Concession lines, not traffic or parking, draw most concern at new Colorado State stadium

There were no major traffic jams or parking nightmares for fans attending the first game at CSU's new on-campus stadium as the $220 million facility generally received rave reviews following the first football game there Saturday.

The biggest issue, based on what fans shared on social media, were long lines and a shortage of bottled water at some concession stands.

Waits at concession stands were up to 45 minutes, several fans said on Twitter, and many of those stands ran out of bottled water on a day temperatures during the game reached 94 degrees, according to the Colorado State University weather station.

One fan said on Twitter that as many as 100 people at a time were lined up at stadium drinking fountains. Security policies prevent fans from bringing outside food or beverages into the stadium.

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Athletic director Joe Parker said Monday the university is addressing those concerns and should have the problems fixed for the next home game, at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 9 against Abilene Christian.

"I'm confident that we'll get things figured out," Parker said, noting that the demand for stadium concessions was significantly higher than it had been for a game at Hughes Stadium, the 32,500-seat facility where CSU played home football games from 1968 through 2016.

There was a sellout crowd of 37,583 for the first game at the new stadium, a 58-27 win over Oregon State. That's about 1,000 more than the seating capacity of 36,500 but well below the facility's total capacity of 41,000.

CSU sold about 1,000 standing-room only tickets for the opener to accommodate some "special situations" that arose but chose not to sell more to avoid putting additional strain on stadium services, including emergency services, restrooms and concessions.

Thousands of fans used the stadium concourse for shade from the sun, adding to the congestion around the concession stands on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year in Fort Collins. Spectra, which handles stadium concessions, had enough bottled water to meet the demand, but some locations ran out because of distribution issues.

Parker said he was generally pleased with the performance of Spectra, which bought out Ovations, the concessions service that had handled CSU football and basketball games for 28 years.

"Obviously, we need to work on the food part," Parker said. "We've got to get the concession operations moving at a faster rate so that we can get people through lines quicker.

"… We're learning how to use the building, we're learning what a new demand curve looks like for services. For 49 years, the only experience we had was at Hughes."

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Parker said vendors roaming the aisles with concessions, as they did at Hughes, might help alleviate the congestion at concession stands on the concourse, but he worries they could create other problems, like blocking fans' views. It's something that might be tried on a trial basis before the season's over, assuming Spectra can hire the additional employees it would require.

The distributed sound system worked as advertised, Parker said,. Noise measurements taken throughout the game at Whitcomb Street and Prospect Road registering decibel levels from the stadium's public-address system were lower than those created by passing buses.

Fort Collins police were not able Monday to say what issues, if any, they dealt with before, during and after the game.

Parker said fans did a good job of picking up after themselves, leaving behind far less trash than the university's cleanup crew expected.

The efforts the university and city put into the traffic and parking plans for game day clearly paid off, Parker said, getting fans to and from campus without the headaches stadium critics had predicted.

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In past years, virtually all vehicles going to and from Hughes Stadium, located 3 miles west of the university's main campus, used Overland Trail, a two-lane road. Parking lots used for the new stadium, in contrast, are scattered across the 400 acres of the university's main campus, as well as the south campus a mile away, and are accessible from major arterial roads on all sides.

"Some people thought the world was going to spin off its axis when we hosted a football game on campus," Parker said. "… There was a lot of uncertainty, but I think everyone that was so concerned about those things, it was just proven that their concerns were misplaced.

"We still have five games to go, so we could encounter something different than we did the first game, but I think people are only going to get better at understanding how to get to the game."

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310).