LJVM Renovation Plans ?

[RJKarl]

Do the renovations include a strip club on the main level?

After all, aren't the strippers just girls working their way through Bowman Gray?

 

[Deacs9394]

Exactly. We don't go to NCAA tournaments since we play in a civic center twice the size it should be.

Curious that we went to the NCAA in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010 while playing in a civic center that is too big. Kind of thinking it is not the size of the arena, but the product. In the first 22 years of the Joel we went to 14 NCAAs...since Bz destroyed the program, zero. I'm thinking that was the issue.

 

[wfumike02]

Wake can't host NCAA tourney games anymore. There's now a minimum seating capacity requirement that the Joel doesn't meet, and we certainly won't meet it if we downsize.

The minimum seating requirement is 10,000. And right now, HB2 is the biggest obstacle to getting NCAA games.

Link

 

[uncaboref]

Wake can't host NCAA tourney games anymore. There's now a minimum seating capacity requirement that the Joel doesn't meet, and we certainly won't meet it if we downsize.

I don't believe that is true in its current state....the Joel can seat around 14,500, correct? Taco Bell Arena in Boise, ID seats 13,390, and they are hosting 2018 NCAA Tournament games.

I believe the reason why Winston-Salem hasn't hosted since 2007 is because Raleigh/Greensboro/Charlotte can all seat at least 4,000 more for basketball than Winston-Salem can, and they are able to offer more competitive bids to the NCAA.

 

[inspectah]

Interesting, thanks for the info. I stand corrected if I'm wrong re: minimum seating. But I thought a rule was put in place some years back that required a minimum capacity, and not the 10K in the article.

Not sure why W-S would not be a competitive site now, with all the new development, if it was competitive in the 2000s and earlier. G'boro and both the old and new arenas in Charlotte were always bigger than the Joel.

 

[donaldross]

I think we don't want to go too small here. In bad years we've averaged 9K a game and in the peak years of the mid-90's and mid-2000's we averaged 12K-14K. I look around at other schools who scaled back size and it hasn't really made the environments any better...GT and Clemson come to mind. 12K should be the floor. If we go to0 small we limit event possibilities and thus revenue and 12K instead 10K means in good years we're selling more tix, concessions, etc. Again, revenue. We're not selling the kind of football tix like our competitors are, we need to max revenue in the Joel. Also, I keep hearing that it's too big and too cavernous, etc. Seems to me that when the Joel gets rocking it is about as good a place in the league. Katz used to always say that it was the 2nd best spot in the ACC behind Cameron in terms of atmosphere. I just think we shouldn't mess too much with this. If it ain't broke, don't fix it...and the broke thing is the product recently not the facility (for the most part). Make it a bit smaller, up to date, Wake Forestized...that's all we need. Attendance is tied to winning not the size of the arena or the amenities.

Are you going to the same games I have been going to or just reading the "tickets sold" attendance myth? In up years, we average 9500 (which was about what we had for the largest home game in a long time the other night). In the Buzz era, our average attendance was more like 4500-5500 in terms of humans in the stadium.

 

[Deacfreak07]

Are you going to the same games I have been going to or just reading the "tickets sold" attendance myth? In up years, we average 9500 (which was about what we had for the largest home game in a long time the other night). In the Buzz era, our average attendance was more like 4500-5500 in terms of humans in the stadium.

I'm just picturing you with a clicker doing a quick headcount around the middle of the 1st half.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

The more I have thought about this, the more I think we need a hall of fame walk through area. Something permanent in the structure. That way at every concert, every event, every NCAA tournament game that we might host...Wake Forest is on display. There is no telling to the value of that over the long run. We need to bask in the fact that the greatest PF of all time chose to forego the #1 overall pick at least 2 times (and maybe 3) in order to go to school and play basketball for us. We need a CP3 area...he has become a mega brand, and we need to capitalize on it. We need a Randolph Childress Tournament Clutch time display. We need Mugsy Bogues, we need a Josh Howard - hometown hero turned into only the 2nd unanimous ACC POY recipients, We need Len Chappel, Charlie Davis, Rodney Rogers...we need them all displayed with their stories up for everyone to walk through and bask in the unbelievable program that we have at Wake Forest. If you want to change the dynamic, that is how you start. Don't let people wrongfully assume we are a second rate program. We have great history, and we have a great future. We need to use this opportunity to tell that story.

THIS. Very much this. Even Clemson has a "walk of fame" along their concourse whereby you learn about their history and best players / coaches. McCamish Pavilion has this as well with an atrium area with pictures and information displays about Coach Cremins and former Jacket greats.

Personally, I love what Tech as done and would love to have the same type of venue for Wake. But that isn't realistic considering Wake's relationship with the city and the importance of maintaining that connection with the community when it comes to entertainment and events (thus we will most likely keep b/w 11,500 & 12,000 seats). The advantage Wake has though is the availability of more square footage that can be used to provide amenities that enhance the experience, and a Walk or Hall of Fame would certainly make sense in achieving this enhanced experience goal.

Caveat: architecturally though, this will be much more challenging than overhauling the old Thriller Dome, as they didn't have a particularly large footprint to begin with.

 

[Deacs9394]

Are you going to the same games I have been going to or just reading the "tickets sold" attendance myth? In up years, we average 9500 (which was about what we had for the largest home game in a long time the other night). In the Buzz era, our average attendance was more like 4500-5500 in terms of humans in the stadium.

Uh, I think Duke and Carolina were much bigger than the other night. It's not a tickets sold attendance "myth". That's how the NCAA measures attendance. Agreed, fannies in the seats is less than the numbers indicate. But there is no way in 2006, for example, when we sold out every game that we averaged 9500 actual people there...no way. It's an average...so early season games may have ~7000 and big games 13500-14500 in the "good" years. Reducing the capacity to say 10K isn't all of a sudden going to get people to attend. Good play will. And in the good years a 12-13K place would have been full on almost all important games. And, again, it is n't like the Joel was a weakness for us between 1990 and 2010.

 

[Buttermaker]

Curious that we went to the NCAA in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010 while playing in a civic center that is too big. Kind of thinking it is not the size of the arena, but the product. In the first 22 years of the Joel we went to 14 NCAAs...since Bz destroyed the program, zero. I'm thinking that was the issue.

You might be on to something...

 

[Deacs9394]

THIS. Very much this. Even Clemson has a "walk of fame" along their concourse whereby you learn about their history and best players / coaches. McCamish Pavilion has this as well with an atrium area with pictures and information displays about Coach Cremins and former Jacket greats.

Personally, I love what Tech as done and would love to have the same type of venue for Wake. But that isn't realistic considering Wake's relationship with the city and the importance of maintaining that connection with the community when it comes to entertainment and events (thus we will most likely keep b/w 11,500 & 12,000 seats). The advantage Wake has though is the availability of more square footage that can be used to provide amenities that enhance the experience, and a Walk or Hall of Fame would certainly make sense in achieving this enhanced experience goal.

Caveat: architecturally though, this will be much more challenging than overhauling the old Thriller Dome, as they didn't have a particularly large footprint to begin with.

I agree..McCamish at GT is sweet. Still, it's not exactly the Thunderdome anymore. Average attendance before the remodel at GT was around 8500 for the previous 4 years leading up to the new bldg. The 4 years since? Around 6400 average. I kind of think the experience part with hall of fame stuff mentioned earlier and fan experience is more important in the remodel than the obsession with seat reduction everyone has. 12-13K seems right...because we are good again! And the people will come.

 

[silk]

Do the renovations include a strip club on the main level?

After all, aren't the strippers just girls working their way through Bowman Gray?

Yeah.
Thats what Destiny, or was it Sooki, told me.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

I agree..McCamish at GT is sweet. Still, it's not exactly the Thunderdome anymore. Average attendance before the remodel at GT was around 8500 for the previous 4 years leading up to the new bldg. The 4 years since? Around 6400 average. I kind of think the experience part with hall of fame stuff mentioned earlier and fan experience is more important in the remodel than the obsession with seat reduction everyone has. 12-13K seems right...because we are good again! And the people will come.

In their defense, they've been pretty mediocre to bad since the remodel and attendance was bound to be down this year -- although I think they sold out Carolina and 'Cuse. I had a 5-game pack last year and attendance was consistently good with a few sellouts and it never seemed lower than 7,000-7,500. When the place is full, it is quite loud, just like the old "Tit" Dome. And there doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. Of course the key to that is the small ring of seats in the upper balcony section (only around 1,600 capacity) and you feel like you are right on top of the action.

But the point stands, we shouldn't reduce seating capacity too drastically as we have proven we can fill 12-13K seats consistently when the team is good. The challenge will be how to make the lower bowl more intimate without inhibiting the ability to generate revenue through box and priority seating. I wonder though, since the upper deck is so cavernous, if it might be feasible to create a "wall" of box seating similar to Philips Arena, but only in the one end zone (say the Wake attack end) so the high-rollers can be on the home attack side and students can still be concentrated closer to the visiting team's bench and behind their attack basket as is the case now.

Then you would have more flexibility with what you can do in the lower bowl without having to raise the floor as much. And then you could convert the other lower end's boxes into a social gathering place, maybe even like there is at Philips with a restaurant and tiered seating. When the Hawks made their deep p/off run a couple years ago, the restaurant generated a lot of energy and noise as the seating area has an overhang that helps reflect noise so it is directed downward towards the court. And the proximity of a large bar leads to some raucous 2nd half fans who may not want to pay $50 for a seat, but rather $10 to get "seated" at the restaurant, drink $30-40 worth and make noise in the 2nd half of a close game. Having drunk, happy fans with full stomachs right behind the students on the visitor's end could really create a different wall of noise that will travel across the arena and reverberate off the wall of sky boxes on the home end.

Might help solve the problem of moving the walls in and shrinking the lower bowl -- thereby making it into a hellacious noise pit that Coach K will absolutely hate -- as well as make it easier architecturally to reduce the empty "dead" space in the upper ends and corners. And by concentrating where the boxes are, it might save money since it would be layer upon layer of steel as opposed to moving or re-engineering a middle ring of boxes, which really need to be replaced to widen the concourse areas outside the court.

 

[york1313]

Fuck Jeff [Redacted]

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

This thread seems to be going in a few different directions. It seems to me that the more logical reasoning behind our remodeling the Joel is to 1. Add luxury boxes
2. Remove seating so that we can maximize our attendence so the stadium doesn't look & sound empty when we have a normal attendence.

 

[Deacfreak07]

If we had a digital walk of fame section, I would cry like a baby if they could make a hologram of Skip Prosser ask me how the soup was today in Benson or what book I was currently reading.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

If we had a digital walk of fame section, I would cry like a baby if they could make a hologram of Skip Prosser ask me how the soup was today in Benson or what book I was currently reading.

He could magically appear on center court during time-outs and get the crowd pumped with some readings from Thoreau and Shakespeare set to rock jams.

Okay, on second thought...

 

[silk]

Skip going to the Quad to celebrate a football victory.

 

[Ball State Deac]

Skip going to the Quad to celebrate a football victory.

Boy do I miss skip. He once gave me a double fist pump as I was lugging my crap into the law library on fall or t-day break. Exactly what I needed to go motivate and study when I sure as heck didn't want to. Not a great story, but it's my Skip story.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

The great thing about Skip is that just about everyone has a story of how he touched our lives simply by giving us a little bit of time and availing himself to being out and about, among the masses, watching soccer along the edge of the bleachers, strolling through campus like a student or grabbing a personal pan from Benson Center.

The only time I met him he made me feel at ease, and asked me how I was doing. We chatted a bit about the soccer game we were watching and I finished by thanking him for coming to WF to be our basketball coach. Just a true gentleman and lovely person, whose love for Wake and ambassador-ship has been sorely missed since that fateful day in July.