Leading up to the facility’s second regular season game, Colorado State is planning a few adjustments to its football stadium’s concessions operations.
After much anticipation, the new Colorado State stadium made its debut on August 26, when the Colorado State Rams defeated Oregon State 58-27. The debut game at the stadium drew a reported 37,583 fans, with the overall response to the facility being positive.
However, the university is looking for ways to tweak concession operations after waits of up to 45 minutes were reported at the first game. According to Colorado State senior associate athletic director for marketing, sales and communications Chris Ferris, the goal is to create a more efficient experience. Part of this plan will include adding more workers at concession stands. More from The Coloradoan:
“We’ve been intensely focused on what we can do to make sure those facilities and lines move more efficiently moving forward,” Ferris said Thursday. “We’re looking at everything from the number of people that are staffing those locations, evaluation of how we queue the lines, some portable food and drink stations that we are looking to move their locations, so we don’t have those lines intersecting with traditional concessions that are built in.”
Ferris said the feedback the university received from fans attending the first game was overwhelmingly positive. Comments on social media after the game were generally in that vein as well.
CSU officials have been working with Spectra, the company that has handled concessions for CSU’s athletic venues for more than two decades, to address those concerns, Ferris said.
There will be more employees working at each of the stands Saturday to get customers through the lines faster and stanchions to delineate the lines so they don’t clog up the open concourse as was the case during that first game. Many of those fans were simply seeking shade from the sun on one of the hottest days of the year in Fort Collins. Temperatures during the game, which began at 12:30 p.m., reached 94 degrees.
Colorado State’s second game at the stadium is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, when the Rams will host Abilene Christian.