Well before fans walk up to the stadium entrance on game day, they need to make a choice on where they want to take in the action, and that choice is the bedrock of the fan experience they’re about to have. “We work really hard on providing a lot of variety in the bowl experience, sightlines are obviously important, a comfortable seat,” Chris King, senior project architect at HOK, says. “There is just an astonishing array of options in general admission seating, and when you get into the premium seating, there are so many ways to handle premium seating now.”
Facility directors and designers are utilizing seating environments and amenities to deliver an exceptional game-day experience for fans in the hope they’ll come back for more.
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Well before fans walk up to the stadium entrance on game day, they need to make a choice on where they want to take in the action, and that choice is the bedrock of the fan experience they’re about to have. “We work really hard on providing a lot of variety in the bowl experience, sightlines are obviously important, a comfortable seat,” Chris King, senior project architect at HOK, says. “There is just an astonishing array of options in general admission seating, and when you get into the premium seating, there are so many ways to handle premium seating now.”
Facility directors and designers are utilizing seating environments and amenities to deliver an exceptional game-day experience for fans in the hope they’ll come back for more.
ICCU Dome, photo courtesy of Idaho State University
Tailoring seating to the sport
Featuring a seating capacity of over 2,100 with 360-degree vantage points, the Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium opened in the spring of 2023. The stadium has 772 grandstand seats, including 112 grandstand seatbacks and a rooftop viewing section. It includes heated turf, a first-class training room and other special features, but the seating choices, in particular, that designers made were tailored to the sport.
“The fan interaction at lacrosse games is a little more intense than it is at a lot of other types of sports events,” King explains. “In this building, you’ve got the parents, you’ve got the old players, the retired players, who really want to be able to have good seats and good action, but they’re not the ones who are going to be kind of the rah-rah, rowdy types — but you need that. So we have the elevated seating, which gives a slightly more sedate crowd, people who are not as vocal during a game, somewhere to sit. Under the elevated section, you’ve got that whole row of people: your classmates, teammates, friends can be there and they’re right on top of the action.”
Ohio State University’s Lacrosse Stadium, photo courtesy of HOK
The majority of the seating at the OSU Lacrosse Stadium is a customized Dant Clayton product. “It was really nice to be able to work with Dant Clayton and our structural engineer to do that,” King says. “It’s a little more complicated than just the normal sort of high school/college stadium that you’re putting the most efficient, least-expensive thing on the sidelines.”
The fan experience was the reason for having the raised seating. King says it enhances the view and provides protection for people in unfavorable weather. “One of the major features to this, something that we really like, is that we elevated the entire seating, so that you can actually walk out underneath the seating right out to the railing at the front,” King explains.
There’s also an opportunity to have standing room at the railing, which is right over the benches, and several rows of fixed seating on the opposite side of the pitch that include fixed, concrete treads and risers, and a drink rail. “If you are an Ohio State fan, and you want to stand behind the Notre Dame bench and give the Notre Dame guys a little bit of grief, you can do that all day long. You’re standing 8 feet away from those guys,” King says. “But the idea of being able to stand almost anywhere in the concourse and still look out onto the field and see the action is something that we’ve been doing for a long time.”
The NFL Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium, photos courtesy of HOK
Upping revenue with renovated seating
In January, Idaho State University announced a new name for its on-campus home for Bengals football. After a nearly two-year renovation, Holt Arena was renamed the ICCU Dome. The facility — which first opened in 1970 and is the oldest enclosed stadium on a U.S. college campus, and the second-oldest in the nation overall — needed to update its seating for accessibility requirements and went ahead with a project to update all of its seating offerings.
George Casper, director of events for the ICCU Dome, said new Quattro seating from Hussey Seating Company was added throughout the venue to comply with ADA standards, and premium seating was created with the new ICCU President’s Deck. The approximately $20 million facelift, which also included new turf and a roof liner, was finished in September 2023.
“The seating was done in two phases. Basically, we changed and upgraded our arena seating,” Casper explains. “Then we also built what we’re calling a President’s Deck with luxury box seating. And then we also went ahead and did some renovation for added accessible seating, because we were really delinquent in that area.”
Creating the new seating options also created the need for some structural updates at the 53-year-old stadium. “Basically, with the new construction that we did up in the president’s decking and the luxury box, our current infrastructure wouldn’t hold the additional weight,” says Casper, who has four decades of experience in facility management. “We had to do some understructure work with that steel reinforcement. In phase two, we completed our south side seating. We added translucent panels, which would allow sunlight into the facility, which in the past, we did not have.” The project also included improvements to the press box and the construction of a team lounge.
Before the renovation, the facility didn’t have any luxury seating, so the President’s Deck was built new. “Instead of going with a fully enclosed suite, we went ahead with the deck, plus the luxury boxes around the deck. It’s more an open air-type concept,” Casper says. “The deck itself basically goes from the 20 (yard line) to the 20, if you can believe it’s that long. It is open space, beautiful view, stand-up seating, as far as like cocktail tables. That’s more of a modern concept that a lot of places are going with now, with the luxury boxes around there.” Padded 21-inch seats from Hussey Seating Company stretch from about the 30-yard-line to the 30-yard-line. Adjacent sections feature a basic 19-inch hard plastic seat.
ICCU Dome ticketing director Erin Fisk says the renovation added about 60 extra seats that the venue can sell at a higher price. The creation of different seating offerings also encouraged some Bengals fans to pay a little more to come to the Dome.
“What we noticed is a lot of the people started saying, ‘Hey, I want to move in because the seats are padded, and they’re a little bigger at the 50-yard line,’ ” Fisk says. “So we did have a lot of people say, ‘I’d like to join’ or ‘I’d like to spend more and move in and get a better seat.’ I would say it probably generated anywhere between a few thousand up to $100,000 more on ticket revenue and on athletic scholarship revenue, because that’s where that booster money goes — to scholarships. We continue to see that even this year. I’ve noticed about every 10th call I’m getting is like, ‘Hey, how do I get more in the middle and better?’ So it’s definitely helped in that regard.”
Hard Rock Stadium, photos courtesy of HOK
NFL stadium, living room feel
A few years ago, the NFL’s Miami Dolphins upgraded seating options at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. King and HOK worked on the project to add multiple premium seating areas, which included special end-zone areas.
“I remember at the Dolphins’ stadium we even had end zone club boxes,” King explains. “There were elevated seats at each end zone, which was almost like a little bit of a living room. You’ve got multiple comfortable chairs, you’ve got the tablet, you’ve got drink service coming to you. Those are really, really nice seats. Great way to watch the game. Great way to entertain people, too. That was also a project where we cut out the corners in the upper bowl, opened that up so you can sit inside the stadium and look out. Or if you’re walking around the perimeter of the upper concourse, you can go to that location, get a drink and watch the game while you’re standing at the bar.”
Offering a variety of seating experiences opens up attendance to a broader scope of spectator visits, and King says he sees premium seating as a stadium’s path to additional revenue.
“The traditional suite is going away. There’s much less need for those. Or if you have them, there needs to be a lot of flexibility in those suites,” King says. “It’s going to be a continual evolution of premium seating products and what sort of options can we come up with. There’s always going to be the general admission seating, but what are the new premium seating types? There are some terrific bold designers and incredibly creative people out there, and there are going to be owners and athletic directors and fans and alumni who just say, ‘Hey, okay, this has been great for the last five years, what’s next? Show me what else you got.’ ”
