The dawn of a new Empire in B.C.
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April 25, 2010
Lowell Ullrich
The Province
VANCOUVER -- The biggest challenge facing the front office of the Lions this spring is a dilemma familiar to anyone who has ever been assigned the task of organizing seats at a dinner party.
Some people won't stand to be placed anywhere other than near the head of the table. Others need to be near friends, or away from those who might drink too much, or insist on being close to an exit.
Do that exercise roughly 6,000 times, and keep in mind nobody has ever seen the seating configuration because to date it does not exist. You've just passed Football Event Planning 101, and now have a better understanding of just one of the challenges faced by the CFL team in moving their dishes for at least one season from B.C. Place Stadium to their temporary home at Empire Fields.
"There's mornings I wake up at 4 a.m. and start thinking about something," Lions business vice-president George Chayka said.
The club's point man in the move between stadiums operated by B.C. Pavilion Corp. indicated that after little over a month there have been few construction problems at the PNE site.
The seating framework for the 27,500-seat temporary facility is nearly finished and construction is still targeted to be completed June 15, a mere five days in advance of the club's preseason home opener against the Edmonton Eskimos.
Though the Lions will heavily push the nostalgic return to a site where the team played its first 29 seasons, anyone driving by the place where Joe Kapp and Willie Fleming became legends would conclude the only similarity between their new home and Empire Stadium will be the views of the North Shore mountains.
Once the artificial surface is transported from the dome, the tightness of their new home without the old Empire Stadium track could remind the Lions of Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton, where fans are practically breathing on the backs of players on the sidelines.
It will be cozy, and if the team on the field is decent, it could be loud.
"I've asked each manager to visualize what it's going to be like ... do you know where the rooms are; where am I going to enter the building?" said Chayka.
"The most frustrating aspect is people want answers. There's still questions that are being asked all the time that we find out as we go along."
The toughest part for the Lions staff, aside from working through a move to a home that only exists on a blueprint, is satisfying the ticket wishes of the paying customer.
The club has roughly 6,000 accounts comprising its season ticket base, and the capacity at Empire Fields could create a demand if walk-up traffic brings attendance equal to the average crowd of 28,610 that showed up last year.
For the past several weeks, six account reps have been contacting season-ticket holders about moving a seat indoors to a corresponding chair outside. So far so good, according to the club. The biggest problem came when the Lions had to juggle the guest list after discovering the contractor, Nussli Special Events Ltd., could only build a replay scoreboard on the north side of the new facility. A Nussli spokesman did not respond to an interview request.
Only a handful of season-seat holders rejected the great outdoors and will wait for the club to return downtown sometime next year. Roof renovations at B.C. Place Stadium are set to begin in earnest next week with the controlled deflation of the existing cover which prompted the reported $468 million makeover.
"The thing we heard the most from season-ticket holders is that they had built communities at B.C. Place," said Arlene Stewart-Irvine, the club's customer service manager. "They knew their neighbours and they liked their neighbours. We were careful not to disturb that. We moved people over in communities."
The trick will be to get those communities to travel to games at a location not served directly by SkyTrain, which wasn't more than a noble thought in 1982 when the Lions last played at Empire Stadium.
And to get their fan base thinking about the move the Lions will this week roll out transit plans offered by TransLink and advance parking purchase options with the PNE.
If Vancouver can survive the Winter Olympics, a few football games should be a breeze.
"It's all about habits. When you go to B.C. Place you don't need to even think about it," said Chayka. "The key is to minimize the learning experience." To put it another way, the goal is to get the same dinner guests to roughly the same seat by causing the least fuss.
Courtesy:
www.vancouverprovince.com
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