Calgary city council approves arena deal (UPD: new deal upcoming?)

[BattleBorn]

Typical arguments from someone who buys into the narrative the Flames/NHL are selling.

"There are too few lower bowl seats (which sell for the most $)" is a strawman and factually incorrect: the most expensive seats in the Saddledome are the lower rows of the 200s. "Luxury boxes are limited": the Saddledome has 72 of them. As a point of comparison Little Caesars Arena has 62, and T-Mobile Arena has 46.

"There are none of the loge seats / restaurant seating options arenas like to utilize."

K.

"... the darn roof has terrible acoustics..."

Factually incorrect, and I'm tired of hearing this BS being trotted out.

"...and makes for lousy site lines from the upper most seats."

K.


(I will concede the concourse is small.)

On their face all of your arguments make sense, but I don't think they're strawman arguments to start. The design of the arena does create some difficulty, and the lower bowl's size has got to have an impact on the revenues of the Flames. While I'll admit I'm not a Flames ticket pricing expert, a quick search of the seat map on the Flames site definitely shows that the lower level tickets do sell for significantly more than the first few rows of the 200 level. That just makes a lot of sense, the 200 seats lateral proximity to the ice from the lower rows is offset by height. In fact, I think height is the major issue with most of the seats/suites in the Saddledome. Sure, there's a ton of suites, but the second tier of suites is very high and likely doesn't bring in the revenue of other places with less suites in better locations.

Acoustics isn't my thing, but it doesn't matter much to the hockey team, so I figure that's just a throw in argument that doesn't mean much to anyone with regards to hockey.

Those top level seats are weird to me. While you can definitely see the ice, not seeing the rest of the arena or scoreboard is something that's very strange. I don't know that it would stop me from seeing a hockey game from those seats, but the pictures I've seen feel claustrophobic.

What I'll say is that the Saddledome has been around for 30-something years and there's a reason it's unique. Architects tend to use techniques, designs, and best practices from previously completed projects and nobody's really copied the Saddledome. That says something.

Is it as urgent as people are making it sound? I doubt it. However, the place definitely needs to be replaced.

 

[Hoser]

On their face all of your arguments make sense, but I don't think they're strawman arguments to start. The design of the arena does create some difficulty, and the lower bowl's size has got to have an impact on the revenues of the Flames. While I'll admit I'm not a Flames ticket pricing expert, a quick search of the seat map on the Flames site definitely shows that the lower level tickets do sell for significantly more than the first few rows of the 200 level. That just makes a lot of sense, the 200 seats lateral proximity to the ice from the lower rows is offset by height.

Psi, and other greek letters...

SEATING MAP

Colour	Location	Price (Season ticket face value)
Gold	201, 202, 208-228; Row 1	$217.52
Club	115-122, Rows 1-13	$210.34
Silver	201, 201, 208-228, Row 2	$150.22
Rest.	Saddleroom Grill	$139.68
Red 1	101-114, 200-level Rows 3-4 204-206, Row 9	$139.46
Red 2	201, 209-213, 223-228; Rows 5-10	$121.37

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I doubt that those exact prices are accurate anymore (I don't personally know, I haven't paid my own way into a hockey game in years...) but the tiers are the same. The most expensive seats in the joint are the first row, second level; this is how it has been for a long time. The height is actually precisely why they're better seats and go for more money.

Sure, there's a ton of suites, but the second tier of suites is very high and likely doesn't bring in the revenue of other places with less suites in better locations.

Better than 'loge' seats that the Saddledome is apparently so sorely lacking...

Those top level seats are weird to me. While you can definitely see the ice, not seeing the rest of the arena or scoreboard is something that's very strange. I don't know that it would stop me from seeing a hockey game from those seats, but the pictures I've seen feel claustrophobic.

I'll just paraphrase this to mean "You're right Hoser, you can definitely see the ice from there, so the sightlines from up there are just fine." Thanks.

 

[BattleBorn]

Psi, and other greek letters...

SEATING MAP

Colour	Location	Price (Season ticket face value)
Gold	201, 202, 208-228; Row 1	$217.52
Club	115-122, Rows 1-13	$210.34
Silver	201, 201, 208-228, Row 2	$150.22
Rest.	Saddleroom Grill	$139.68
Red 1	101-114, 200-level Rows 3-4 204-206, Row 9	$139.46
Red 2	201, 209-213, 223-228; Rows 5-10	$121.37

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I doubt that those exact prices are accurate anymore (I don't personally know, I haven't paid my own way into a hockey game in years...) but the tiers are the same. The most expensive seats in the joint are the first row, second level; this is how it has been for a long time. The height is actually precisely why they're better seats and go for more money.



Better than 'loge' seats that the Saddledome is apparently so sorely lacking...



I'll just paraphrase this to mean "You're right Hoser, you can definitely see the ice from there, so the sightlines from up there are just fine." Thanks.

This isn't a contest or anything, it's more of a discussion to pass time.

If it makes everything okay I'll say that the Saddledome is great and that they're insane to want to replace it unless they make an exact replica with wider concourses, I think everyone knows that's not true though. It's a 35 year old arena with some major flaws in its design. The only real question is how urgently it needs to get replaced and whether the methods they're using to make it seem urgent are overkill.

 

[Yukon Joe]

K.


(I will concede the concourse is small.)

I've sat in those seats. While yes you can see the ice (just barely!) you can't see the entire other half of the saddledome, you can barely see the benches, and oh yeah - you can't see the jumbotron! Nobody would design an arena like that again.

I don't think I'm 'buying anyone's narrative'. I totally understand why the Flames want a new arena. When compared to Rogers Place just up the QE2 it's certainly lacking. But it's also still functional, there's no narrative about 'revitalizing downtown' that can justify the city spending any money, and I think the Flames have to suck it up and largely build any new arena themselves.

 

[2023FriendshipTour]

Which is precisely why this whole idea of "revitalizing" the area with a new arena is bunk. The Saddledome turned Victoria Park into a sea of parking lots: why would a new arena nearby 40 years later do anything different?

I think most arenas are not going the parking lot route anymore, or very limited parking. I don't think I noticed any parking around Edmonton's arena.

 

[Hoser]

I've sat in those seats. While yes you can see the ice (just barely!)

BS, photo shows you can see the whole thing.

you can't see the entire other half of the saddledome,

Who cares? You there to watch hockey or the crowd on the other side of the rink?

you can barely see the benches,

BS, can see them just fine.

and oh yeah - you can't see the jumbotron!

Who cares about seeing the god-damned ****ing Jumbotron? I'm sick of hearing this stupid line being trotted out. There are separate screens and scoreboards at the "Press Level". Are you there to watch hockey, or to watch hockey on a TV mounted above centre ice?

 

[Deen]

The Dome is kinda like Fenway Park in a way. It would be a shame to see it torn down.

 

[TGWL]

BS, photo shows you can see the whole thing.



Who cares? You there to watch hockey or the crowd on the other side of the rink?



BS, can see them just fine.



Who cares about seeing the god-damned ****ing Jumbotron? I'm sick of hearing this stupid line being trotted out. There are separate screens and scoreboards at the "Press Level". Are you there to watch hockey, or to watch hockey on a TV mounted above centre ice?

You're sick of hearing lines thrown out and yet everything you respond with is "Who Cares".

 

[Yukon Joe]

Who cares about seeing the god-damned ****ing Jumbotron? I'm sick of hearing this stupid line being trotted out. There are separate screens and scoreboards at the "Press Level". Are you there to watch hockey, or to watch hockey on a TV mounted above centre ice?

It's all about the overall experience. I want to see the flames go off when a goal is scored. I want to see the fans doing the wave. I want to see a replay on the jumbotron.

If you enjoy sitting in the upper deck of the saddledome, great. I found it to be quite sub-optimal. Not reason by itself to tear the whole building down immediately, but you could design a much better arena in 2019 than the one that exists now.

 

[Mike in MN]

Which is precisely why this whole idea of "revitalizing" the area with a new arena is bunk. The Saddledome turned Victoria Park into a sea of parking lots: why would a new arena nearby 40 years later do anything different?

I think most arenas are not going the parking lot route anymore, or very limited parking. I don't think I noticed any parking around Edmonton's arena.

I've seen this personally. The Metrodome condemned the east side of downtown Minneapolis to a sea of parking, while 40 years later, those parking lots are filling up with 10 story buildings around the new stadium. The economics of land in the urban core has changed a LOT in the last few decades

 

[DowntownBooster]

I've sat in those seats. While yes you can see the ice (just barely!) you can't see the entire other half of the saddledome, you can barely see the benches, and oh yeah - you can't see the jumbotron! Nobody would design an arena like that again.

I don't think I'm 'buying anyone's narrative'. I totally understand why the Flames want a new arena. When compared to Rogers Place just up the QE2 it's certainly lacking. But it's also still functional, there's no narrative about 'revitalizing downtown' that can justify the city spending any money, and I think the Flames have to suck it up and largely build any new arena themselves.

It would seem like the design of the Saddledome was flawed from the beginning. I wonder if the building was patterned after the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

 

[cbcwpg]

It would seem like the design of the Saddledome was flawed from the beginning. I wonder if the building was patterned after the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

From the Internets...

The facility was designed by Graham McCourt Architects. While they set out to design a unique building, the idea of a western theme never occurred to Barry Graham or his team. The roof of the building was designed to be a reverse hyperbolic paraboloid, allowing for a pillar free view from all seats and reducing the interior volume by up to one-third when compared to traditional arenas, resulting in reduced heating, lighting and maintenance costs, plus the floating roof can flex to compensate for the city's frequent temperature fluctuations.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

Visually I don't have a problem with sightlines or anything in the Dome but the acoustics are godawful

 

[Albatros]

Such design was also quite common at the time, indeed the Saddledome is one of the later examples so that the strengths and weaknesses of the structure were quite well known.

 

[RedHot]

In terms of seat quality, the vast majority of the lower bowl seats are great (with the exception of behind the penalty boxes, but every arena has that problem, looking through 3 panes of glass). As for the second bowl, I've yet to sit in a bad seat. They all have great views, even in the corners.

The third bowl is where things get interesting. Even getting to the seats is an adventure, because the stairs you have to climb are essentially a mountain goat path, because they are so steep. If you took a tumble from the top, I have no doubt you would get absolutely mangled. But while you are pretty high up, and the ice surface is pretty far away, the pictures make it look worse than it is. To be honest, when I saw a game up in Edmonton's new rink, I thought the height was more noticeable, in terms of nosebleeds vs nosebleeds.

 

[DowntownBooster]

From the Internets...

The facility was designed by Graham McCourt Architects. While they set out to design a unique building, the idea of a western theme never occurred to Barry Graham or his team. The roof of the building was designed to be a reverse hyperbolic paraboloid, allowing for a pillar free view from all seats and reducing the interior volume by up to one-third when compared to traditional arenas, resulting in reduced heating, lighting and maintenance costs, plus the floating roof can flex to compensate for the city's frequent temperature fluctuations.

Thanks for the info cbcwpg.

 

[CorbeauNoir]

Which is precisely why this whole idea of "revitalizing" the area with a new arena is bunk. The Saddledome turned Victoria Park into a sea of parking lots: why would a new arena nearby 40 years later do anything different?

You do realise that the Stampede preceded the Saddledome by a good 70 years or so right? The Saddledome didn't "turn" Victoria Park into anything, the sea of parking lots is an absolute necessity to provide open space for a million+ attendee outdoor event.

 

[Hoser]

You do realise that the Stampede preceded the Saddledome by a good 70 years or so right? The Saddledome didn't "turn" Victoria Park into anything, the sea of parking lots is an absolute necessity to provide open space for a million+ attendee outdoor event.

The "open space" you're talking about is south of the Saddledome. I'm talking about the 12 square blocks between Macleod & 6th St and 11th and 14th Avenues that was residential area. It wasn't until after the Saddledome was built that these blocks were progressively razed and replaced with parking lots. The point is the construction of the Saddledome (and the greater Stampede Grounds "entertainment district") did not lead to new, grand real estate investment into the area: it killed a neighbourhood (or what was left of it; I will concede Victoria Park had been on the decline for a while, but I think most of the blame for that lies at the feet of the Stampede Board/City of Calgary administration anyway). It's only in the last few years that the area has seen anything resembling a 'renaissance'.

Coincidentally the old Enoch Sales House, the 115-year-old yellow Queen Anne Revival-style home near the corner of 12th Ave and Macleod Trail, burned to the ground this morning...

 

[Hoser]

You're sick of hearing lines thrown out and yet everything you respond with is "Who Cares".

I'm sick of the same BS being repeated, and yeah I'm flippantly dismissing the manufactured complaints as that's all they merit. People say things like "the sightlines at the Saddledome are terrible!!1!" and when asked to elaborate they peddle falsehoods like "you can barely see the ice" while what they really mean is "you can't see the other side of the arena" and "you can't see the Jumbotron!!1!"

Oh woe is the poor Jumbotron! Going unseen by the 3000 or so patrons in the "Press Level"! To me the entire line of reasoning is something of a non-sequitur: you absolutely 100% can see the ice just fine from the nosebleeds. No, you can't see the Jumbotron, but there are separate scoreboards for the patrons up there. Does it really matter if you can't see the people in the nosebleed seats on the other side of the arena? No, no it doesn't.

 

[awfulwaffle]

It's all about the overall experience. I want to see the flames go off when a goal is scored. I want to see the fans doing the wave. I want to see a replay on the jumbotron.

If you enjoy sitting in the upper deck of the saddledome, great. I found it to be quite sub-optimal. Not reason by itself to tear the whole building down immediately, but you could design a much better arena in 2019 than the one that exists now.

Flames fans do the wave? I thought that was a hockey no no.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Flames fans do the wave? I thought that was a hockey no no.

I just noticed Carolina doing that last night, heh..

 

[cbcwpg]

Bell: An NHL arena deal? Don’t bank on a debate

 

[Llama19]

Bell: An NHL arena deal? Don’t bank on a debate

[Calgary councillor, Jeff] Davison adds: “We don’t have a public debate every time we build new infrastructure.”

I did not know that an arena was 'infrastructure'...

 

[Mightygoose]

[Calgary councillor, Jeff] Davison adds: “We don’t have a public debate every time we build new infrastructure.”

I did not know that an arena was 'infrastructure'...

It's an 'Event Centre'

Also what jumped out after going through the article again.

"Davison says this isn’t like the Olympics. The arena is more “the likelihood of a couple hundred million dollars being put into a public facility the city owns.”

This was a major detail when the city and the team clashed in the fall of 2017 with their proposals. City wanted the Flames to own the building, team wants the city to.

If what Mr. Davison is saying is going to be part of their proposal, looks like the city is giving on that point....likely others too.

 

[Llama19]

Coun. Jeromy Farkas asking residents to weigh in on new arena

To quote:

"Coun. Jeromy Farkas plans to “kick off the conversation” about a potential new event centre at a town hall meeting Thursday, which he says will focus on questions including whether Calgarians want a new arena.

Farkas, whose ward includes the Saddledome, said he also wants to find out whether residents support city taxpayers contributing financially to a new arena, and whether they would like to have their say on an arena deal in a formal vote.

The councillor has sent a notice to Ward 11 residents asking them for their responses to those questions in advance of the meeting, where he will share the results."

Source: calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/coun-jeromy-farkas-asking-residents-to-weigh-in-on-new-arena