Folks, I was recently lucky enough to undergo the new stadium experience for Highmark Stadium 2.0. As a season-ticket holder for over a decade, I was looking forward to the experience–to see what I can look forward to in the new stadium. Obviously, I was a little scared of the PSL and cost when I first heard whispers about a year ago, but since then it seemed like prices started to go down…I was super excited about the experience and looking forward to finding out some new information.
My rep on the trip experience was very helpful, very knowledgeable. The rep was able to get me and my friends into a new seating arrangement at the same that would be awesome and hopefully give us many great memories to come. Additionally, the Rep also was able to fix my old card on file so that my payments didn’t go past due and my seats never became in jeopardy.
With all of that said with all of that noted, I can’t help and feel walking away from the experience that there are a lot of easy ways they can improve it and they can make it more inviting to both big fenders and new potential bills fans alike. Let’s get into my improvements and you tell me if I’ve lost my mind.
Honorary mention to the venue being in the middle of the Tony Walker Plaza… I’m sure this was through some preowned property or something, but I can’t help him feel like they could’ve gotten a better venue that could’ve let them take more advantage of a bigger space and provide a better experience.
#1: For spending thousands of dollars with the Bills in years past, and about to spend thousands of them in the future, I was shocked that there was a lack of ‘exclusive experience.’ What I mean by that is that there was nothing in the season-ticket experience, besides sitting in a theoretical new seat in the stadium and what that that actually made me feel special, unique or exclusive for being a season-ticket holder. I’m not asking for them to create my own presentation or anything like that, but it surprised me that they didn’t have an exclusive video of say Brandon Beane, Sean McDermott, Josh Allen welcoming us into the experience and welcoming us into the idea of a new stadium. It seems like a 10 to 20 second video from them which would be super easy to capture throughout the entire year… would be a nice improvement.
#2: Throughout the experience, there was a focus on some of the new features of the stadium: easier entry better views all around the stadium, much improved scoreboard, better concession, and bathroom situation. There was nothing along the way that showed you what this experience would actually be like… Now this may be due to limited space in the venue, but it would’ve been awesome to have a concourse to have a legitimate seating section where you could sit with your friends and experience what it would be like to be at the new stadium, even if it’s just a small morsel of the future. Again, this may have been due to lack of venue space, I’m not sure… and while I may be nitpicking this experience as very much “this is what it’ll look like” versus “this is what you’ll experience.”
#3 Transparency – obviously the managing company behind this process has had time to get the feedback from customers, has had time to get the feedback from other people going through this experience, and it just surprised me the lack of transparency on certain issues. For example they told us that ticket prices on these PSL’s had been decided at least one to two years in advance of the experience… But even as loyal season-ticket holders, they couldn’t tell us what the cheaper options which are soon to become available will cost in the future. It seems to me that even if your priority/protocol is to sell section by section, you could easily disclose that info to current season ticket holders who have demonstrated financial loyalty for 10+ years.
Wrap Up: It’s easy to nitpick an experience especially one you care a lot about. The one thing I have talked with others about and seems to be a consensus is that it’s kind of a ‘used car sale’ experience when it doesn’t need to be. If you have season tickets now, you likely want to continue into the new stadium. If not, there’s a list of 1000s trying to get in, so why the weird vibe? Besides that, excited for the new stadium and thankful for the help from the rep.