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Yeah, apparently they love doing games here because of the fans, the atmosphere, the colors - we put on an amazing show and look/sound great doing it. But it's been difficult for them to do.

Event was held in the new Operations building behind the stadium. First, Joe Frandina Director of Construction Management gave a status update and some more details on the renovations: - Back on schedule after winter delayed things a bit - over 800 workers now working 2 shifts including weekends - it's gonna be a "play at the plate" to be ready for that first home preseason game - Old team store building is being converted into a media studio for Bills.com content as well as the weekly shows done throughout the season - Another piece we hadn't heard about is the new cabling for HD broadcasts. Said that network crews used to have to come in on Wednesdays and string cables in trees and along fences to be able to supply the HD feeds. Next, Director of Player Personnel Jim Monos had a Q&A session on player additions and the just-completed OTAs: - Sammy Watkins does something to turn heads at least once per practice - Excited about how much competition will be going on - WRs, DBs, OL, RB - Ebron was the pick if we hadn't gotten Sammy. - Team looked at Jermichael Finley but injury concerns still linger about his neck. TE is a position they're still looking to bring in - Dareus should be in for minicamp next week and team is trying to help him deal with whatever is going on Assistant Director of Account Services Matt Patrone on Ticket Sales: - 87% renewals, better than last year (84% clubs, 90% seats) - over 30,000 tickets sold so far to season ticket holders for individual games, group sales opening soon. - Sales season opened late due to delays of variable pricing & delayed league schedule (draft, schedule etc) - Changes to season tickets coming (can't publicize details yet) - team has no options when tickets bought from sources other than them or ticketexchange (like StubHub, EBay, Craigslist) turn out to be fraudulent - happens quite often actually. Assistant Director of Customer Service Pat Mathews: - Every Monday after a game they gather all comment cards, emails, texts, phone calls etc from the game and review each one. Their goal is to at least contact the person with the issue within 24 hours. So if you do not get a satisfactory response to a game-day incident/complaint, please document as much as possible and contact his office. Vice President Event Operations and Guest Experience Andy Major: - You'll never hear anybody from the team saying they need a new stadium. Further updating of RWS is very much on the table in those discussions - Last year did a study of stadium entrance (wait times etc). Gave chips to people in line to measure how long it took to get through various steps (waits, security, ticket scanning). Team best in NFL as far as average security wanding time (7 seconds) and ticket scanning. When contracted company has all staff in place, very comfortable guaranteeing entry before kickoff if you arrive at gates by 12:30. Opener last season was a bit off due to short-staff and new bag procedure - security company held contractually responsible. - Team 3rd "worst" in league as far as total ejections & arrests, although numbers down from prior years when they were worst. Averaging 57 ejections, 6 arrests. Credits crews going around parking lots. I brought up that this doesn't affect anyone tailgating in private lots and they agreed they have to come up with better ways to get messages out to those folks. Many ejections smoking related. No smoking policy is NY State law, not team or NFL rules. - Request for early beer sales partly way to get people into stadium sooner to ease crush before kickoff. They are looking for other ideas - might be having bands play on-field before warm-ups (partnering with LiveNation/Darien Lake). They're moving some of the activities out of the field house and into the new open-spaces between the gates and stadium as well. I brought up what someone here had suggested about having team alumni available. - I asked if the 'RCW' jersey patches and or pins would be made available to fans, and they are working on that. As to the questions asked earlier here: 1) Adding hand rails to aisles would make them non-compliant with width regulations. Idea to remove 1 seat per row at some point to widen aisles and then add railings is out there. Said that if someone with mobility issues wants to attend but has trouble with stairs: a) when purchasing, contact team directly to get seats with minimal stair climbing b) if already purchased, contact team to see about moving seats to areas with minimal stair climbing 2) Re: first 2 rows of seats behind benches - They will be tarped but seats not removed. The current "McKelvin's Marauders" type stupid signage on the walls will be moved to those tarps. Team wouldn't really comment on the situation with the Jills due to ongoing litigation.

I looked them up on Wikipedia just last week. weird. Anyway - most of that album is about how obsessed they were with young girls. Not sure that would fly today...

Negligence.

Well I voted for ya too so you better win.

The one downside I see to this is the loss of ability to accommodate seating requests and put together the seating chart after the fact. Oh well - the plusses totally outweigh that to me.

:lol: :lol:

Please leave me some feedback on the process - I have a Fan Advisory Board meeting on Thursday and I'd like to bring it back to them. So whatever you think of how this went down, from taking names/numbers to providing the link to purchasing the tickets to delivery... Let me know. Hopefully it's working out as you had hoped but I want your thoughts on it. This really is the first time the ticket office has EVER opened this functionality up to a returning group rather than a business partner of the team. If we don't see value in it I won't push any harder on it with them.

Actually he loved Journey - OLD Journey before Steve Perry came and turned them into a pop band.

Well that makes much more sense now - thanks, Pooj!

The view from the seats we got:

Coming out Friday. Got tickets for the museum (might do Friday evening). Saturday morning parade. Saturday evening Enshrinement. Sunday all day tailgating then game. Head back Monday.

Still kinda wondering what happened there.

Check your PMs, people! Details sent!

I'm gonna ping my guy for an update this morning.

Hopefully today, yes.

Dude I'm 51...

That's a county rule, not an NFL/Bills rule.

I remember watching that live.

Probably hotel, as Ben isn't much of a camper-outer.

Response: I don't think they decided on what to do with those first two rows yet. There was talk of doing both. Response: It is one of those things that was grandfathered in and never changed. I think it is in the plans for the next renovation. This one was focused on the outside and the next one will focus on the inside. 1) I believe one of the 2 new jumbotrons in the tunnel end zone will be more or less dedicated to Red Zone channel and other fantasy type stuff so people can see what's going on in other games. 2) Those end zone signs are being replaced by ribbon scoreboards 3) An interesting thought. I know the new gates will have loudspeakers so that you don't have a person on a bullhorn at each one, but not sure there's any plan to pipe anything out to the parking lots. 4) Once the in-stadium cellular & Wi-Fi is improved you might see something more like this. I think they also rent out devices for this kind of thing (FanVision) 5) I'm not sure I know which ones you're talking about there. 6) Nice idea, but I'm pretty sure anything alive they put out there will end up as a urinal. Just sayin'.

I will ask this. Not nearly as far to fall if somebody decides to slide down one of those. I will ask this too.

Back on page 1 of the thread you said you needed 7. Do you need 9 now? Or 2? Or 7?