Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketphish
Titans pitching new uses for Ottawa Stadium as renovations at city-owned ballpark continue
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And in an effort to attract casual fans who are as much into socializing as watching the action on the diamond, the Titans also plan to tear out some of the outfield seats along the first- and third-base lines and replace them with “patio decks” – which Katz describes as open areas for “standing and mingling” with others. Katz says the team will gauge fan interest in the spaces before determining their size, but he envisions areas with a capacity of between 50 and 150 people suitable for events such as corporate gatherings and family get-togethers. The changes will be rolled out over the next several years, with the second-floor suites likely to be next up on the docket.
Other upgrades include the Hop Yard, a “meet-and-greet area” along the third-base line that opened this past season where fans could sit at picnic tables and sample suds from local craft breweries Beau’s, Stray Dog and Vimy. The cost of the renovations is approaching the million-dollar mark, with much more to come, Katz says. “It’s certainly a lot more (money) than was anticipated when we started the process,” he adds. Still, the veteran baseball executive is optimistic that the changes will generate more buzz at the turnstiles in the coming seasons.
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i went to the last home game a couple weeks ago. it looked like a pretty good turnout - definitely more than the stadium anticipated because the concession/beer lines were loooooooong.
the aforementioned "Hop Yard" was very popular so i definitely understand why they want to tear more seats out for stuff like that. they were serving beer in long plastic baseball bats which was a fun gimmick. also gabriels seems to sell full pizzas there so it was kind of funny to see a bunch of people in the stands eating out of large pizza boxes.
lots of kids with baseball gloves and the players were definitely hamming it up for them. a few funny prize games with members of the crowd between innings.
playing up the social aspect is definitely the way to go. even the handful of Titans "super fans" who sported all the gear, signs, noisemakers etc. didn't seem to know the players' names
of course absolutely nothing to do in the area post-game but at least you can take the train somewhere else pretty easily if you want to have more hops. although anecdotally it seemed like 95% of attendees drove.
definitely gonna go to a few more games next season.
frontier league uses a pitch clock too
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