New Stadium Pics & Opening Day

[AAGunner3]

Got this in my email today. (http://www.atlantasilverbacks.com/news/displaynews.php?id=142&cat=1)

Just over a week remains before the opening of RE/MAX Greater Atlanta Stadium and the Atlanta Silverbacks have pulled out all the stops for opening night. The Silverbacks will christen the stadium with a night full of entertainment. The inauguration for the Silverbacks’ new home at Atlanta Silverbacks Park, RE/MAX Greater Atlanta Stadium, will feature more than just great soccer; the evening’s events include a new Silverbacks theme song, rides in the RE/MAX hot-air balloon, a performance by the Atlanta Drumline, free giveaways and a fireworks show. The amazing event at Atlanta’s first world-class soccer complex will undoubtedly be the place to be on June 3 as Atlanta soccer fans eagerly anticipate a fantastic summer season of soccer including the Atlanta Silverbacks Men, the Atlanta Silverbacks Women and the 2006 World Cup.
For fans attending the historic event, the night will begin with rides in the RE/MAX hot-air balloon. The balloon will lift off from Atlanta Silverbacks Park and allow its occupants to float above the crowd with a 360-degree panoramic view - keep an eye out for Stone Mountain and the Atlanta skyline.
Upon entering the stadium, the first 500 fans will receive an Atlanta Silverbacks 2006 schedule magnet with all the Men’s and Women’s home games. As fans settle into their seats, Vernon Jones, DeKalb County CEO, will address the new stadium in DeKalb County. Just before the start of the official game introductions, the Silverbacks will unveil their new theme song written and produced by REUBTRX MUSAQ. The Stone Mountain Brass, one of metro-Atlanta’s finest musical ensembles, will perform the national anthem.
Once the game begins, spectators will watch 90 minutes of professional soccer from their own individual seat each equipped with a cup holder which will likely be filled with products from Heineken and Pepsi all night long. At halftime the Atlanta Drumline will perform one of their nationally-acclaimed performances. Atlanta’s best percussionists perform with this drumline known for its precision, custom arrangements and intense spirit. To end the memorable evening, fans will get to see an amazing display of fireworks over the new stadium.
Following the match VIP guests, including platinum pack holders, will be invited to a private party with players from the Silverbacks at the VIP tent in the northeast corner of the stadium. The tent will feature great music, comfy couches, and food available from FIGO Pasta.
Tickets for the evening can be purchased for as little as $12.50 and parking is on site for only $5.00. Season tickets are also still available and offer a 20% savings off walk-up prices. Get your tickets online now at www.atlantasilverbacks.com, or call 1-866-GO-BACKS.

[BigKahuna]

Should be good, I'm planning on being there.

[AAGunner3]

By CHANDLER BROWN
cbrown@ajc.com
Published on: 06/01/06

DeKalb County is about to become home to one of the largest professional soccer complexes in the Southeast.

Called Remax Greater Atlanta Stadium, the $8 million complex features a field with state-of-the-art turf made just for outdoor games, 3,000 multicolored seats and plenty of parking. It replaces the Silverbacks' former home, DeKalb Memorial Stadium.

"This is a dream come true for us," said Joe Afful, a standout defender. DeKalb Memorial "was not really soccer-friendly and never really felt like a home stadium."

Before now, the Silverbacks practiced at the new stadium's site, which was once a drive-in movie theater. Long-term plans call for a bar-restaurant, enclosed locker room and a concession area, said Michael Oki, director of Atlanta Silverbacks Park.

"We're really just getting started," Oki said. "There's nothing like this for soccer lovers anywhere in the area."

In addition to hosting Silverbacks home games, the team, which is owned by several businessmen, will rent out the field to club teams.

"This will be a place for the whole community to enjoy soccer," Oki said.

Nel Fettig, an accomplished Silverbacks midfielder, said she can't wait to hit the new field.

"Atlanta soccer is lucky to have this stadium, and I am honored to get to play there," she said. (http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/0602stadium.html)

[AAGunner3]

Atlanta's 11 Alive just ran a spot on the new stadium for the Silverbacks. Looks nice. Hope to see you all there! (http://www.11alive.com/life/life_article.aspx?storyid=80582)

And Check Out Wes Sarginson's video spot on it. (http://www.11alive.com/video/player.aspx?aid=53583&sid=80582&bw=&cid=37)

[Eleven Bravo]

Atlanta's 11 Alive just ran a spot on the new stadium for the Silverbacks. Looks nice. Hope to see you all there! (http://www.11alive.com/life/life_article.aspx?storyid=80582)

And Check Out Wes Sarginson's video spot on it. (http://www.11alive.com/video/player.aspx?aid=53583&sid=80582&bw=&cid=37)

man, i'm so mad i can't make it!!! damnet!!!

[AAGunner3]

My impressions:

A dream come true. A soccer specific stadium in Georgia. A facilty that the Silverbacks own and reap the profits from. Big thanks to the owners and to Remax and the rest of the sponsors.

Looked like 95% full. Could have easily been sold out. Couple in front of me bought 4 tix, but only those two came.

I like the intimate feeling of our arena. Sure beats playing in a converted football stadium.

I expected some rough bumps the first night. I got there two hours early and tailgated for a while with the Mrs. Unfortunately, they hadn't even begun to stripe the parking lot. And the construction equipment took up a lot of parking space. They could have moved the cherry picker and things down to the terrace between the parking lot and the fiel I thought. Woulda freed up more spots in the rocky-parking-lot-of-no-return.

Would love to have seen someone forming the inbound traffic into two lanes. I think they could have filtered more folks in quickly using two lanes of incoming traffic to the lot and still have room for an outbound vehicle. Same for the egress.

I would like to see some steps running up the hill between the Socrates ground flag and the Delta flag to the parking lot.

The stadium was nice. Love my seat. Relatively comfortable.

Unfortunately getting to the seats was hampered by the dead ticket server. I got in before it crashed. They should have had a plan for that that involved a backup server ready to fill the void. They worked with what they had though.

Not enough concessions. The concession stand ran out of things like M&Ms and had no change to properly serve the consumers. They are set up to use plastic, but apparently not for opening night. Was this evidence of a cash flow shortage? I wouldn't be surprised as this is the first game of the year where the Silverbacks could reap gate revenue. The line for the concession also over ran the lines for the merchandise merchant. Not good and easily resolved.

The poor announcer couldn't get the name of the guy who signs his paycheck right. Couldn't pronounce several of the player's names. Would love to see more professionalism out of him, a'la Wes Durham, but that's me I guess.

I think the Audio speakers were too loud. Should be turned down a notch or two but then again, this may be because they were pointed right at me. COuld spend a little more money and buy more wire and split the speaker array so that they could be located at the goal lines and then directed to both stands for nice equal coverage and stereo effect. As it is, poor section 309 is now suing for deafness resulting from the placement of the speakers inside their comfort zone. And there were way too many sound bites played in my opinion. I wondered if the noise drowned out the start whistle of the referee on the scored FK by Charleston. Looked like our keeper wasn't quite ready.

I'm amazed that the seats in the sunshine are the more expensive ones. I always want the sun behind me. I think they messed up with that part of the plan, but maybe not. As it was, they don't have long to wait for the sun to go down behind the trees with game time starting at 7:30. Maybe when Phase IV is completed, the upper west stands deck will shade them earlier.

I greatly appreciated the sidewalk installed between the stadium and the parking lot. A nice touch and woulda been sorely lacking.

They were still working/improving on the stadium during the game. There was that guy on the awfully squeaky lift trying to install the banners on the light poles for one.

But all in all, it was a pleasant experience. Absolutely wonderful to have it sold out and to have a dream of a SSS here come true. I hope it pays off for the organization. Having control over the gate receipts, concession and merchandise sales is something all professional franchises want and strive for. The Silverbacks are ahead of the game on that front.

Best thing is, it will only get better.

And picking my seat, er, a number of pics from my seat. :P

http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/3609/060306170316sn.th.jpg (http://img128.imageshack.us/my.php?image=060306170316sn.jpg)

[AAGunner3]

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8936/060306214413mq.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=060306214413mq.jpg)

[AAGunner3]

http://img428.imageshack.us/img428/5659/060306190017ew.th.jpg (http://img428.imageshack.us/my.php?image=060306190017ew.jpg)

[AAGunner3]

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/1733/060306183018qe.th.jpg (http://img63.imageshack.us/my.php?image=060306183018qe.jpg)

[BigKahuna]

Thx for the info...something came up and I couldn't make it so I'm glad to read your thoughts. From what I've heard, they had ALOT of bugs that need to be worked out. Parking, transportation, concessions sund like they were atrocious and hopefully they'll fix these problems.

[Eleven Bravo]

How do you think the Backs will do with the rest of their home games? attendance wise.

[hogmesh]

if someone had told me they'd be building a stadium with different colored seats i probably would have predicted disaster, but i have to say, the seats are very striking looking

[Michael CM1]

Thx for the info...something came up and I couldn't make it so I'm glad to read your thoughts. From what I've heard, they had ALOT of bugs that need to be worked out. Parking, transportation, concessions sund like they were atrocious and hopefully they'll fix these problems.

I think they might figure out how to fix parking. Getting in got backed up because they were letting people in 1 at a time. The road was wide enough for 2. We might suggest that to someone if it's not done for the 6-10 game. I'm trying to figure out where people will park when it holds 7,500 next year. Hell, where they'll park when it gets over 4,000 later in the season.

The ticket server stopped working. They scan tickets like the GA Dome and other places do. They decided to just let everybody in for $15 if they didn't have a ticket already and delayed the game a little.

Concessions were "bad" because there were only a couple of places to buy things. I think the permanent concession stands are going to be built up on the concourse, which isn't finished yet.

Everything else was great. They had no seats in the first 2 rows of each section (most importantly 109). So we set up shop with a few drums and cowbells. Nobody complained about us standing up all of the time, which was amazing. I just wish I could've heard how loud we were at the other end of the stadium. Various people have posted elsewhere that they could hear us down there. Can't wait to go back June 17 after I miss next week for a wedding. Get your tickets fast and come make some noise in 109!

[El Guero Naco]

Most of the problems weren't an issue for those of us who arrived early. We got to the stadium about 4:30 (7:30 kickoff) to tailgate, very little traffic and just moved the gates out of the way to get up on the hill.

Getting into the stadium was no problem, we walked in about 45 minutes-an hour before scheduled kickoff and walked right in.

And when you tailgate, you don't need concessions, just beer, and there's a beer stand right next to our section.

Come on out everybody!

[Reignking]

Sounds like a CF. I was thinking about going next weekend, but I'll probably wait now.

[AAGunner3]

Sounds like a CF. I was thinking about going next weekend, but I'll probably wait now.

Yeah, they definitely need to work out traffic logistics. I believe they could easily get two lanes of traffic for the dominant flow and still leave room for an emergency vehicle or idiot desiring to swim 'upstream' against the flow.

[DavidP]

Sounds like a CF. I was thinking about going next weekend, but I'll probably wait now.

I wonder if they'll think about filling in one of the endzones with seats, if there's room, this season? If the crowds stay up, they could realize 5,000 seats this year, and sell the majority of them.

[BigKahuna]

I think they might figure out how to fix parking. Getting in got backed up because they were letting people in 1 at a time. The road was wide enough for 2. We might suggest that to someone if it's not done for the 6-10 game. I'm trying to figure out where people will park when it holds 7,500 next year. Hell, where they'll park when it gets over 4,000 later in the season.

The ticket server stopped working. They scan tickets like the GA Dome and other places do. They decided to just let everybody in for $15 if they didn't have a ticket already and delayed the game a little.

Concessions were "bad" because there were only a couple of places to buy things. I think the permanent concession stands are going to be built up on the concourse, which isn't finished yet.

Everything else was great. They had no seats in the first 2 rows of each section (most importantly 109). So we set up shop with a few drums and cowbells. Nobody complained about us standing up all of the time, which was amazing. I just wish I could've heard how loud we were at the other end of the stadium. Various people have posted elsewhere that they could hear us down there. Can't wait to go back June 17 after I miss next week for a wedding. Get your tickets fast and come make some noise in 109!

the question about the future is definately an issue. According to the team president, we will see 4,000 by the end of this year or beginning of next year a the latest and 7,500 by 2008. By then they will either have to build a parking garage or, better yet for many reasons, buy the driving range across Northcrest and have people park there. They'll need to do something soon, because I heard that some people even parked in the neighborhood next door and I promise the residents will not tolerate that much longer.

[BigKahuna]

I wonder if they'll think about filling in one of the endzones with seats, if there's room, this season? If the crowds stay up, they could realize 5,000 seats this year, and sell the majority of them.

The end at the base of the hill will get seats as part of the 7500 expansion. The field will eventually be totally enclosed by seats.:D

[El Guero Naco]

I wonder if they'll think about filling in one of the endzones with seats, if there's room, this season? If the crowds stay up, they could realize 5,000 seats this year, and sell the majority of them.

Before they can do that they need to build the locker rooms. Right now those trailers behind the north goal are the locker rooms.