Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm
You won't be saying that once you're a season ticket holder in a new arena.
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In some ways yes, some no.
A new building will mean, for fans, in addition to the improved concourses, food choices, sightlines, scoreboard, amenities, ingress and egress etc etc, they also mean more expensive seats, and making it much easier to find ways to part with you money.
Having season tickets for the last 11 years, you certainly get into a routine when you got to 25+ games per year and you're not usually into dropping $60+ a game on food and booze each game (partly because its a pain to get to a food outlet, mostly because you don't need to pay 2x or 3x what the ticket cost, every game, on food or booze), or are you paying for parking. You've got your way in and way out, both of the building in the car on the way home. You've got that place that you've found out that not everyone knows about to hang out and meet friends during intermissions. New building or not we'll still have a drink or two every game, maybe the odd time a couple more, those Tuesday and Wednesday nights in January, still probably not have anything. They won't make any more money, outside of additional seat prices, for most 2-3+ year season ticket holders, when they move.
I have no doubt, that, having the cheapest season tickets that you can have, we're a) going to get pushed into some corner (and have it called an upgrade) or further away than what we have and b) pay 30% more for all that. Also going to take longer to get in and out of our seats, and be nowhere near the hangout where we go for intermissions, where the 5 or 6 of us that have seats go every intermission.
Each of those things are going to be adjustments in routine, but overall lessen the experience from what we've been used to over the past decade. The added amenities and overall more modern feel of a state of the art building will be appreciated, and depending on your routine and location etc may work out better, but that extra premium pizza stand won't necessarily get used by season ticket holders suddenly dropping $7 on a slice, when you're going to be there that 4 or 5 times a month over 6 months and you're used to going without.
Ask those STH who went through the '95 renovation about the seat relocations. The negatives about being bumped as individuals outweighed the collective minor positives from that reno.
Bottom line, in many ways, the new building isn't for the current season ticket holders. They're the ones already willing to deal with the shortfalls of the current facilities to watch every game of hockey each season, and plunk down the money for the right to sit in that arena for 44 games a season for 5, 10, 20 years+. The new arena, from a fan aspect, is to keep the casual fan more engaged, with more modern amenities, and make it more efficient for them to spend money while they are there. Also more comfortable (or, "less bad" at worse) in general, that you'll be more willing to come back for that extra game or two every year, spending that money, and not have horror stories about washroom lineups or skunky beer to keep you away as some fans do and swear they won't go back because of.