My sixth-grader complained that the seat was too short for him. He's 4'8" and 70 pounds soaking wet. I'm 6'4", and the goddamned thing pushed me forward three inches, ended like two inches into my thighs, and the ones in front of me made it impossible to keep my legs in front of me. My knees were basically around the ears of the poor woman in front of me. There was nowhere else for them to go. If I'd bought season tickets, I'd be calling to demand either a refund or the removal of the backs on my seats.
You'd put these things on a restaurant seat to boost a 5-year-old up to the table. Whoever authorized them should have to sit in them every single day they're at work for eight hours for the rest of the season. OSHA would probably put a stop to it after 5 minutes, though.
Comments
The only thing worse than our offensive line blocking was those damn seats. We plan on bringing an allen wrench set for the next game and disassembling ours.
You could probably make some good money on allen wrench sales in Lane next game.
If you post the size, I'm sure many people would be grateful
Pro tip use the folding hex sets. I can't ever figure out where the f my standard loose hex wrench went that somehow is always missing the size I need but I've never lost my bow adjustment tool that has all of them in a pocket knife like setup
As a pro I have to disagree. Those folding sets are garbage and never are able to fit in those tight spaces where the Allen bolts are. Also, Allens or hex heads are by far the worst fastener type.
This is one significant downfall and also agreed but should be easy enough to carry into the stadium and undo a seatback.
For anything the folding set can't reach I go to my 1/2in drive set that are like 8 inches long.
That's a shame. I'm sure they're looking for feedback.
It's probably difficult or impossible to add something that will give someone 6'4" MORE room.
There's never going to be more room, but I expect better than something apparently designed by someone interviewing with Spirit Airlines as Vice President for Economy Class Passenger Pain Infliction.
I skipped the allen wrench and leaned hard on mine. Popped off after 2 or 3 good pushes. Three more to go next game.
lmao
Back in the early 2000s, they replaced the old wooden benches with metal after broken wooden benches were repeatedly crowd surfed up to the top of the east stands and thrown off during games. I'm just saying, there are ways to make a point.
MY daughter visited the stadium on a non game day. She's about 5"5" and close to 90 -100 lb. She also stated that they were the most uncomfortable seats she ever sat in. Stated a man 225+lb may not fit in them at all.
Maybe it's Whit's way of getting people to stand at the games...
/s
"They should be jumpin' "
--- Whit, probably
Came here to say 'who sits at football games?!'
There is way too much time that 'red' is on the field with his timer on a stick. That is when I sit usually.
You don't stand for the duration of all fifteen 5-minute commercial breaks?
I can confirm, even for someone 6ft tall, they are terrible. My back is paying a price for it today.
Everyone around me just kept apologizing to each other. There was no way to sit without being miserable and having your knees in the persons back in front of you or sitting sideways and having your legs on the person next to you.
Sounds like the installer is a hell of a salesman!
"Seats seat the same."
Whit, probably.
Seriously, how much do you want to bet they got one and somebody sat in it for 30 seconds, said this works, and didn't take into consideration the reduction in space when you install full rows of them or the discomfort over a 3+ hour game.
I had a chair at work that was duct taped together because it was actually had support and was comfortable, then the company decided they needed chairs to look good so I put mine in the lab, tried the new chairs and switch back after a day. The chair died years later and I talked to facilities and told them why I had the non-conforming chair and the head told me that they had new chairs and everyone in facilities sat in each for 2 weeks and then they picked the best one. Those new chairs were much better and I still miss working with that head of facilities because she was amazing and I have yet to work with anyone that thought in the correct way that she did.
I led a revolt at my old job when corporate ordered a changeover to new chairs in the new corporate colors that were specced by someone about 5'8". Eventually my boss told the office admin that someone in Minnesota being mad about 10 chairs in Virginia they'd never see was extremely not worth an OSHA complaint.
I didn't mind the seat backs although they did seem to really limit the space tryifn to get by anybody.
Booting all the students out of my seats really pit a damper on things for me. East section was a madhouse
We were way up in 231 for the kid's club tickets so no seat backs. But agree the students invaded, standing 2 and 3 deep, standing on the steps and taking ticketed seats from folks. Was pretty insane with all of the families like mine with little kids.
Talked to a few students after the game. Tech continues to have a problem with non-students sitting in the student section. Which leads to students not being able to find a seat there and wandering the East stands looking for something. My entire first quarter was spent standing on the bench, looking over the hordes of students standing still in the aisle. It was a fiasco. (And dangerous. One girl was very drunk and I think passed out from the crush. Heard about another girl who fell down and had her arm broken by someone stepping on it.)
The student entry situation starts badly coming down the hill from the tennis courts and gets much, much worse down the back side of the practice facility. We made the mistake of trying to enter there and turned right the hell around when we saw the crush created by the fencing.
I've got a spreadsheet with every serious college or pro sporting event I can remember attending. Yesterday was row 557, spread across five countries and 29 states plus DC. Compulsive tendencies aside, that is to say I've got a ton of diverse experience in these situations that tells me this setup is cruising to get someone hurt very, very badly.
It's a good thing you turned around because non-students cannot enter in the NE corner of Lane Stadium by the Beamer Barn. Student gate only. Other fans have to enter on the West or South sides. Note that the center-east entrance by stadium woods is also no longer in operation so you would have been squeezing through hordes of students headed to the student gates to make your way down to the SE corner entrance.
I knew they'd closed the Stadium Woods entrance. Didn't realize they'd restricted the student gates now. Maybe they should put a damn sign up about that at the tennis courts where people coming down Washington Street have to either turn into the funnel for that gate or continue for the others.
I parked at the new town police garage on the old Blacksburg Middle School site, and that was excellent for being able to get out of town to the east. I guess going forward if I'm sitting where I like to in old section 33-35ish, it's either do 270º around the stadium through the crowds or cut down Harrell to come around by the motor pool and Southgate.
Started the game listening to the radio, and they commented on the fact that you can see it's a sellout when you can't tell one section from the next, with all the people standing in the aisles. Like that's a good thing. =^/
"Seats sit the same."
- Whit... probably...
I didn't have an issue with the seats but my wife did. She was wondering how anyone taller than 6 feet (she's fairly tall) could sit there comfortably.
I will note that the seats made me a bit wary to have my kids standing on them as they are a bit uneven. I didn't want them taking off and hurting someone.
They certainly make it harder to get through when trying to get out of the aisle. Also much harder to go from one row to the next.
It just seems like the attention to detail from the athletic department is always so bad.
I think this is why Saban had so many people on staff to handle all the little things because how can expect to win a championship when you can't do something simple like install seats. You know Saban had a GA that figured out every dual number combo so none would play on special teams together. And I'm sure he made sure fans were taken care of so they'd donate.
Meanwhile we have an athletic director and an athletic department that isn't qualified to run a Pop Warner program.
I thought they were better than the old seat backs, however I use a mesh office chair all the time so it is practically the same thing. The fact that the bottom section is adjustable does help some to get a better position while sitting in it. I will enjoy them more if it rains on game day so I don't have to sit on a wet sponge.
rainy days seem like the only situation where these would be an improvement. These take up too much "pitch" space (pitch is the distance from row to row that equates to legroom)
I also here they cut down the pee trees next to the creek in lot 18. Life is difficult, fam.
Adding another note on the damned seat backs. There's no way they tested these things for more than 30 seconds. They consume way too much space and they feel like you're sitting on the edge of a toilet seat with all the comfort that implies. Yet another fix to something that wasn't broken, a solution that nobody asked for.
I was not able to make it to this game, but was looking forward to the seat backs.
I'm now a little concerned for my dad and his bad back.
On a happier note, it looked like a true sell out from a couple videos I saw posted on X. Even the south endzone "540 section" looked full. Can anyone confirm?
They had a ton of aerial shots in the broadcast and it was definitely a true sellout
There were some empty sections in the nosebleeds after halftime, but it was definitely packed at kickoff. Unlike Maryland's half empty stadium vs MSU. I hope some P2 bigwigs switched from the ghost town in College Park for a conference opponent to a rocking Lane Stadium vs a G5 team and took note.
And then hopefully they took a nap until the second half like our offense did. /s (but not really)
Awesome to hear. I'm hoping to make the Rutgers game with a colleague after a work conference in Harrisonburg.
Would be great to see another sellout. Really hoping Rutgers isn't a noon kick, though, as that will make my travel plans hell.
Very much a sell out. I was impressed every corner was full. The seats are great (better than no seat) and sitting next to my two 6'3" friends they didn't seem to have the issues mentioned above. We were in the south end zone and seemed to have plenty of space.
I sat in the east stands this game and I usually sit in the top sections of the south end zone, and I noticed that the south end zone stands have way more pitch (legroom) than the east stands. I assumed this is because the south end zone bleachers are much newer.
We are in the south end zone. Hoping that makes a difference. Appreciate all the replies!
We did an informal poll on the seating right about the end of the game. Thumbs up or thumbs down. All thumbs down. One guy was planning to call the Athletic Dept to complain on Monday morning.
I understand the intent. They probably should have just gone with the bottom part, and not the back. We didn't have room before for tall people. Don't need any more horizontal limitations.
Yeah, I totally get trying to more specifically delineate seats. Eventually maybe we'll replace the bleachers with fixed individual seats, and that'll be just fine. But these things are awful. I'm about 2/3 of the way to putting the ticket I bought for BC up on SeatGeek because I don't want to subject myself to it again.
They went with just the bottom part over in the section of the south endzone that has bleacher backs. The seats themselves aren't very comfortable. While they do declare a specific seat area, they don't really prevent larger sized folks from still taking 1/2 of the seat next to them. (I saw a couple examples of 2 in spots for three and there is no way that curved seat was comfortable the way they were sitting on it)
My father in law 5-9 liked the back support. My mother (83) thought they were the worst thing she ever sat on and had somebodies knees in her back for half the game. I am 6-1 and hefty, I could live with them but my knees were on either side of the woman in front of me. There was no room for people to get past and we are seats 3, 4., and 5.
I guess I am emailing Whit about getting them removed from my season tickets seats. I can ask if they want to remove them or if I should just throw them in the trash when I do.
Hmm- we were in a row BEHIND one that had the seatbacks and we have season tickets; WAS going to call and complain as we did NOT get them on our seats; After reading these comments, that call will not happen, LOL. Besides, as noted, we generally only sit down during halftime and the "official timeouts" anyway.
PS I HATE that guy in the red shirt! (and why was he at the opposite end of the field from where he usually is?)
On the flip side of that, our seats are in the last row that has the seat backs. By the end of the game, I was ready to pay stupid money to the row behind us to switch.
One more game on them and I will be ripping mine off the bleacher in a fit of Hulk rage.
Worst decision Whit has ever made. And that's saying something. APFOW Sr.'s back was screaming.
We did the rented seatbacks for a season and realized just how much legroom they take away. Those also felt like you were falling forward the whole time. We ended up cancelling them to get more room. It was nice having the dedicated width though.
We did the rented seatbacks for a couple years. I liked them.
A byproduct was that it allowed me to insist on staying in my seat and kept the extra few people in my row from driving me into my daughters seat-space.
My wife would be on on one side and I on the other so we could form a block in order to allow my 2 young daughters in the middle to have sufficient space to feel comfortable.
Please call the ticket office to let them know how you feel. 540-231-6731
They sounded very receptive to my feedback.
We called. The vendor is coming back to remove them for the people that call and ask to have them removed. Supposedly before the Rutgers game.
Welcome back!
Can confirm - I just called and added my name to the list. However, I was told - after the Rutger's game would be the soonest that things would be removed. They are still "Compiling a list"
I also sent this ⬆️ email just to be sure.
Success. About the only thing that looked good in Lane stadium today at the Rutgers game was my 4 seats without seatbaxks
Our seat backs were also gone and it was the best thing about our time in Lane Stadium on Saturday.
Thank you for this - we called and they have us down to remove them. They were still there for Rutgers but the VTTO said they should be removed by the BC game. Much appreciated.
Happy to help.
Called, they will be removing my seats. The young lady said the calls have been overwhelming against the installed seats.
Damn that seems like a colossal waste of money if they remove them all - wow
Yeah...I havent been there to see in person, but with the overwhelming sentiment against them, I have to wonder was there a test with real fans in a real gameday situation done before moving ahead with this? If not, that's a pretty huge waste of resources.
My bet is someone saw X school installing new seats, so the Tech athletic dept went to temu for a quick fix without testing or thinking things thru.
Well they apparently only remove them if you call and request removal. However, Tech charged $90 per seat for those seat backs this year. And I assume they are going to charge the same next year, even if I call to have them removed.
According to someone I know who works in Athletics, those seatbacks were only rented from some company. So depending on the contract details, it could be an OK situation (they can cancel the rental early without significant penalty), or a colossal waste of money (as you stated) if they are locked in for the full term.
Based on history I'd lean toward the latter. But even if VT can cancel early, will the number of complaints warrant that large scale reversal and the optics of a poor decision?
The person I know was shocked to hear that so many people hate them and even went so far as to remove the seatbacks themselves, lol.
My worry is now will they be removed everywhere for Metallica.
Why is that a worry, given that you've asked to have yours removed?
My worry is that they won't have been removed. I am not sure they will honor a request to remove them for the concert.
Sorry. Mild dyslexia got me. I just read your sentence wrongly!
Reading this post and comments is reminding me of the 30 Rock episode with the Kabletown couches that are so uncomfortable, they're eventually sold to the government to be used in Gitmo interrogations.
In addition to the horrible seats, saw this today from another VT fan.
I'm just about ready for VT to fire everyone in the athletic department.
The upper sections have 33- or at least section 232(formerly 31,33) above the upper portals do- cause I have seats 31,32, and 33 which are three seats that run to the aisle ...
Reading about this makes me think of the first scene in "Big Daddy" when he is all excited to tell his GF about "adopting" the kid.
She is, understandably, pissed and goes "how could you possibly misconstrue this situation this badly?!" To which he merely says "I don't know."
VT Athletic Dept = "Big Daddy"
As we walked away from Lane Stadium on Saturday, I told my wife I didn't understand how VT could be so dysfunctional. And now I see this. It's truly a sad state of affairs. And I was originally upset because I didn't have seat backs for our seats in section 231 after being told that all season ticket seats would have them. Glad we didn't get them from the sounds of things!
Not having sat in these new ones only the old ones. What did you taller folks do before? If the person in front of you was bigger or had one of the temporary seat backs you rented? The space available hasn't changed so what's the difference? Just the hardnesses or more permanent nature of it not giving any wiggle room?
As a 6' plus, I had more room before for my legs. On a positive side if my knee hit the old fabric back, they felt it. Now my knee presses the entire back piece forward.
The space available has changed. The backs themselves push you about 2-2.5" forward compared to sitting square on the bleacher, and they subtract between .5-1" from the room to the rear. That's about a 3" reduction in seats that didn't have much room to begin with. They also have nearly zero flex to the back.
The old seat backs weren't great, but the thickness was negligible and they had some flex, so I could live with it.
I have only sat in the rented seatbacks a couple times. So, I can't really compare the two as far as legroom goes. I'm 6'3" and the loss of legroom with the new ones is noticeable. It makes it much tighter when people are trying to get by your seat when they are coming and going. Not only are you having to contend with the loss of room for the person sitting on that row to allow you to pass, but now you have the static seatback in the row in front of you that makes it tighter. As to the seats themselves, someone upthread compared them to being forced to sit on the front 1/3 of a toilet seat. That's a pretty spot on analogy. Though, less comfortable than the toilet seat. Specifics with the rented seatbacks escape me, It's been a long time since I sat in one. But I do know that I never spent the entire game in which I sat in one praying for the game to end sooner and release me from hell.
For the record, NCSU installed these same seats as well and I heard it was a shitshow for them, too.
If we are going to do this, just cut the bullshit and install permanent seats next year. Tacking them onto the benches was really never going to end well for anyone.
Doing that is more expensive, of course.. and I think the mystical "LED lights" are a higher priority for our fans. We have fallen behind schools on lighting the stadium of course.
What gets me here is that LEDs are the cost effective choice! They last longer and consume 10 % as much electricity. They pay for themselves over the standard arc lamp in a few years. Maybe as stadium lights it's closer to a 10 year payback. This sort of choice is a microcosm of how our athletic department functions.
If the standards now can be converted simply. If not, it's an entire replacement project. It may or may not be as simple as changing bulbs...but it's not always the case.
Right, but even a full replacement would be cost effective from an ROI perspective. I am certain the same light standards/steel frames can be used- so it's just the bulbs. Off the top of my head- Ravens, Orioles, South Car, UVA, etc all just swaped out their bulbs for LED recently. Not a huge deal apparently.
There's also a ballast/arc control that probably has to be replaced with an LED driver. But these components should all be sized so the retrofit isn't overly cumbersome and costly.
In my personal experience the word "should" is the operational pivot here.
Asking this honestly, not rhetorically, but how do you invest in something that has a 10 year payback timeline? Are they going to improve the gameday experience for fans or players that much? How much would you need to spend upfront for that? What's the opportunity cost (staff? Player compensation? Recruiting budget?)
I haven't been to lane since 2017, but I can't imagine that improved lighting is that high on our todo list (unless there's other downstream consequences/complications that I'm unaware of - and that is quite likely)
I mean the LED shows some stadiums have been doing are pretty awesome. Night game Enter Sandman with LED effects would be pretty cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdve-D5Yd6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvC4ax21bfs
Nebraska hasn't been relevant in nearly 30 years. The light show is cool but I'd rather have a team on the field that can light up opponents. Getting LED lights doesn't get us there. Let's hire some coordinators who actually know wtf they are doing. When we start lighting up our opponents on the field we can start thinking about cool light shows.
Amen. Enter Sandman- shoot me- has reached its apex of cool now. It's-almost- a parody, but not quite yet. When you lose to fucking Vanderbilt and all the other teams we lose to now, it is greeted with cynicism- Like sold out Wrigley in the 1980's. The team sucked but the afternoon drunk fest was cool.
lol that went way off the rails. Both would be nice, keeping our facilities in this decade helps on a lot of levels.
Side note Nebraska is more relevant than Virginia Tech and would absolutely wipe the floor with us for the past 2-3 seasons at least.
Other "non-relevant" teams that have LEDs: Alabama, LSU, Ohio St, Clemson, SCar, Michigan, Texas Tech....
To be fair 3-7 years ago - even with our struggles we would have crushed Nebraska. That program was a dumpster fire. We actually swept the 2 games with them when they were actually good.
with the exceptions of SCar and Texas Tech, all of those teams are relevant. And the fact Nebraska could beat up on a sub-.500 VT team doesn't make them relevant. We're irrelevant and so are they.
If you're concerned about facilities maybe we should focus more on things that will actually help coaches and players get better. Cool LED light shows 6 times a year ain't it. Buying weights will. But weights weigh the same. So let's get cool lights instead? I have no idea how expensive it would be to convert. The lights we have now are fine. It's not like the players are running around in the dark out there. The game-day experience is not hampered by our current lights. And until the team starts playing like Alabama, LSU, Ohio St, Clemson, and Michigan I really don't give two shits if we can do a cool LED light show or not. If I had to choose between firing a coordinator or two and paying a little more for someone better or getting cool lights I'm going to take the better coordinator every single time.
The point has been made on here. Until recently- Alabama and Clemson football had more money than they could spend... so why not get LED lights? Now they have to pay players, so let's see who springs for these facilities moving forward. Like you said- Bama has 8 home games a year usually and not all of them are at night- so maybe 4 night games, etc. Now that they have to pay or funnel 7 figures to Milroe, lets see if that changes things.
It wouldn't be the dumbest thing we did because "it helps recruiting". I tell you that.
There are some externalities here and I get that. But from purely dollars and cents, they will save money in operation costs over the years. Fewer lamp replacements, lower energy bills. And we expect Lane Stadium to be around for the next 20 years right? That's all I really meant. But our department is acting like an average consumer where the initial investment is probably a sticker shock relative to what's best down the road.
Here's a link about Alabama replacing their lights with LEDs 5 years ago. The project cost a bit more than $1 million (about 1 % of the department's revenue).
My understanding (2nd hand from someone who works at Crenshaw lighting) is that due to federal regulations they cant really manufacture the old stadium lights anymore. So replacement bulbs have to be found on the secondary market and eventually everyone will have to make the transition to LED lights.
Good point. DOE's General Service Lamp (GSL) standard was codified a few years back and I think it kind of pushed manufacturers to just do LEDs in almost every sector, even if the GSL standard didn't apply.
I've been told it is possible we will get these next year.
I would like LED's for Lane but it always seems like VT is always the last team do (insert new thing). College football is and has been for the longest time, an arms race. Seems like we are more of a reactionary school and proactive.
Well we were ahead of the game with our big video board. I think at the time it went up it was the largest in the country. That lasted a couple months or so but we were ahead for a second.
LEDs sounds like something that will get cheaper and better with time. So not being the first makes sense for that.
So LED sports lighting is not all that expensive in the grand scheme of sports facility costs.
I work for a local park authority and the tipping point for when LED lighting on recreational sports fields became equal to the old system bulbs back in 2016ish. That was also when the warranty periods that the manufacturers like MUSCO provide switched the 25 year warranty offering to LED lights.
Recent cost to replace fixtures only, not poles on a diamond field was about $300k. Caveat of course is that a diamond is different than a rectangle and light level standards for college athletics would be tighter than recreational fields.
I don't have a current cost of the show lights package which is the controls package MUSCO uses to make the lights do things after home runs/touchdowns/etc. Capital One put in that system complete with color changing lights on the diamond field they just built in Tysons.
I also don't know if there is any need for uplighting if the old light structures are used. You have to do that for diamond fields to be able to see the ball on pop flies.
I believe I heard from my lighting guy who did a bunch of work elsewhere on campus that the current stadium lights were done by a company out of Christiansburg that cut VT a deal to be able to say they did the lights.
This has to be your favorite show then right?
That is a common question. I've watched some of it and there are definitely some similarities.
We got one citizen note that said they were thinking of going to a park and had never been. However, they heard there was goose poop in the park. They wished for us to get staff to clean it up or enlist community volunteers and then they might go to the park for the first time.
Segue on goose poop...this was a recent feature on WTOP.
Capital Goose Control
The owner is the husband of a Hokie I went to school with. Who knew goose control was big business?
They are a menace. I did a field one time and had to get the contractor to do a warranty repair on some non-functioning irrigation heads. The contractor tried to say that they weren't responsible for fixing it because we must have damaged them during aeration based on all the aeration plugs. I gently informed him that no, we did not aerate. Those are all presents from the 200 geese that like to party in the outfield.
The resident geese are responsible for a large portion of the Chesapeake bay nutrient load. They decided they liked the area and stopped migrating a few decades ago. And they've multiplies since. They are a huge nuisance and a pain the deal with.
One of the big issues for a lot of these system is the old lights/wires at set up at a higher voltage than the LED operate at. So you are potentially having to look at transformers to step down power for the newer LED fixtures.
Made it up for the game yesterday. The seat backs are not as bad as the on field product, but they are cheap POS.
In addition to pushing you forward from the back of the bleachers, they seem to make things more narrow side to side as well. I'm 5'10" and probably have broader shoulders than average for my height, but nothing crazy.
My law partner from work sat beside me and he is probably 5'8", pretty small guy. The older gentleman next to us was really skinny. And yet, we were shoulder to shoulder the whole time. Uncomfortably so. My partner goes "these are smaller than the average fan, if makes no sense." It's like they did the whole stadium then had one guy who was like 5'6" go sit in them for 30 seconds and say "yeah, this will work." Had they simply installed one row and had 4 people sit down together they would've quickly received the feedback needed.
They actually made them bigger than the original space allocated to each seat. They removed seats. Now people just know what space is theirs. But yes it's a very small space.
I've had tickets for 30 years. These seats since the south end zone was built. Most cramped we've ever been
Right because before you could by your body size force more personal space you can't do that anymore. So for example if the row held ten people and 2 people didn't show 8 people had the space meant for 10 now 8 people have the space meant for each individual person forced upon them. Or if a child was in the row they took up less space so people around them got more, that isn't the case anymore.
This makes sense. But how they designed it that way as the "new" section is pretty bad. They gave enough space in each seat for a 12 year old
Maybe they just thought we were all middle schoolers.
Building code assumes 18" per butt. I design for 22" to 24". But, I'd be willing to be Lane stadium has always been around 18".
"Butts butt the same?" /s
And some airlines give you 16.5!
LOL GTFOH
That's ridiculous
I gave them a second shot. Will be finding that number and having them removed as well. Going to ask them to credit me back the money as well for seat backs that made the game worse that I didn't want in the first place.
You didn't pay any extra for them.
Tech specifically said they were increasing the price of each seat by $90 to cover the seats.
I get that people don't like them what I don't understand is what people did before? I'm a bigger person, if I was sitting in front of her I would actually take up more of her space than that seat back because I would overhang the back portion of the rear of the bench. So where did her legs go before?
she would have had room to scoot back a little bit. The thickness of the arms for the back is taking up room, and taking away from space that the person could physically occupy. Nobody sits full 90* vertically so that space from the arms is greater than just simply their width.
Even at 5'6", if the person in front leans back, it is a knee strike.
Worst part for me this weekend was catching the bone of my ankle on the bracket securing the seat in front while shuffling out with the wee boy. Felt great.
Clark is not a sideline pass/suite guy? damn
An observation from a guy that used to love the old seats.
Just to touch on these observations.
One advantage of the older ones was that the seat portion would flip up which was a plus in 2 important ways. One rainy games when standing you could flip it up and the seat would stay relatively dry.
1) In the photo above, which is the only one I have seen of these, it looks sure to trap the water and ensure a thoroughly soaked buttocks.
2) The seat flipped up allowed much easier for people to pass by.
If you look closely enough at the photo, you can see that the maroon seat material is a mesh fabric, so in theory water should soak through and not puddle up. But regardless, it's no different than the metal bleacher that still exists beneath it!
This season a wet ass means you've made it through the first half!
So basically if Tech wants to have actual seats in Lane (which I fully support, by the way) then they need to do it the right way.
Get rid of the benches and install proper permanent chairs with backs that don't lean, and seats that flip up to open up the aisle when people walk past. And, just because it sounds like these current seats are a disaster, have a minimal gap between seats to give more butt room for people sitting down.
The current chairs are a cheap bandaid that only makes things miserable for everyone. If you're going in this direction, do it right.
I don't think they can is the issue especially in East. I think it was built too narrow on each "ledge".
I think that is likely correct. The distance from centerline of row to next centerline of row up or down is fixed and can't be increased.
Maybe just have every one stand instead?/s
Sally, our home record is so bad that most people seem to leave at or just after halftime, so maybe they're just allowing those who stay more comfort.
Mom is going to be 84 in October. Telling her she would have to stand for the entire game would be the end of her attendance. She gets up and yells when she needs to right now.