Just got an email about a focus group for the renovation...

https://imgur.com/QWDToVo

No focus group email for me. Just wondering, on the survey, did you indicate that you were interested in purchasing club or premium seats? I suspect that's the subject of the focus group--exactly what premium seating will people actually buy.

Evidently, they sent out a similar survey regarding Reed Arena to some basketball season ticket holders. Also mentioned re-seating in that one, I'm told.

Yes got one today. There is thread on MBB baord with some screen shots

twk said:

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No focus group email for me. Just wondering, on the survey, did you indicate that you were interested in purchasing club or premium seats? I suspect that's the subject of the focus group--exactly what premium seating will people actually buy.

Evidently, they sent out a similar survey regarding Reed Arena to some basketball season ticket holders. Also mentioned re-seating in that one, I'm told.

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I said I would be interested in club level but wanted to stay where we were (lower deck 1st base). Most of the add-ons I wasn't interested in purchasing. I don't want through what we did when Kyle Field expanded, I like the way it's set up now for the most part, but wouldn't mind being able to get a beer at times.

Aggielax1 said:

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twk said:

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No focus group email for me. Just wondering, on the survey, did you indicate that you were interested in purchasing club or premium seats? I suspect that's the subject of the focus group--exactly what premium seating will people actually buy.

Evidently, they sent out a similar survey regarding Reed Arena to some basketball season ticket holders. Also mentioned re-seating in that one, I'm told.

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I said I would be interested in club level but wanted to stay where we were (lower deck 1st base). Most of the add-ons I wasn't interested in purchasing. I don't want through what we did when Kyle Field expanded, I like the way it's set up now for the most part, but wouldn't mind being able to get a beer at times.

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I said I wasn't interested in the club options, but did ask them to provide me information on that because I want to keep my options open. I'm not a drinker, but I understand what you're saying about having a beer--I think the outfield club memberships not tied to seating would be rather popular for folks in your situation.

Got a focus group invite for Friday morningright after I had made my plans for the weekend. Would like to have gotten that a couple of hours earlier, but I'll rearrange things to be there. Should be interesting.

twk said:

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Got a focus group invite for Friday morningright after I had made my plans for the weekend. Would like to have gotten that a couple of hours earlier, but I'll rearrange things to be there. Should be interesting.

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I got one as well but am in Fort Worth so can't make it.

I got one too. But not sure I can make it there by 9:30 on Friday morning.

Wes97 said:

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I got one too. But not sure I can make it there by 9:30 on Friday morning.

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What an odd time to choose.

got the invite as well. but I work for a living. that's such a weird time.

I got an invite for Reed at noon Friday. Guess that is day consultant was available.

Got an invite for Friday at 9:30. Wonder if I can pass that on to someone who can actually go in my place. I figure most people who go to Aggie baseball games work or go to school or live out of town, so it really is an odd time. Not going to get a great sampling for these focus groups.

OnlyForNow said:

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I personally think there is an ulterior motive on the date and times for these focus groups.

Who can easily either take half or most of a day off work for something as frivolous as this or who doesn't work and can attend.....

Answer is BMAs or other high level donors and not the average season ticket holder or Dugout Club member.

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I wouldn't assume the worst. Given everything else that is going on, it would be hard to do this on a football gameday, so doing it the day before a home game seems kind of logical. A little more advance notice would have been nice, but I'm just happy that they are giving some folks the opportunity. I'm really curious to see how this goes.

I'm not sure what they are looking for, although I would think that a lot of it will have to do with what folks are really interested in buying and what they are willing to pay. If they are willing to impart information, I'm going to ask them what they have in mind with regard to reseating. As much as I've been focused on what will happen to folks outside the club areas, it just occurred to me that the folks in the club have every bit as much reason to be nervous about this as the rest of us. If they open the process up to everyone, there are lots of TMF heavy hitters who don't have baseball tickets right now, but might opt to buy club seats if given a chance. Even if they add 50% more club seats, you could see current club seat holders on the outside looking in if there were a stampede of new BMA's into the club.

Assuming the worst is probably not the best idea... but why not wait a few weeks and then have it on an away game day?

Don't really understand the logic here, unless they've been given a gift that needs to be used before XYZ date due to tax implications (which they should just be up front and honest about).

Everyone has the potential to get screwed over on a renovation that moves seats around, if it is simply an addition of seats and everything else stays the same then of course my feelings are misplaced; but the track record for them to do something like that is not in their favor.

Here are the simple things they need/could do to add butts and increase $$$. Add seats along all or most of outfield wall, not deep obviously but it could be done most likely. 50-75% of it could be the BBQ Crawford box type suites, the remaining could be GA or SRO type things (the Bud Light bar the Astros have/had above Townes hill comes to mind - bar height tables and a rail with concessions close by).

Get rid of one of the Berms, 3rd baseline berm seems most obvious to me, as the first baseline berm is closest to the playground, the playground of course could be moved to the outfield though, (it's not the best spot of a playground anyways IMO). Seats to add in place of the berm would range from field box type suites, premium reserved (club), plain reserved, or even GA.

More people want season tickets, period end of story. I think the desire to have more general reserved season tickets is much higher than the desire for premium reserved tickets (club or better), but 12th man knows they can sell 4-10 club level/premium reserved seats and get the same amount as 40 general reserved seats. But maybe because most of those later folks don't post on TA I don't know about them. But I bet if they opened up 40 more seats for general reserved seating, they'd be gone in probably a week or so, if it took that long. Maybe this is what all this is about, but it sure doesn't feel that way due to the nature of the survey being geared towards what I've considered premium reserved seating in this soapbox rant.

If you do it on an away weekend, a lot of TMF staff won't be in town. A lot of folks who might participate in the focus group would be traveling to the game. Doing it on a home football weekend makes a lot of sense.

True... truth is they flubbed it and should have had it on the bye week I guess.

Good luck having people come into College Station for a focus group without some other reason to be there.

There are tradeoffs to all of the times.

OnlyForNow said:

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I personally think there is an motive on the date and times for these focus groups.

Who can easily either take half or most of a day off work for something as frivolous as this or who doesn't work and can attend.....

Answer is BMAs or other high level donors and not the average season ticket holder or Dugout Club member.

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I'm curious to see what they say and will voice my opinion, my time slot is noon on Friday. I assure you I'm not a BMA or high level donor, just really good at playing hooky on Fridays from work.

Represent twk !

Looking forward to hearing what kind of things they have to say in these meetings, assuming some of y'all don't mind sharing.

Aggieangler93 said:

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Looking forward to hearing what kind of things they have to say in these meetings, assuming some of y'all don't mind sharing.

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Don't mind sharing, but I'm handicapped by the lack of a true keyboard; it's a chore to type on my tablet or phone. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to do a recap between the end of my focus group at 11:30 and the start of the baseball scrimmage. Got a late checkout at the George, so that ought to be doable.

Thank you, Sir!

Our group was about 10 folks, all regular season ticket holders, save one, who has been on the list to buy. No TMF rep, just a girl that works for the consulting firm. They did some groups yesterday, and were doing a group of club seat people later in the day.

She had a power point presentation that had a bit more detail than in the email survey images you've seen on this thread, and did go through it, but most of the time was spent listening to us.

First thing she asked was what we liked and didn't like about the current park, and, as you would expect, there was a lot of Levy talk. Then, she went through the renderings, starting with the diamond club. Everyone there made clear their adamant opposition to reseating, and the rep was ready for this with some talking points. First, as to expansion of the club, the only thing they appear to be contemplating is converting 109 and possibly 105 to club seats. My wording there is deliberate--the slide they showed highlighting the expansion actually only showed 109 and NOT 105. She let us know that there research indicated that they could sell as many as 800 additional club seats, which no one doubted, but it was kind of odd that they would point out how much demand there was, but then limit it to one section. Apparently, this is because someone is aware of how much blowback they would get from a stadium wide reseating. In fact, on that issue, the rep suggested that they might not reseat the entire stadium, but, rather, just the folks displaced from the affected sections. When we pointed out that there were some club seat holders who might be forced out of the club in a reaseating, she said that the club would not be reseated. Now, obviously,what she says isn't gospel, and, in fact, the truth could be the opposite, but it was interesting that she didn't think the club seats would be up for grabs, that they would essentially be grandfathered.

Working around clockwise, there was no surprise on the additional seating down where the west lawn is right now: it would be 600 or so armchair seats. There would be a bridge over the bullpen. She was a little muddled on this, but it seems that the mounds would be in the open area, but the area under the bridge would be used for stretching and have an opening that allows the bullpen crew to see the field.

The outfield club would have a lttle over 100 seats, and possibly a couple of hundred memberships not tied to seats. They wanted to know our interest in that. No one in our group wantd to move their seats, and there was maybe one person interested in an outfield club membership not tied to reseating. On the question of alcohol sales in general seating, I was surprised that the group as a whole was pretty negative about alcohol sales. It might be an anomaly, or it might be an indication that the general ticket holder population isnt that interested in alcohol sales.

On the left field tailgate boxes, they werent sure if folks would be allowed to bring in their own food to cook on the grills, or would have to order it from Levy. We told her that they wouldn't sell even one of these if Levy supplied the food. They also see football tailgating being a selling point. The supposed goal of this seating was to try to bring back something like the old Aggie Alley. We pointed out that the folks who populated Aggie Alley were not exactly premuim seating customers, and that if they wanted some outfield atmosphere, the should build some bleachers in the outfield instead.

In centerfield, a structure would be built for concessions and restrooms that would also serve as the batter's eye. The visitors bullpen would be next, with the concourse continiung around it. In fact, the drawings contemplate having bar style ledges around the pen, sort of like what we used to have behind the top row of first deck seating immediately before the renovation.

Next, would be a general admission seating berm in straightaway right. They made a point of saying that this area would not block the view of the train. The drawing, which appears on this thread, shows a mix of sloped berm (what we have now), and terraced berm, which a number of other SEC parks have. The thinking on the terraced berms is that folks would be able to bring in bag chairs.

Moving on around, the play area would see little or no change, but, based on focus groups they did with students in March, they are contemplating turning the east lawn into a terraced berm for students only. We expressed some concern about efforts to provide student only seating (everyone wanted to keep students in 202 and 203, which I presume will still be the case), but the rep claimed that students told them they wanted thir own area where they would feel less inhibited and not have to fight with families for seats.

The idea of terracing the berms and allowing folks to bring in bag chairs seems like a real positive development, but I am a little sceptical about the seperate area for students. The group unanimously expressed their desire not to have more of the upper deck seating converted to reserved seating---the consensus was that the 600 seats down the left field line would serve that. Regarding the concern of individual ticket purchasers wanting real seats rather than berms, the rep suggested that other schools (in other sports) sometimes hold out some seats sor individual game sales, but none of us saw that being a possibility at Olsen.

I'm sure I left some stuff out, but i think that is a pretty good rundown.

Thanks for the information! Good to hear that they have already heard some feedback on some of the important things, like don't mess with student seating, minimize re-seating impacts, etc.

I also like that everyone told them Levy flat sucks, and that they wouldn't sell any of those grillin and chillin seats if you have to order through Levy. I am in 100% agreement with that. I wouldn't mind a section like that, on occasion, which would allow me to show up 2 hours prior to a game, and throw some burgers on with friends, while I get to watch BP. If I had to go through Levy to get $5 each burger patties that are tasteless and suck, you can forget it!!! Tailgating mostly makes me miss BP, when I get to tailgate, and I would love to be able to tailgate inside the park and catch BP, which was an Aggie Alley strong point! I think they will have to come up with some fairly strict policies to prohibit beer from getting in that way, but maybe they will find a way to make it work, assuming they do that and can't allow beer there. I am almost positive they cannot allow you to bring in and consume your own beer due to liquor license laws with TABC.

So far, this seems positive, though. They are hoping to impact as few people as possible, and it seems to me that they actually do care about what A&M baseball fans would actually be interested in. That means something to me. They could have just built what the want, afterall, but at least they are asking.

The only other option I would like to see would be something like a 7 pack, where you can buy the same reserved seat to 7 games, provided all seats don't sell out to season ticket holders. The Express have 7 and 10 packs here in Round Rock, and it is a good thing, I believe. I could commit to making 7-10 games, even as a Dad with a kid approaching high school ball.

The left field grilling sections would be sold as luxury seating on a season ticket basis, if the demand was there. You would get a grill, refrigerator, and a number of seats, not only for baseball, but also, youd get to use it on football gamedays. They talked about letting kids ru aroinf in the outfield during football tailgating. We suggested that without shade, those boxes would be a tough sell..

Thanks for the info and input.

Twk covered the points very well. Was curious how the session would go, but we had a chance to make our feelings known.

when are they planning to start this process?
2-3 years?

At least a couple of years the rep said.

So, how are they planning to reseat the people from 105/109 without impacting any other areas?

Only way to do it is to move them to the new seats on the third base line, which is what I assume they mean when they say they won't reseat other areas. It's a bad deal for those folks, though.