Officials at Oregon State University in Corvallis said the nationwide staffing shortage is behind the reason for the long concession lines at Reser Stadium over the weekend.
Dan Bartholomae, OSU’s executive deputy athletic director, told KEZI-TV that the Beavers are having difficulty retaining staff for game day.
"If you add up concessions, event management, security, and ushers, we've had hundreds of no shows, so we are down hundreds of people," Bartholomae said.
Over the weekend, the Beavers beat the Huskies, but some fans said they waited up to 45 minutes for one drink.
At the last game, there were 221 event workers, KEZI-TV reported. During the home game before, there were only 136.
"We don't want people to have a bad experience; we want to get people through those lines," Bartholomae said.
Bartholomae said the concession stands on the west side of the stadium were built in the 1960s and don’t serve as many people as they'd like. That’s one of the reasons the west side will be torn down for a renovation after this football season.
Reser stadium holds about 43,000 people. For last week's home game, around 34,000 showed up to cheer on their Beavs. Fans told KEZI-TV there were also long lines just to get into the stadium.
Bartholomae said they were down 10 entry gates at the stadium because of staffing issues. He said he is confident more workers will apply and help ease lines in the future.
Since the last Beavers home game, the university raised the pay and instituted a $250 bonus to help attract more workers, Bartholomae told the TV station. Managers are bringing event workers from Portland for the next home game against Utah in three weeks.
