Don't get me wrong, the event itself was a lot of fun and even with end zone seats the view wasn't bad at all.
That being said.... What the hell, Bristol? First of all getting into the stadium was a disaster. Spent an hour and a half waiting in the line to get into Gate 13 before any employee revealed the gate was closed due to technical issues with the scanners. They then proceeded to tell us to use a gate that wasn't even functioning for the game. Then, once you got in, bottled water ran out in the first quarter and they are unable to get replacements for the remainder of the game. And security spent so long dealing with the Tennessee fan who was looking at people wrong they ignored the actual fight that was breaking out in the section next to us. Oh and then on top of the whole thing after the game, traffic didn't even move to let us out of the lots until 3am.
Next time you might want to spend less on fireworks, confetti, championship trophies and rings and more on the basic functions that make a venue viable for a football game.
Comments
They bought 500,000 beers and 2 cases of water. Typical Tennessee. Everybody in our section was complaining about the water issue. That 50/50 drawing! Shadiest shit I've ever seen! You would lose your license in Vegas with antics like that.
What was shady about the drawing?
You pull a name from a locked cage and then don't call out the name or any identifying marker. Instead pass the name to another person, who does a little pirouette and puts the slip in a "sealed" envelope and hands it to a third person, who then takes said envelope and disappears from any apparent supervision for a significant amount of time before name is announced. We saw 2 more people handle the slip of paper with the name on it than you should ever see in a drawing, and God knows how many once they left our view.
It reeks of fraud even if none occurred, and had I been one who bought a 10 dollar raffle ticket, I'd be demanding a refund and filing a serious complaint with whatever governing body in in charge of such things in Tennessee.
It was actually pretty funny. There was a very loud and distinguishable booing from our entire section after the drawing and I can only assume that happened throughout the stadium because it was pretty loud.
Yes, that's correct, as well as some "WTF was that?"
Well when you put it that way...
After they did the live drawing, the winning envelope was taken away to be verified or something. Insert shadiness. So no winner was announced after the live drawing. I entered it and the info on the site said winner would be contacted by phone at the end of the third quarter.
Right. Good luck with that. Cell throughput was non-existent that day.
Alum you were at the game right? So on TV it seemed like a lot of Tenn "perks" that Tech didn't get. Tenn Band best field and miked up for intro, fireworks after their TD, could you expand on the overall setup by BMS?
You are accurate in that assessment. That game was neutral site in name only. That was a Tennessee home game all the way down to the presentation.
yeah I was extremely disappointed in the whole presentation. I had a couple of my buddies with me that were UT fans and they were excited to see enter sandman for the 1st time and even they were extremely disappointed when it didn't happen. everything about the presentation of the game seemed rushed and heavily UT biased.
As someone else who was at the game, there were times where it really seemed it was a Tennessee home game where BMS was gracious enough to have given us a 40k ticket allotment. The Tennessee band also got fireworks during their halftime show, and a number of other benefits. And of course the Tennessee fan was given 5x the amount on that "vault giveaway" promo.
Yeah, the vault game.
VT fan started with $50, and won $100 in the vault.
Tenn fan started with $100, and won $500 in the vault.
But I'm sure it was just random chance, right?
Or the 50/50 drawing where they pulled the card and then put it into an envelope and never revealed the winner until an hour or more later off camera with just an announcement on the Scoreboard...
$80k winner that was handled in arguably the shadiest way I've ever seen.
You should never expect to win anything at a sporting event unless you are good friends with the organizers or sponser reps. I have friends who used to do this type of work after college and all the winners are chosen way before hand, not at all randomly, and told to just act surprised. They never did straight up cash giveaways though. It was always stuff like half court shots at halftime.
I wondered if we didn't have fireworks because we brought skipper. The Tech band was miked up for about half of the game it seemed and if it was at halftime the volume was turned down to half of Tenn. That was a Tenn home game for sure.
For a place that handles races with a large crowd the traffic, concessions, and logistics outside the stadium seemed like they were entirely run by locals who were brought in for just this event.
Didn't see or hear skipper once.
It went off every time we scored (oh, wait....) and at the end of the game while fireworks were going off (since it was loaded and needed to be unloaded).
I was in the end zone where Skipper was located it. They definitely fired it and it was loud as hell. It scared the shit out of every UT fan near me.
As someone who watched on TV they didn't show it. Seems like an easy story that could have been done.
Of all the military appreciation stuff done at the game, there was not one mention of us bringing the corps with us. Just adds fuel to the fire of the UT homerism.
Adding my experience here.
This felt like a Tennessee home game. Every tv timeout it seemed the UT band was playing. They played at least 5 minutes each time, most of which was Rocky Top, of course. They never alternated the bands between breaks.
My biggest peeve was the lack of entrance. While at Gameday, it was announced that Tennessee could not run through their "T" because of "logistical issues." Had some conversations about it, no big deal. Until the game. We didn't get our Enter Sandman. I'm assuming (yeah) that crybaby UT and biased BMS wouldn't let us have ours due to them not having theirs. BMS even promised and promoted that both schools would have their entrances.
UT got school colored fireworks after their scores, which is ok, IF you are at home, NOT a "neutral" game.
At times the PA announcer seemed biased also. At times he would put more emphasis and/or loudness to key UT moments or calls.
I'm biased against UT, but these things really made it look and feel like a UT home game at BMS. End rant.
Somewhere in the last month I started getting the feeling that this changed from a neutral site game to a UT home game. I'm wondering if it was a concession that we had to make to get UT to agree to the game that wasn't publicized.
That said, I thought BMS put on a world class event. It felt like a big game, it felt special. Being a part of it was awesome. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Regarding the traffic, I have been to a few Nascar races at different tracks (Richmond/Martinsville), and it always takes multiple hours to get out. I'm not sure there is a solution for that one.
Charlotte has a decent setup around the track where all the lanes become outbound lanes, but they all suck.
Yeah, we never went near the mall area there on race weeks. Learned that lesson the first time, as even during the race there's no movement on the roads.
We didn't have any trouble getting out of the Earnhardt lot. Certainly not saying your situation wasn't annoying or possibly problematic but BMS made it clear that veichles wouldn't move for at least an hour to account for pedestrian traffic. I'd say BMS has that down to a science.
No, not science.
On one end of the EE parking lot, the gate was closed for an hour, but after that hour they just opened the gate with nobody directing any traffic. Nobody was moving. Drivers couldn't really get out onto the Hwy 11 because there was already a good traffic flow there. I ended up abandoning it and driving to a different gate, and drove by the original gate which still had the same drivers there, stuck.
Would be better to just not let people out that gate if they're not going to monitor and control it, as there were just a bunch of stressed out drivers there who wanted to leave and didn't know why nothing was moving there when other gates were open, and all the cars in that section were all pointed towards that particular gate.
EDIT: I should add, though, that the traffic was moving extremely well where they had staff members directing it. It was just the one location/section without staff directing it that was a complete disaster.
They definately are one of the best at non-moving traffic, took us 2.5 hrs to get back when it only took us about 45 to get in.
Same. They made most of us in EW go out the back to avoid 11 being blocked off. We only spent about an hour total getting to 81.
I had a good experience. I headed into the game about 6:30 and didn't have to wait in any security lines to get to elevator A. My mom and some of my other family came in about 7:30 and said they only had to wait abouto 5 minutes. I had to wait about 45 minutes to an hour in traffic to get out of Earhart West after finally getting all of our tailgate stuff put back though. Sorry you had to deal with that.
We lost, F it
I echo most of the same thoughts on BMS.
The gate setup was awful, seemed like the crowd was packed trying to get in all the way around the track, and we stood in that to get pretty much from one side to the other, took about 45 minutes (started standing in it at 6:45, got into the stadium at about 7:30). We didn't have the issues with closed gates, however.
I went down with about 6 minutes left in the first half to find water, stood in 3 lines for it, the first two times just finding a line with water on the menu, and the other time found a line with water and by the time I got to the front they were out. Went and found another line that had some, walked up to a Tech fan near the front and offered to pay them extra of they'd buy me 3 bottles of water, they got an attitude saying "nope, wait in line". Explained my situation, and the UT fan behind him said "look, I've been standing in this line for 30 minutes after having similar luck with lines. You're going to wait just like the rest of us." Way cool, guys. Went to a guest services tent to ask if there was any reason all their vendors were out of water, and they pointed behind me where a truck was pulling up with a pallet of water, and I went and bought 3 bottles after being first in line and got back to my seat just before halftime.
As for parking... Don't even get me started. Maybe we're blessed to have a bunch of Civil Engineers who was their gameday experience in Blacksburg to go smoothly or something, but it seems like we have a much better setup than Bristol does for postgame traffic, with only 40% of the fans at the game. First thing I did after getting to the car at 12:20 was getting us into the first row feeding into the path out of the lot, and we turned the car off and sat for 45 minutes waiting for the road (Exide Drive) to even move. When we finally moved, we creeped forward about 3 car lengths and sat for another 30 minutes. We finally emerged from the lot at 1:45, and spent the next 30 minutes crawling along some side road to a stop sign. Finally rolled into Blacksburg at 4am.
That is the first and last time I attend a football game at BMS. That said, the leadup to the game and the game itself were pretty fun, aside from the aforementioned gripes.
The water problem was egregious and the concessions lines were slow with a lot of people paying with debit cards. Getting in to the stadium was slow an hour before the game.
Concession lines were crazy slow. I got in line torwards the end of the 2nd and didn't get back to my seat until Q3 was about to kick off. At least I got water.
For a game 20 years in the making BMS was not prepared for last night. I went to two concession lines and they both were full but there were literally two items available to purchase (one line was selling water from a spout and fries, while the other one just had warm pepsi and warm diet pepsi). This was during the second quarter too, not at the end of the game. It was not what I expected.
I noticed also significant lopsided attention given to UT.
Fireworks at UT scores, the UT band was mic'ed up and the VT band was periodically played over top by the canned music. The announcer was certainly in the bag for UT. You could tell at first downs and scores.
There was a lot to the emotional swing by the guys, that was helped by the goings-on in the stadium.
Same experience with getting into the stadium. Waited in line from about 6:30 and finally got in at about 7:50 at gate 1, I think it was. They had metal detectors at the gates. They started out having people empty pockets and stuff until they passed through clean. Except no setup like at airports with bins to put your stuff, and such. Guys walking through by handing everything in their pockets, plus the ticket necklace and their belts to the attendants and repeating, and repeating until it didn't fail them.
Nothing went anywhere for almost 45 minutes. Then the crowd stopped being patient and started to get angry and shouting. It started to move a little bit and by 7:40 they realized they had a problem and started to just make everyone step through the metal detectors, have it fail, then have you move on.
It was a wreck.
I'm in the Marching Virginians, we did have mics up front, not sure how many or if they were working though. While I wish we got fireworks and all that we still had a good time. Couldn't tell you on the sound issue as it was all loud for me :)
I saw the mics thru the binocs and was wondering why they were not turned on.
Yeah no one could hear v-tag on first downs
Wow, I'm 99% sure I got to gate 1 at 6:30-6:45 and I was in in about 5 minutes. Was all the way in the left most lines (facing the stadium).
I was on the far right about 10 people back from the fencing.
I had a blast from 9:30AM - about 9:30PM. After that Q1, not so much. Also pretty amazing that we were still in it until the back-to-back fumble near our goal line and the muffed punt return. I have a lot of expectations for this team once everyone calms down and remembers to take care of the rock. Coach Fu should make all his skill players carry a football with them 24/7 for the next three weeks.
We knew they were allowing any traffic at al, to move for 1 hour after the game.
We went back to the campground, my wife took a nap until 2:30 or so while I drank beer and had a good time.
We got back to EEast and coasted on out, arrived home just north of Roanoke about 2:15 after leaving the lot.
Bought two waters right when we got there. My brother went to buy some in the 3rd and couldn't get anything. The water problem is inexcusable. NC State had a problem a few years ago running out of water and people passing out during an early September game and the following year they made sure they were over prepared. Anytime you are expecting a crowd this large and the people have probably been out tailgating for 8+ hours, you need to prioritize water over beer.
Not sure with the ability to bring in coolers if this is something they're not used to. They'll learn.
There was lots of water, it was provided by InBev.
My experience:
Thanks to Bristol, Tri-City area... y'all were all friendly and gracious. (All y'all...sorry.) That is a beautiful area of the world.
I had a great time camping and enjoying Bristol...the UT fans were fun and enthusiastic (except read below). Bristol Motor Speedway is awesome in the true definition of the word.
BUT.....they underestimated the crowd and logistics were horrible. We left the campsite...a 3 minute walk from Red Bridge/BMS at 6:30 and got to our seats after being stuck, jostled, offended, etc at 8:05! It was such a mess (gate 8) that at the end, the gate stopped scanning tickets and 'security' just stood back as hundreds of people swarmed through the scanners which were alarming frequently. Then, we bottle-necked again inside trying to get to seats...poor security guy was yelling at the swarm 'STOP CROWDING, BACK UP NOW!' as if there were a choice.....
Prior to getting inside while we we literally stuck in a swarm waiting for an hour, I was fortunate to witness impressive public drunkenness en masse topped off by seeing a UT fan piss on the feet and legs of a VT fan causing a fight, etc. (Yes, actually publicly urinate on an opposing fan...) The asshole behind us at the game threw down a Mason jar of corn squeezin's on the ground when VT went up 14-0, shattering glass and thankfully missing our group....the other UT fans around us were also appropriately offended by the behavior....
I'm gonna say this, but while they were embarrassed by their fans (we've got ours, I know), I was embarrassed by our team's performance. We had another opportunity on a HUGE stage and fell flat.
I'm glad I went and I'm glad I'm home.
Go Hokies!
Wait, you saw a UT fan piss on the feet and legs of a Hokie?!
That is absolutely disgraceful. I don't even have the words to describe how lewd and cowardly that behavior is, regardless of intoxication level.
I'll second a lot of comments made already.
Gate 13 was back up and we left after hearing other people walk by and say scanners were broken. Went in at gate 16.
The bands were not micd evenly. Tennessee band would blast us and in the tech student section we could not hear our band at all. Even during halftime. It seemed like they planned to try to show off the Tennessee band or something with the show and guest and crazy fireworks.
A lot of little things that seemed like they were maybe done on purpose to snub our side. Fireworks for Tennessee touchdowns ( though the skipper theory may make a little sense ). our teams entrance was weird. We ran out, our band was playing as we would after enter sandman. Just figured they decided not to play it for whatever reason, but then thunderstruck played overtop of our band. Then enter sandman played before a kickoff while we were still playing well. It was a joke, and Im sure someone in control was having a good laugh at our expense.
During the game I just felt like there were multiple times where it felt like bms was making fun of us. The game had its own set of ups and downs, and it could be partially on my head after a few things, but it certainly felt that way. Felt worse after the game over that then the game itself.
End rant.
I'll second what he said. His detail was pretty spot on.
I definitely get what you're saying with getting the feeling that we were the butt of a joke. We were disrespected at every opportunity. Our presence was a nuisance at best, the entire production was done for the benefit of Tenn fans. My least favorite was presenting the guinness world record plaque to the sponsor...and he's decked out in Tennessee gear. Then return to the game and 2 phantom penalties get thrown. Not to mention they skipped what looked like an interview with Beamer to show a pizza commercial.
Yup, on TV, it was an interview with Beamer. At the game, it was a commercial.
I camped in the Lady Equipment Lot so getting in and out of the stadium wasn't too bad but I did see some bottlenecks.
My biggest issue was the in stadium announcer. Total Tennessee homer. I definitely felt like I was at Neyland Stadium.
However, I had a blast. I thought the venue was really, really cool. I hope they do something similar in the future. Being at an event with that many fans was wild. If only the team had not made some key mistakes. It still stings but I've got hope and I'm optimistic.
High five!
I stayed at Lady's too. I'm not sure I'd call this camping. More like parking the RV and crashing.
You think in the 3 years of planning they would have attended and talked with atleast Neyland Stadium since they plan* for 102,000 people on gameday operations. Never been to nascar race, but if i was guessing this was run as a nascar event with football fans.
There's got to be a Big difference in entry/exit of people and cars and bigger difference in the water issue for something with halftime and kickoff and all day pregaming. On the positive side, they had working water fountains found pretty frequently. And constantly going to them allowed me to miss lots of the UT bank/odd prize giveaways and even as a bonus some of the game when VT made errors. And spent 0 dollars on drinks. $7 for a beer is that really normal.
Also got to workout a lot doing the lateral stand and shift waiting an hour to get in, then the dash to find your seat right before kickoff.
Was the VT football team put through this as to why the entrance was so bad?
I must be the only person there that got into the game easily...left thunder mountain at 7 and was in my seat by like 7:30.
Concession/beer tent lines were absolutely horrendous. As a Nascar fan who has been to plenty of races there over the years, I can honestly say that was by far the worst they have ever operated. No clue what went on there.
All the UT fans around us were very pleasant and nice...and to be on the front stretch, was pretty damn surprised how many UT fans were on the Tech side.
Most definitely a home game for UT...I expected it to be, but not that blatant. Even the world record plaque thingy was given solely to a room full of UT guys. Enter Sandman not being played for the entrance really pissed me off (I also wanted to see the parting of the T thing they do).
I shared your experience. Left thunder valley around 6 and the walk in was easy and effortless. We went in at gate 7 and found our seats easily. We (my wife, brother, and I) sat on the Tennessee side and were treated very amicably when we were up and when UT started rolling.
As someone who has been to many BMS races I was a little frustrated with the concession lines and the traffic issue after the game. For instance, my buddy got to his house in Johnson City at 4am. I pulled out of Thunder Valley around 1:15 and by 4 I was in Winston-Salem, NC. I think that when/if they do this again the game should be at 7 to accommodate for people who paid good money to be at the game.
With all of that being said, I really loved the atmosphere and enjoyed the experience minus the game itself.
I am going to take your comment and alter it to my experience, because we did almost the exact same thing, but had very different experiences:
Left thunder valley around 6 and the walk in was painfully slow. We went in at gate 3 and found our at 8 (2 hours!). We (my UT friend and I) sat on the Tennessee side and I was treated relatively poorly, but better than a lot of others once UT started rolling. My friend apologized to me a lot and at one point said "I'll back you up if you want to push that guy down the stadium." I still had a good time and laughed it off. Felt worse for the one UT girl in front of us who was constantly sexually harassed by older guys that were 60+ years old! She left at half time. For the record, I heard multiple people say there were fights of UT fans with other UT fans. No sure if anyone here witnessed that on the VT side or not.
As someone who has been to a couple of BMS races I was a little frustrated with the concession lines. I pulled out of Thunder Valley on Sunday around 11:15 and by 3 I was in Winston-Salem, NC (can't believe it took me longer to get back to Winston-Salem the day after than it took you to get back right after the game. Also, why didn't we car pool?!).
I witnessed an extremely intoxicated UT fan fight with security because he was in the wrong seat. I live in Elon, but yes, we should carpool next time!
I almost saw a fight between a bunch of Hokies when a guy in VT gear started yelling "F-you, you are not real Hokies" at a group of VT fans leaving the game after the last fumble to the 5 yd line. I was ready to help them shut the dude up if they turned on him. I told him he was acting like an asshole and got an F bomb my way for it. Shameful.
I noticed as we were walking through before the game that there didn't seem to be many concessions lines for the number of people in our section. As far as I can figure it's probably because purple are less concerned about missing action in a NASCAR race, especially early on, whereas football fans tend to try to time their breaks with TV timeouts and quarter breaks.
ESPN didn't have a stellar night either. Beamer, Peyton and Bruce out there for the flip and basically no coverage of it? Replays of key penalties? Nah. They missed the start of at least ten plays that were quick snaps because they were showing too many "atmosphere" shots. At one point, a VT DB was hurt and walked off the field any they didn't cover it at all.
I know it was a unique scene, but there was a football game to cover and they handled like the ACCN without the Mellow Mushroom sponsorship.
Worst ESPN broadcast I have seen in a long time. I am not a fan of the network but they do college football right. It was more than just being in such a weird venue. The production was just bad. So few replays, etc.
Most of the replays they had ran into the next play because of up tempo.
The reverse angles on replays was messing with me, because they would split screen with the ref, who then looked like he was pointing the wrong way.
I guess the replay gripe for me is replays of penalties. They were few and far between and really left viewers in the dark.
Yep. If at all. I lost track of how many times I said "where is the replay?".
Exactly. How are you supposed to know if a penalty is correct or not (in your estimation) if they don't show the replay?
Having watched at home - I figured out around the 2nd quarter they couldn't see anything the field - they were doing play by play by watching the tv monitor because they couldn't make out specific so the field.
While they were still the tank for UT, I'm not sure the commentating could have been better on specific plays given they were watching on a 12" monitor or via binoculars.
we had what I thought was pretty good seats. until I got in them. I couldn't make out or follow the ball at all. I could barely see any #s for either team. I know it is a once in a lifetime experience and for that I am glad because I don't know if I would do it again if I had the change. I had a blast but at the end of the day im there to see hokie football and from where I was sitting I was not easily able to do so.
Yeah, it was an interesting spectacle but, we won't be fooled twice.
My on-the-field takes:
Can't speak for entering the stadium as I basically walked in and out at will. I did get harassed for badges/vests/passes several times on the way in but the security folks quickly figured out who was actually allowed on the field after the first attempts, kinda annoying to explain myself multiple times to different people. Plenty of room on the sidelines to work, though, much better than Lane.
On-field media operations were being run through a person in a UT polo (handing out passes/vests/whatever) so I assume BMS contracted some operations to UT organizations. I assume this was done elsewhere (play by play?), but I didn't really notice.
Didn't pay much attention to media timeout things, the sound system was not tuned to be heard from the field very well, lots of echoing, hard to understand and I tuned out quick.
Entrances were disappointing for both teams.
Vols getting fireworks and VT getting skipper was the plan from the start for each team scoring, didn't even think twice about it, to be frank. (The crew aimed the cannon right at the Vols side of the stadium, which I thought was a clever touch)
I was super happy it did not rain on us at midnight.
As someone who was on the field/at field level, was crowd noise audible down there? I about lost my voice, but I swear I don't think a single Vol fan did...I was expecting them to be incredibly loud on defense, but to no avail.
Absolutely, and UT was definitely the quieter of the two fan bases (unless they were singing Rocky Top..... WOO!)
That said, Lane at its worst (best) is louder than it ever got at BMS.
Well, it's understandable that a venue that usually houses 40 stock cars ripping out 140 decibels of noise wouldn't want to contain it like Lane does.
I'm watching the game today.
The band is clear on TV, it wasn't there, though when the UT band played, it was loud and clear.
There were 3 bad snaps in the first series.
Also the tackle of Rogers on his first catch through the middle, it was all at the neck and above.
I noted that later in the game some too. Very close to being high tackles. I honestly thought this one was clearly high.
Just out of mild curiosity have you ever had anything in life that you have not complained about profusely?
Many things, thanks for your concern
There won't be a next time, I'd be willing to bet.
Glad I was there but will not go back.
Same - no reason to ever repeat this experience but I'm glad I was there.
Just curious why you think that? I am not sure if I would make it back but I imagine that was a pretty profitable game and something they would want to consider again in 5-10 years.
And I'd take you up on it....
From what I was told, Bristol papers were saying they made upwards of $40m (I was reading between $35m-$38m) for this one game alone. If those numbers are true, there's absolutely no way they don't do this again.
In fact, I would love for BMS to work out a deal with VT and Tenn to make this an ongoing rivalry. Battle at Bristol every 4 years to ensure every incoming class for VT and Tenn is assured to play at the track once before they graduate. Sure, they not make the full amount they made this time, but there seems to be a financial incentive to do this, and Bruton Smith doesn't strike me as someone who would let a potential financial windfall pass him by.
All I ask is that they clean up the issues we saw this time, and if we do it again, treat it like the neutral site it should be.
It might take better than a $5 to each team to get Tenn and VT back. There were are a lot of unhappy fans based on the seats, view, and exorbitant ticket price.
Im sorry that some folks had a bad time. our experience was outstanding end to end. We came in on exit 17 and got to the stadium around noon. There was very little wait to get into our lot ( were were outside gate 17. Tailgated all afternoon did the fan exp stuff, and then went into the game around 6:30.
We sat in the Pearson Terrace and though it was a stout hike, we were in thru gate 18 in less than ten min and in our seats by 7pm. We got water and pepsi at the start of the 2nd qtr and the lines were full but moved ok, and our seats were great considering that no sub $500 seat was great (the seats made me envious of my seats at richmond had this been a NASCAR race!!).
We left the stadium around 6 min left with the mass exodus following the UT score off the Phillips fumble. We unpacked the car, packed it back up on the trailer tray and headed out. We got back to Blacksburg at 3am and that was with a stop in Dublin to let off some of our group.
Every person working there was polite and were where they should be both getting us in and getting us out. Everything was clearly labeled, and I hell, I got to drive across the actual drag strip ( 1/4 mile time was around 5 min due to the other cars, but the parachute did deploy).
I think the only negatives was being on that black asphalt and not getting to group with Hokies, it was more of a "you park here" so it was really dispersed with Ut and VT and then stretches of cars where folks went somewhere else to tailgate. I would love it if they make this like and every five years thing, kind of a once per class deal.
The whole getting into the place sucked!
BMS bites the bag!
I had a similar negative experience to a lot of the comments here. Had fun tailgating for 12 hours but things went off the rails when we started heading to the track. Things started getting pretty tense at Gate 13 (and 14, 15, and 16). Just when things were about to go south in the worst possible way a dozen nervous cops showed up out of nowhere and they began letting people in without screening them.
Really didn't care for the blatant UT homerism on display during the game or the lack of response to an aggressive Tennessee fan attempting to start a fight next to us. I was in such a bad mood I ended up leaving early and walking back the mile and a half to the tailgate lot they stuck a lot of VT people in. Still took till 3am to make it the 10 miles home.
If they ever do this again I may go back. But it would be to enjoy the atmosphere in Bristol before game day and tailgate. I'll pack up after the first quarter starts and head to bar.
I encountered more shitty Hokies fans than Tenn fans. Unfortunately. The Hokies fans behind us were awfully unpleasant. There was a very nice family of Vols in front of us who remained gracious the entire time. I was embarrassed because of the Jerks behind us.
They said at the very beginning of the event that this was a home game for UT. VT was considered the away team and called the coin toss. I didn't think Bristol did that poorly with the event. The only real gripes I had were the super annoying girl who interacted with the crowd during TV timeouts and the shitty camera work on the colossus. Otherwise I thought it was a cool event despite the horrible loss.
Ugh, why did you have to bring up that woman and her annoying voice. The guy with the (sun?)glasses was getting on my nerves too.
The one thing that perplexed me more than any (I agree with most gripes noted above) was the almost complete lack of replays. I was sitting up in Pearson Terrace and while I could generally see what was happening, it was very easy to lose track of exactly what was happening. As an example, when we tried the rugby style punt that was low and hit the UT player in the foot, I could tell that it was lower than normal but once it hit the player's foot, I lost the ball all together. Luckily that was a play that they did show a replay of. I know both offenses were moving at a high tempo so it was hard but it seemed like replays would have been a priority with how far away people were sitting.
I had a damn pole blocking my whole view of the 40 to the other 40 yard line. So yes I relied on the screen a lot. Very very angry they didn't replay any of the plays with questionable calls.
For those of you complaining about the UT homerism and this being a neutral site game in name only, remember that the headlining sponsor of the game is Tennessee's biggest donor and his brother is the governor of Tennessee.
As they say, money talks and shit walks, but we still wouldn't have won that game playing like we did.
Bingo. And the "neutral site" games we have played in FedEx have had a huge bias to VT. Just keep that in mind.
except when we played Butch Jones' Cincy Bearcats at FedEx they were the "official" home team and they even had their annoying bearcat squeal played over the sound system on key third downs while they were on defense. And (I was pretty drunk so I might mis-remember) they never played Enter Sandman. So we might have had more fans but they made it as much of a home game for Cincy as they could
That's because it literally was a Cinci home game that Dan Snyder bought. It was the back half of a home and home we had with them, I think in 2006.
Our experience at BMS, was good overall, except for the play of the hokies. We had a little delay getting into Earhardt West, but, had a great tailgate spot. The events around the stadium were fun and I found the people working helpful, including getting out. It took about an hour to get back to 81, but, we were back at our cabin at Hungry Mothers State Park by 2am. Not bad given 156000 people. Hell, the Redskins can't handle 78,000.
Yeah, the game was about 75% Vol fans. Any surprise really. Still the Hokie Fans were really loud until the Hokies started dropping the pigskin all over the place. I don't know about the water complaints, we had no trouble getting water in the David Pearson section.
I do agree with the lack of replays on the big screen. I'm not sure that was BMS as much as the production guys in the ESPN trucks. I was just watching the replay tonight and they didn't show replays much, including some of the questionable calls. This is typical of ESPN crappy production. Both teams were running hurry up and they had trouble staying with the plays.
All that said, the Hokies cannot expect to beat anyone good if they keep dropping the ball and committing stupid penalties. They played Hard, but, not Smart or Tough. Except for the results, our group of 10 had a great time. Now, here's hoping the coaches can clean up the team's play for BC next week.
GO HOKIES!!
Our group had a great experience over the course of weekend with the exception of the result of the game. One nuance that I picked up on from partying with our campground neighbors was that their specific tailgate playlist included an almost identical selection of 90s hip-hop/pop that was played throughout the game. Might have just been coincidence but I was wondering if the sound techs from Neyland were working with BMS or something along those lines. Definitely felt more like vol home field advantage but that was also anticipated.
-Didn't have a big problem getting through the gate. Line for the elevator was taking forever so we took the stairs, but getting through security and filing into the stadium took like 5 minutes.
-Noticed the disproportionate amount of coverage for the UT band. But also didn't notice that until the game was out of hand so maybe the way the game was going played into how much airtime the bands got. Didn't really think much of the fireworks because Skipper was pretty prominent for our scores even if that didn't happen often.
-Had the same problem with concessions. Got in line for water at beginning of second and didn't get back to my seat until end of halftime. The line was long but not so long that it should have taken an entire quarter to get served. When I got to the front they had just gotten more water because I think they were out for a while but none of it was cold.
-Not really any problems with parking either. I mean we had to wait in line for a while to get out of the parking lot but that's pretty standard for any sporting event. I actually thought they seemed to have a pretty good system of getting everyone out of there and out to I-81.
-The presentation was pretty bad. A lot of the "segments" they did between plays seemed to be poorly thought out and presented. I assume they've never had to do that kind of thing for races before so I'll cut them some slack. 50/50 thing was definitely weird and terrible.
Overall I thought it was a pretty good experience outside of the game itself. Maybe I just lucked out with a lot of stuff but the water/concession complaint is the only one in this thread I really agree with. I mean that's definitely a problem but I don't think I'd go as far as to call them "woefully unprepared," when you consider the scale of this event and that this was probably new territory for a lot of the staff responsible for making it happen, I think most things actually went pretty well.
It's pretty obvious why they allow spectators at races bring in a small cooler. The facility simply doesn't have enough space to provide an adequate number of vendors for 160,000 people buying food & drinks. I spent a lot of the 3rd quarter waiting in line for sodas, ended up buying an extra soda since the line took so long.
True, but they did have an adequate number of beer vendors and they even had the price of water listed on their shirt. Why not require them to include 10 waters or something each time they refill their beer cooler? The water issue was really unacceptable and dangerous.
So I will probably hit alot of point that already have been, but I don't have the time or energy to go through them all. This is going to come from somebody with alot of experience at both Football and NASCAR venues:
- We got there on Wednesday afternoon to try and get the full experience out of this event. It may never happen again, so we figured what the hell. We camped in the Earheart West First Tier RV lot. Of course as you may imagine, the lot was quite empty on Wednesday. When we arrived I think we were probably 1 of 10. Somehow in a nearly empty lot, our spot was near a tight group of everyone else camping. We had two spots next to each other. The second RV was not arriving until Thursday Afternoon. We had a great group of guys (and one lady) from all over the Country, basically. Our normal group is spread across VA, the second RV came up from Florida with 5 guys, and my brother flew out from San Diego to be there for the week.
- The scenery and the people around town were amazing. If you have never been to a Food City, it is worth going to. Their Hospitality is nearly overwhelming. They also own the town of Bristol it seems like. The locals seemed to welcome everyone with open arms, and I am sure they are used to all the commotion with the race being in town twice a year. This just probably was another boost to their local economy.
- The weather was quite amazing. I miss living on that end of the state. Although warm outside, humidity did not really seem to exist. It was comfortable without having to duck into the AC inside the RV every hour or so. There was just a light breeze all weekend, but overall the majority of my time was outside in the parking lot.
- Earheart was definitely a majority of Hokies. I know this was done by design, but it was amazing seeing everyone arrive and greet each other. And of course everyone trying to outdo the other with their spectacular tailgate setups. We had a great time just walking around meeting people and looking at what each other had wasted their time and money one just to draw attention (we were of course guilty of this on many levels ourselves).
- #BUTTS. I will just leave it at that.
- The concert was fun. I am no huge Kenny Chesney fan and honestly think The Band Perry stole that show. I mainly used it as an excuse to get a peak inside before the Chaos of the following day.
- Saturday morning came and so did the tidal wave of people. I don't think you could have got out of town that day if you wanted to.
- Gameday. I have been to many in Blacksburg so I didn't bother walking down to it, but it was fun watching it know it was taking place just down the hill. My brother and his friends went down as there was never one on campus during their time at Tech. The sky divers literally jumped out of the blimp right above us. We got a kick out of seeing the VT flag deployed. As a NASCAR fan I enjoyed seeing Petty and JR, it was also nice having somebody pick us, despite the outcome.
- The Game. I won't get into actual gameplay, plenty of other people have done it already and most will be more qualified than me to analyze it. What I will comment on is the Venue. There is no denying this was spectacular. We ended up with some of the best seats in the house. If i have time later I will try and upload some pictures. But all I can say is WOW. It was amazing seeing this place packed to the gills. And that first quarter lead to lots of sweaty VOLs fans. Made the entire thing worth it for me. I know it turned around quickly, but it was still something that I was happy I got to see in person.
- Preparedness of the venue. This is where they didn't impress. Although they place looked amazing, they were not ready for the onslaught of people to their concession stands. This is a NASCAR venue. They are used to people hiking in coolers of beer and tons of snacks. Their concessions stands honestly don't get hit that hard normally. We got our only two beers right as we got in. There were maybe 10 people in front of us at our window and it took nearly half an hour to get served. They were just SLOW. The guy helping us stared at ID's longer than it takes most people to do an entire transaction at most venues. I have no idea what he was looking for on them, as someone who has checked alot of ID's in my life. Their credit card machines were a joke too, the kind of thing you would have at low resource restaurant, just too slow in themselves. Everyone has already heard they ran out of water at most places. I do not think they were out, I think they were unable to get cases of it to everywhere it needed to go fast enough. The logistics either didn't exist or were not calculated correctly.
- Security. Yeah it was slow. It was also a mix of people having no clue where to go and hopping in the first line they found. And then you had to deal with the people who have no idea what to do while in line for a metal detector slowing things down either. We just kept walking around and eventually found a gate with nearly nobody in line and were inside in just a few minutes.
- Traffic. Since we were staying we didn't really have to deal with it. But it sure didn't look fun. Once again I am not sure there is much they can do about it. That is alot of people trying to go somewhere at the same time.
OVERALL: Can't say I regret any of it. We had some great times with some great people, and going back into work today was more difficult than I could have imagined. Of course I wish the game had gone differently, but at least we had that one quarter to put the fear into the VOLS. I personally do not see this happening again any time soon, so I was happy to be a part of it.
Boston College next week, back to the reality of a home game again.
I actually had a pretty great experience. We got to the stadium about 6:30 and it took me 5 minutes to get through the gate. Not sure why some gates had it so much worse but I couldn't believe how easy it was for me to get in and get out of the stadium and I had a LOT of stairs to climb.
They were out of water when I went to a concession stand once but the stadium wasn't actually out of water, they just couldn't restock it fast enough. I know the lines were crazy long but I'm not sure what they could have done, every concession line I saw was open. Overall when you have 157k people in one place everything takes a long time.
I'm not exactly sure where to post this so I'm just going to leave it here.
One thing that is kind of irking me is the chatter that the officiating was biased and hurt us in this game. I don't like conspiracy theories that try to justify a loss by implying the refs were bought off or that one team had some unfair advantage in the game and they won by design.
Those allegations are petty and juvenile in addition to being unfair to the winning team. I know for a fact that VT has benefited from other teams' mistakes before. We were just on the wrong side of a rough night this time around. Tenn did not look like a top-10 team to me but they are definitely a good football team. Yes, VT beat themselves with costly mistakes but it takes a good team to capitalize on those errors and Tenn did that time and again. They left no doubt that they were the better team on Saturday and I don't think we should try to take that away from them. I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't fumbled the ball away 5 times. I don't know what would have happened if we didn't have so many personal fouls. But you can't blame Tenn for only having 330 yards of offense when they only needed to gain 9 yards to score 14 of their points. Just because we struggled to execute at critical junctures of the game doesn't mean Tenn cheated or got lucky. They were better prepared and they executed at a higher level and took care of business in all 3 phases. They were the better team. What more could you ask of them? Leave it at that.
Tenn is a good team and they did everything they had to in order to win the game. I don't want to hear about questionable or biased officiating because that unfairly takes away from Tenn's win and I know that if we beat a team by 3 scores and have a plus-4 TO margin in the game the last thing we'll want to hear is that the refs were trying to win the game for us.
Yes this loss is very disappointing, especially given the stage on which it occurred, but we only have ourselves to blame. Tenn out-executed us and they deserved the win. I hope our problems cease to continue moving forward. I'm sure the team is only focused on how they can get better. As fans I think we should stop dwelling on that which we cannot control and start looking at what we can expect for the rest of the season. We still have time to bounce back.
Go Hokies.
Calling out bad officiating and pointing to the examples that negatively impacted us, is quite different than calling conspiracy and saying the refs were bought off.
BMS and the entire production was definitely in the bag for UT. That does not mean the refs were in the bag for UT.
Pointing out that seemingly bad calls twice on our best lineman, which had the coach then bench the player that we've been clamoring to get into the game, does not mean we call conspiracy.
We can, however, point this to a turning point, when that is what so clearly is a turning point.
As I watched the game, I thought the officiating was good. No complaints there, I definitely did not feel that the officiating cost us this game in any way.
From the stands, it seemed they would not let the kids play. It was bad enough that the sympathetic UT couple next to us would shout when VT did something good that there must have been something unsportsmanlike VT did on the play and to toss the laundry.
Sacked the UT QB? that's not sportsmanlike. Good run, that was not nice, throw the flag, etc, etc.
The UT LB blocking late/in the back, flag picked up and the announcers agreed it should have been called.
We folded and then tried to come back but, we certainly were not the beneficiary of gift calls and did get called on some quite questionable calls.
I will say I'm a little discouraged by all the hand wringing over the coaching staff right now.
We just played the #17 team in the nation in Game #2 of the first new head coach of VT in 30 years and we showed legitimate potential to be a good team. We have holes and we had issues, but we knew we were going to have holes and issues coming into this season. The fact we came out blazing and really have ourselves to blame for the game ending up where it did is really, really encouraging going forward. The issues we have are correctable. For the most part, this is the same offense we had the last 2 years, and right now the sum of the parts is lightyears better than it has been before.
If the refs were bad, they were bad for both teams. The venue itself was definitely set up for the benefit of Tennessee, but the game on the field was played fair. Our errors are to blame for what happened. Maybe Tennessee would have still come back and the game would have just been a closer loss, but that wasn't because of anything other than our own miscues and mental mistakes. Those will be fixed, and we're going to be a better team down the line because of games like this past weekend.
I'll say this... VT is not a team I'd want to have on the schedule 2 years from now. If you hope to beat us, you better do it now, because once we fully grasp what the new staff is teaching, we're going to be TOUGH.
This. How about we give the staff a couple of seasons? It's not like we just lost to Richmond.
I think a lot of the hand wringing is because we actually were so close. If this were a Bama 2013 type game I think a lot of people might chalk it up to needing more time to learn under Fuente and be more calm. But the fact that we lost over some inexcusable things makes it frustrating. I don't think he's fully to blame for the fumble problem, but 9 in two games is heinous. new coaching staff or not.
I will say we had a pretty good stadium experience. We were tailgating out at "The Landing" (behind the drag racing strip). We got into the stadium around 6:15 with no issues. I bought water once at the end of the first quarter and the line wasn't too bad. However my brother was gone from the end of the 2nd to half way through the 3rd getting a basket of chicken tenders and fries. He was pissed about how long he had to wait. I noticed there wasn't much space on the concourse for lines to form. I noticed a lot of people confused about where the back of the line was because of the crowds walking around and lots of people standing around who weren't actually in line.
There was a ton of Tennessee bias and I noticed pretty much everything that has already been mentioned (fireworks, band bias, announcer bias, etc.). One thing that I didn't see mentioned above was that Butch was shown on the jumbotron between every damn play and we saw CJF shown maybe 3-4 times. Not that it matters too much but it was definitely noticeable.
Getting out of the stadium and out of the lot wasn't too bad. We walked all the way back instead of waiting for a shuttle. We were back to our cars before most fans in our lot so we got to the main road in less than 5 minutes. I know the lots that were closer to the stadium were being held for an hour but the lots further out had no restrictions so we were on the road pretty quickly.
In a hilarious twist on this complaint, my buddy exited our seats in Pearson Terrace and walked down through an unchecked security checkpoint and spend the remainder of the game in the VIP seats and walking around the track. Took his picture next to skipper and the race car setup.
I absolutely could not get over the obvious lack of experience or care from the camera person. Whoever produced the footage (picked which camera to show on the screen) was usually showing worthless angles like the ground or zooming in on nothing. They typically showed UT fans and the UT sidelines and ignored us for most of the second half. I understand we didn't score but how they treated UT scores was more than they did for us. Felt like the Alabama/VT game at the Georgia Dome where they only showed Alabama fans. Hands down felt like a UT home game and you could tell when they cut-off the fumble out of bounds replay just as the players were going out of bounds.
Yeah the shots on Colossus were terrible. Another side effect of a NASCAR crew working a football game perhaps? I did notice though that when they showed VT fans in the second half it was a depressing sight. I was a little mad that they seemed to really want to show Cam Phillips on the sideline after the fumble and I thought he had it bad enough already.
I was there so I will throw in my 2 cents with much redundancy. At least it is more proof that the shit happened.
Walking to the track from about a mile away figured we were good. Around the track it was a fantastic zoo. All good energy.
Then we hit the gate (15) and stood in a line 20 people wide. Shoulder to shoulder and steaming hot and not moving. That was ok for the first 45 minutes when I was caught up in a student body left move and was washed to toward the fence. That is when people started talking. I know I said these people do this at least 2 X a year and we put have to put up with this shit?
Everyone one was pissed off. Afraid of missing the kick off. Some chick had injured her foot and a police man was trying to help her to the fence through the "line". WTH? Take her to the outside fence where few people were. Then the chanting began by fans from both teams "let us in...let us in!" and that is when 5 or 6 more COPS showed up. I had not moved a foot in 20 minutes and started to think riot. That is about the time management figured they had a problem. The line started flowing and I finally made it to security. I showed my clear bag to a lady and she waved me through to the metal detector. Going through I failed it but walked right through to be scanned and I was in. 2hours total and my back was screaming. Finally found my buddy up in the Allison section. The whole process was a goat *&^%.
Great seats and could see everything. I would watch the play begin then look to the monitors.
Totally a UT home game.
But we were loud.
Stopped counting how many times I had to listen to rocky top after 15.
No Enter Sandman. WTH? I would love to know the reason.
I only cussed once!
Had a pretty UT coed next to me. Hokies all around. She was with a VT guy. That will be a mixed marriage!
She hit me in the face with her orange pom pom thing while standing and singing RT. I asked her to do it again.
Heard a cop say that this was worse than any race.
5 cops showed up to talk to a UT fan above me but no altercation.
All the UT fans I talked to were gracious.
Texted a UT fan at half time that we would get blown out because I have seen this before.
Again, this was a homer game.
Oh the fly over was great but you would barely see the plane.
Chick on the monitor annoyed everyone.
1/1 drawing was a farce. Many boos! Really who won!
Dude on the monitor (sunglasses boy) wasn't much better
Walk back to the car was as expected.
Traffic flow out was as expected.
Glad I was part of the deal. Would I attend something like this again? NO!
You had me until
I'm now back in Florida, and the Battle at Bristol is but a memory.
Here's my take on the event and venue.
Traffic and entering the venue on Saturday afternoon was relatively well directed and painless. That many VT and Tennessee fans all in one place was a sight to behold. The atmosphere was electric. It was a very hot and sunny day (90+), so we didn't walk around as much as we might have otherwise. There seemed to be adequate parking for those with parking passes, and there were plenty of parking options outside the venue, some charging extra if you wanted to tailgate.
The fans around us were mostly Hokies, though there were some Tennessee fans as well. Everyone around us was well-behaved and out to have a good time. Lots of families with kids, lots of individual tailgating, and there seemed to be plenty of room provided for that. Most of the cars were facing a different gate from the one we entered through, so the assumption was that exiting the venue would go smoothly, but that didn't work as expected (already commented on that higher in this thread).
We brought everything we needed for tailgating, but there were things for sale at the venue (beer, food), and there was even a truck that came by selling bags of ice -- people in need of this were very happy to see that.
Our entrance to the stadium at about 7:30 went very smoothly. We went in gate 3, because the lines were very short. Got to our seats quickly.
Went for beer and water during the second quarter, and missed half of it, as one of the two ladies selling beer and water left inexplicably, so for 10 minutes we just stood there watching someone stock new beer and water while the other lady slowly (and I do mean slowly) sold beer and water to the other line. There seemed to be a lot of chatting, not much in the way of efficiency, and no awareness that people might want to get their beer or water and get back to watching the game. How hard is it to sell bottled beer (bud and bud light) and water? Take the money, make change, give them the right number of beers. The biggest problem (other than our missing sales lady) was that newly stocked beers were in the same tub with the cold beers, and people insisting on a cold one really held up the line while the lady hunted for a cold one. Clearly a process that could be improved upon, as they had multiple tubs. Finally, our lady came back and started selling beer again, but not before I missed the disastrous second quarter.
Our seats, in the Allisons J, were great. Views from the Allisons were better than I expected. The field was far, but not as small as I expected and sightlines were good and I had binoculars. Colossus was a nice screen, but like others mentioned, they didn't do near enough replays, and spent too much time showing fans cheering, dancing, or whatever. We saw some people trying to start a wave, but it kept dying in the Tennessee section. Too bad, as that would have been awesome. I did feel as if there was a bit of a bias towards Tennessee (why did their band get fireworks, and VT's didn't? Shouldn't the vault drawings have resulted in similar awards? ), but I also noticed that by and large, the management tried to at least give the appearance of being neutral. They did show Bruce Smith and Mike Vick, and gave Beamer his moment on the field.
We left after the last VT turnover. I told my wife we'd be staying to the end, but I just couldn't take any more, and there was really no chance of redemption at that point.
Getting back to the car was fast and easy, but leaving the parking lot was a bit stressful, as I explained in another post in this thread. Some people who apparently didn't know that the parking lots were closed for an hour spent that hour in their cars with their motors running and their headlights on. During that hour, we grilled out, watched the fireworks, and ducked into the car for a brief rain shower. Once we figured out a way out of the parking lot, traffic flowed smoothly.
The Tennessee fans we encountered were really nice and fun, with the exception of one clown a few rows above us who would occasionally scream nonsense or misinterpret what happened on the field. If you have no grasp of what is going on, maybe it's better not to be so vocal.
Overall, was very glad I went, and we really did have a good time. It was really an amazing weekend, and I'm glad Virginia Tech was part of the Battle at Bristol. I only wish the team hadn't shot themselves in the foot with turnovers, as I do think they'd have won otherwise.
EDIT: Whatever happened to the "Enter Sandman" entrance? Seems like that could have been arranged, and would have been better than whatever it was that did happen. I mean, Tennessee got Rocky Top, and it's not like we didn't hear that enough.
Did anyone else get the plesent surprise of getting to their seats and finding a giant cement beam right in front of their seats blocking majority of the field for the game?
That was my view in Kulwicki Terrace, plus needing to lean down to see replays on Colossus. I give BMS a 2/5 for overall experience. Game in itself was a hell of a spectacle. But UT homerism, lack of entrances and water bottles, and shitty views for my seats after paying same amount as everyone else who could see the field clear as day left a bitter taste in my mouth. Of course our performance on the field didn't help but still, three days later and I wasn't impressed with anything BMS put on, outside the spectacle of the game itself.