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The HS Peach Snapple glass bottle with clear liquid under my car seat was "water", I swear.
A step in the right direction. Not sure doubling water stations is enough… they need 4-6x as many as they had last week.
Is what it is, just an observation.
They need the old HS Football watering stations that were a large diameter hose connected to 10 ft of PVC with holes drilled into it.
@tammany Agree. They need to have many more water stations. And have signs and tell stadium workers where they are located. That was dangerous to players and fans. This was worse preparation than the Cincinnati game. If they can't provide water the move it to a night game. But the all mighty TV dollar won't allow that.
@iu-fan-1989 This would be the perfect game to move. It's not drawing a national audience and it's BTN, just move it to 6pm
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It's a step in the right direction. Our issue was more that the filling stations are on the main level. On the upper concourse there wasn't anything available that we could find. And in the 2nd quarter my wife went to get some water from the concession stand and they had run out. It got restocked by halftime. And the one on the main level was packed.
My big complaint for last game was the parking situation for our lot. There wasn't anyone working it. One guy standing out of Fee lane, didn't even look to see if I had a parking pass or not. Then when I got to the lot there wasn't anyone and for a grass lot with no defined parking it became a hot mess. Saw several later arriving cars turn around. Especially the larger vehicles. Don't know if all the cars that tried to park there should have been there or not. First time I've ever not had to show my pass and get scanned in to a lot.
And let the little kids play in the mud that was always underneath those. 😀They need the old HS Football watering stations that were a large diameter hose connected to 10 ft of PVC with holes drilled into it.
@bbh42 I’ve heard this issue from a few different folks now. IU just isn’t adequately staffed in some lots and they can’t get away with it anymore with these larger crowds and higher prices charged.
Hopefully it gets fixed. I’m kinda wondering if the athletic dept needs a COO upgrade. With football being good the scale of the AD operation is so much bigger they seem overwhelmed sometimes. And to be clear I thought Saturday was pretty good overall, but it could be better is all I am saying. Our stadium is just 55K… it’s not like we are filling up a 100K seater here.
@tammany I think the issue is if you have grass lots with no defined spaces. The last two years we were in Lot 12 so once I got scanned in, it was just find an open parking space. Our first year we were in the Tailgate Grass lots on the Southside and that was the first year they did the zipper parking which worked fine. This year being back in a smaller grass lot, I was assuming it be like my prior grass lot experience. Especially since I got an e-mail from parking that said, "upon arrival at your gate, parking staff will be actively managing traffic and directing vehicles to a designated spot. Please follow their instructions closely as you enter the lots."
There wasn't a single thing about that statement that was true. They may have had someone working it when the lots first opened but if they did, they left because we got there about 8:40am and the lot was already pretty full and not a single worker directing anything.
My initial reaction was if this is what its like for our first game, what's it going to be like for OSU. I did reach out to parking and they did respond to me so we will see what its like this Saturday. I felt bad for the one group who were parked next to the toilets. They were trying to decide what to do. There wasn't anywhere to move to, and they clearly planned to tailgate but who wants to try to do that 5 feet from the porta potty with the line of people standing right next to your space. Actually most of those late cars because of the parking had zero room to do any tailgating because there wasn't any room.
They need the old HS Football watering stations that were a large diameter hose connected to 10 ft of PVC with holes drilled into it.
Ours was an iron pipe, and we peed in a trough. We used to be a country of men!
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
@tammany I think the issue is if you have grass lots with no defined spaces. The last two years we were in Lot 12 so once I got scanned in, it was just find an open parking space. Our first year we were in the Tailgate Grass lots on the Southside and that was the first year they did the zipper parking which worked fine. This year being back in a smaller grass lot, I was assuming it be like my prior grass lot experience. Especially since I got an e-mail from parking that said, "upon arrival at your gate, parking staff will be actively managing traffic and directing vehicles to a designated spot. Please follow their instructions closely as you enter the lots."
There wasn't a single thing about that statement that was true. They may have had someone working it when the lots first opened but if they did, they left because we got there about 8:40am and the lot was already pretty full and not a single worker directing anything.
My initial reaction was if this is what its like for our first game, what's it going to be like for OSU. I did reach out to parking and they did respond to me so we will see what its like this Saturday. I felt bad for the one group who were parked next to the toilets. They were trying to decide what to do. There wasn't anywhere to move to, and they clearly planned to tailgate but who wants to try to do that 5 feet from the porta potty with the line of people standing right next to your space. Actually most of those late cars because of the parking had zero room to do any tailgating because there wasn't any room.
Created an account just to chime in here. What a joke that was. 1) unbelievably inconsiderate of the people blocking lanes which rendered 25% of that lot useless because no one could get to it, but these days that's unfortunately to be expected. 2) unfortunately, again, typical dysfunction from IU. Getting treated like this is going to start wearing on loyal STHs sooner than later. I figured that lot would be a shitshow when I got moved out of Lot 12 into it and was still blown away by the disorganization. Poor guy working Fee Lane didn't have a clue what was going on. He didn't even have a QR code scanner for the passes. Anyone with a brain will make their season ticket money back by selling their pass and flashing a screenshot on their way in, which will cause even more chaos, but maybe the admin will start paying attention then. I'll be tailgating out of the paved softball/baseball ADA lot going forward. They can tow me.
I have said it before and after reading the concerns here, if Indiana is going to charge what they charge for parking and other things, they need to be better organized and hire better companies to run events.
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@3columnsof11 not sure what time you got there but it got pretty crazy shortly after we did. When the guy at Fee just waived us on I just assumed they must be scanning at the lot. I never imagined there wouldn't be a single person working the lot. I did contact Parking Operations and they did respond to me. I wish I had taken a picture to show the chaos. They told me that the lot should have been staffed, tickets should have been scanned and parking should have been organized. On people blocking lanes, there weren't any defined lanes that people self parking would have seen to know not to park. When we got there all cars were parked around the perimeter of the lot. The middle is what started filling up right after we got there.
Not sure if we will see something different on this Saturday but I would imagine I'm not the only one that complained. Either IU seriously oversold this lot or people were trying to park there who didn't have a pass to be there. For where people were parked, the few trucks just past me I never would have been able to park there due to the steepness. When we started walking to the stadium from where we were parked, if I had wanted to leave the lot there was no way I would have been able to get around the cars. It was hard enough walking around the people and parked cars from where we were.
@bbh42 I was there about an hour after you. We kicked around the idea of parking on that crazy slope too and just decided to chance it in the softball/baseball lot which ended up being fine. The lanes thing is definitely IU's fault, but some common sense could have been used. Would have been a real mess if that was the type of game where everyone is trying to get out at the same time. I would say anyone who showed up at ~9:30 or later gave parking operations a piece of their mind, or should have.
I 100% believe IU oversold that lot and Ohio State week will be a disaster whether it's staffed or not. Personally, I won't be there any later than 8:00. There's a ton of extra room at the back of that lot too, but for whatever reason they just didn't mow it. If they find a way to designate spots and lanes the lot actually is in a pretty nice location, though I'd hate to see it after a week of heavy rain which I suppose goes for any grass lot.