stuff is great. Huge upgrade and a reduction in cost.
We had similarly fired Spectrum for data service just before the pandemic started when AT&T rolled out full bore gigabit fiber up and down. 10x the speed of Spectrum's drag-ass cable modems at the same price.
Sometimes change can be a good thing.
Ya, I run $80 GloFiber Internet and then split YTTV 3 ways, so I play like $100 a month for Internet and TV
I have been straddling the section 14/16 line for a couple of years now. They are jacking the price to over $1100 per seat counting the mandatory contributions. That is a lot of money for a 6 game schedule. As much as I don't want to I am considering dropping the seats entirely.
Yeah we were in a similar Goldielocks zone, right on the aisle in Section 7, on the very edge of the bribe going up another $200 per seat. The value was apparently too good I suppose. The problem is all of those seats are being collapsed into that same zone mirrored onto the south end of the East Stands, and there's just not that many seats in that tier. We tried the West side once many years ago and were too rowdy for the older alumni, LOL.
For the same amount of money on the secondary market we can likely nab some truly excellent seats and at the same time if we have a game we can't make we aren't out anything. It's upside for us in the end, at the expense of not seeing our in-stands friends on the regular.
This distinction will likely go away with the new seating arrangements. They also loved me over there the few games I've sat there since I graduated, or I had enough bourbon to think everyone loved me, bourbon solves every problem.
Never had a problem on the west side. I frequently stand and never stop yelling when the defense is on the field.
I've been a season tix holder for 20 plus years and I am a platinum hokie club member for many years . Having said that- when compared to other schools the cost of VT football tickets is criminally insane of you want parking and decent seats. Recently moved to phoenix. You can get ASU season tix and a parking pass for under 600 dollars for the season. lol. Try that at VT.
I'm pretty sure ASU isn't the only team in town to drive higher prices like VT can.
The entertainment options in phoenix and the valley compared to blacksburg is like comparing NYC to blacksburg, so yes more competition here for the entertainment dollar. Without research - I gaurentee you that VT tix that include a sanctioned lot parking pass are top 3 cost in the ACC.
I am a casual ASU fan since I have family that went there and still lives in The Valley. Great place to visit and ASU is tons of fun.
Didn't want to create a new thread for this, but has there been an update as to when mini-plans or single game tickets will be released this year? Or, does anyone recall when this happened in the past? I've got my season tickets, but some friends are starting to ask about joining, which is always a good sign!
Hokiesports front page article from Wednesday breaks it all down. Doesn't appear they are offering mini-plans this year.
Thanks. Found this after I posted. For whatever reason it wasn't hitting on a Google search, which only brought up last year and 2018. I would hope our folks know enough about how to manipulate the algorithm to make it the first hit.