Rating a Stadium

[cam]

Hi guys, I need your help with something.. When rating a stadium, what are your most important factors? If you can please reply back with yours, in order of importance, that would be great! Some examples: Viewing, Public Transport, Atmosphere, Facilities. Ta!

[the crow]

For me views from the seat and quality of the seating bowl is number 1 being close to the action with good seat centers and plat depth, and importantly comfortable seats.

Internal circulation is number 2 good concourse width ease of entry exit and vertical circulation, with good way finding.

Facilities, food and beverage and bathrooms with good queuing number 3, this includes a good variety of concession offerings.

Links to transport are important, but having access to bars and food before and after events is important, so placement and integration in the urban surrounds, 4.

A good roof, giving a sence of enclosure, good shade and weather protection. 5

Things like atmosphere is a combination of these items + an educated and involved crowd & most impotrantly a great event.

If only stadiums could enforce a no dickheads policy.

[yob]

Distance from the action.

[gyfox]

As per the crow but I would include the rake of the tier as a qualifier for the quality of the view.

Additionally I would say that for quality viewing the bowl shape must match the shape of the field required for the sport being played.

[Simmo79]

Old posts recycled. Still stand by these views on the basis that acoustics and feeling the sound of a crowd reverberate through your body and the stands shaking beneath you are things that can't be replicated by the TV broadcast. The second link is a blog post on how the design of Husky Stadium in Seattle has helped create a stellar reputation in the atmosphere dept that UW is too sober to achieve otherwise.

IMO the most important feature of stadium design is accoustics. Sight lines are important but the view at the game is rarely better than what HDTV can provide. However, nothing can replicate how it feels and sounds to be at the game.

http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2 ... t-football

http://goodguyssports.com/2013/07/28/hu ... -its-loud/

[yob]

Additionally I would say that for quality viewing the bowl shape must match the shape of the field required for the sport being played.

Watching football on an oval is just ridiculous. Is the ball out of bounds? Nobody knows. Emotionally you just distance yourself from wing play entirely because you hate not knowing.

[RobertHeatleyStand]

As per the crow but I would include the rake of the tier as a qualifier for the quality of the view.

Additionally I would say that for quality viewing the bowl shape must match the shape of the field required for the sport being played.

Yes, a good C value makes for a great spectator experience

And for rectangular stadiums I'd like to see slightly curved stands, mainly the sideline stands ala NFL style

Possibly a slightly raised stand behind the coaches/players bench... so the first 10 rows aren't looking though plexiglass

[dibo]

^^^
Manchester City's ground is close to ideal. If that could be built up so that the pitch was long enough for a rugby field with 12m in-goals (maybe with raised front rows to preserve views) and then with top tiers stretching up to fill out a 240m wide circle, you'd have everyone within the FIFA 190m-from-the-farthest-corner range and in good view of the pitch. And with a good low roof (Emirates-style - low lip, dipping from the back of the stands) on it it'd practicaly be a massive speaker cone.

[yob]

City's goal ends are getting additional tiers soon, but they're not preserving the roof line.

[dibo]

Tough job to try to do it, any idea what the roof will look like?

[yob]

Removal of end roofs and raising them with a nice square edged step between the new roofs and the wing roofs below. Capacity 62k - increased after public objection to the first proposal.... as being too small! Concepts look pretty fabbo in my opinion, much better balanced than the current dropped pie look.

[yob]

Although, it looks like the roof has been revised from concepts, as per this article:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1810 ... ad-stadium