GT Fan Experience Enhancements

[coit]

They effectively sent you a ctrl-c,ctrl-v of what they posted on Twitter. The GTPD made us do this but we’re rewarding you with discounted concessions (1 5% off coupon a game!).

Using the coupons is going to be a clusterfuck. Concessions is already a clusterfuck with the volunteers basically not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground. Now they’re expected to calculate discounts

Where's the twitter thread?

 

[BranMart]

I think we really only have one rule around here, but I know it’s difficult to follow.

Stephanie Swant joined the Georgia Tech Athletic Association staff in December 2014 as the assistant to the senior associate athletic director for the Alexander-Tharpe Fund. In May 2015, she was named the executive assistant for Georgia Tech's director of athletics.

Before joining the Georgia Tech staff, Swant spent time with multiple organizations, including 3i Private Equity (2007-10) in New York, San Elijo Dance and Music Academy (2010-12) in California, and Capital Group Companies (2012-13) in Los Angeles.

She also worked in the Alexander-Tharpe Fund as a temp assistant for six months at the beginning of 2014 before moving to the Institute side of development.

A member of the Actors' Equity Association, she was a Regional Musical Theatre performer from 2003-11 and has been a dance choreographer since 2006 with the Southeastern Theatre Conference.

Swant originally attended the University of Arizona, where she was a presidential scholar and made the dean's List. She later transferred to Elon University in Elon, N.C., where she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in music theatre.

 

[coit]

Stephanie Swant joined the Georgia Tech Athletic Association staff in December 2014 as the assistant to the senior associate athletic director for the Alexander-Tharpe Fund. In May 2015, she was named the executive assistant for Georgia Tech's director of athletics.

Before joining the Georgia Tech staff, Swant spent time with multiple organizations, including 3i Private Equity (2007-10) in New York, San Elijo Dance and Music Academy (2010-12) in California, and Capital Group Companies (2012-13) in Los Angeles.

She also worked in the Alexander-Tharpe Fund as a temp assistant for six months at the beginning of 2014 before moving to the Institute side of development.

A member of the Actors' Equity Association, she was a Regional Musical Theatre performer from 2003-11 and has been a dance choreographer since 2006 with the Southeastern Theatre Conference.

Swant originally attended the University of Arizona, where she was a presidential scholar and made the dean's List. She later transferred to Elon University in Elon, N.C., where she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in music theatre.

Looks like drama runs deep with her.

 

[andrew]

And while we are on the subject of assholes, when to did the Ramblin Reck club get to be such little assholes. Little ööööers, the ööööing car doesn't need a 30' wide opening during the Tech walk, especially since it is normally a small crowd. Constantly yelling "MOVE BACK!!! GET ON THE CURB!!! MOVE BACK!!!" is pretty annoying to the fans awaiting the team. Perhaps you should just park the car and put a velvet rope around it.

I mean come on, "reck" is literally in the name.

 

[Ptjackets]

I called Georgia Tech this morning and spoke with a very nice woman who assured me that someone higher up the food chain would get back with me before the end of the day it's 2 o'clock now but have not heard from anyone.

I feel the only way we might get results is to refuse and renew our season tickets until the policy is changed

 

[coit]

I called Georgia Tech this morning and spoke with a very nice woman who assured me that someone higher up the food chain would get back with me before the end of the day it's 2 o'clock now but have not heard from anyone.

I feel the only way we might get results is to refuse and renew our season tickets until the policy is changed

Not all of us are whiny, spoiled brats. There are many other ways to have concerns addressed.

 

[GTLorenzo]

The security and gate staff they've hired are horrible, absolutely horrible. The GTAA should be embarrassed. I've had a run in with the gate staff and it led to an email to Stansbury. They made it right, but if I wasn't a loyal, 40+ year fan, I wouldn't come back the way I was treated. Great way to inentivize new fans to come to games and come back.....treat the fans like crap.

I think it was a further insult to call it an "enhancement" while burying the details in an FAQ section. GTAA was absolutely trying to sneak this through with as little attention paid to it as possible.

Now, Stansbury is apparently barricaded in his office, refusing to communicate with us dangerous season ticket holders. I guess MBob must have infected him.

It takes very little to say "whoops, my bad" and correct the situation. I normally get a hot dog, hamburger (which I have to go to the LW to get) or a Sonny's BBQ sandwich (new to this past season) in the stadium before the band comes down the hill to play the stairs. I try to support the program, but damn halftime lines are ridiculous at UN concessions.

To top it off, my daughter and I went walking around the stadium at halftime of homecoming this past season. We stopped in the lower north in the corner where it joins the LE out of the flow of traffic, there is a fairly large area there, just to watch the crowning of Mr and Miss GT. We IMMEDIATELY got yelled at by security to "keep moving, no standing! Sir, return to your seat!" even though we were back and away against the wall out of the flow of traffic. I said "hang on a second, I will move in a minute after this" to which the security personnel said "sir, I've asked to to keep moving, now MOVE!" to which I said "shut the hell up. My family and I have been season ticket holders here most of my life. Wait a damn minute while I watch this and then I will move" - which, of course, I missed since the asshole was arguing with me. One of the security personnel left to go get a supervisor or cop or something, I suppose to kick me out. Since the crowning was over, I told the other security guard my seats were in 218, row 8, if they wanted to come get me since halftime was almost over.

 

[Rodzilla]

Not all of us are whiny, spoiled brats. There are many other ways to have concerns addressed.

I'm going to read into your "whiny" comment to mean that you think he should have just kept his mouth shut. How exactly do you think the GTAA should be made aware of things they're doing that their customers don't like if you're going to call people who speak up whiny and say they should do something else instead?

 

[JJacket]

The security and gate staff they've hired are horrible, absolutely horrible. The GTAA should be embarrassed. I've had a run in with the gate staff and it led to an email to Stansbury. They made it right, but if I wasn't a loyal, 40+ year fan, I wouldn't come back the way I was treated. Great way to inentivize new fans to come to games and come back.....treat the fans like crap.

Yea, we were in no way blocking anyone or hindering everything. It is a very wide area there. The security personnel pretty much yelled at everyone along the wall area there to get moving and get back to your seats. I could understand if there was really a crowd there blocking aisles, but it was about 10-12 folks just standing there out of the way. My daughter and I had just decided to take the stadium tour and walk around for a bit.

Thank God I didn't make it to 223. We may have had to engage in some fisticuffs - Cambridge rules.

 

[JJacket]

I called Georgia Tech this morning and spoke with a very nice woman who assured me that someone higher up the food chain would get back with me before the end of the day it's 2 o'clock now but have not heard from anyone.

I feel the only way we might get results is to refuse and renew our season tickets until the policy is changed

Did you give them the Stingtalk ultimatum email? It sets out clearly what will happen if you are not responded to in a timely fashion.

 

[coit]

I'm going to read into your "whiny" comment to mean that you think he should have just kept his mouth shut. How exactly do you think the GTAA should be made aware of things they're doing that their customers don't like if you're going to call people who speak up whiny and say they should do something else instead?

Anyone who thinks that not renewing season tickets is a "that'll show 'em" response to this is just being ridiculous. If you don't want to renew your tickets, fine. But it is the same group of people whining and complaining about every little thing, yourself included for your rant on the Admissions Office Instagram post.

Maybe I'm unique in that I don't let little shit like this bother me like you do? Who knows. If it improves getting through security I'm all for it. And I don't come to games carrying a bunch of food. I eat before, or make plans to eat after. Eating concessions food just isn't that big of deal to me.

 

[gte490v]

It is weird for me to read people that are 20+, 30+, 40+ year season ticket holders and sound like Millennials. You aren't entitled to bring your own food and drink into everywhere you go.

So, we're back to where almost every other sporting venue is regarding outside food and drinks. Big F'n deal. If eating your <insert outside food of choice> is more than 2% of your gameday experience enjoyment, then you aren't cut out for this. Does it suck... Kinda. But it doesn't suck bad enough to throw your dignity away and complain to the GTAA muchless publicly on a forum like this.

Enter the game with a full stomach and/or buy some concessions and consider it a 50% donation to the GTAA / 50% cost to eat food.

 

[LeonardWood]

It is weird for me to read people that are 20+, 30+, 40+ year season ticket holders and sound like Millennials. You aren't entitled to bring your own food and drink into everywhere you go.

So, we're back to where almost every other sporting venue is regarding outside food and drinks. Big F'n deal. If eating your <insert outside food of choice> is more than 2% of your gameday experience enjoyment, then you aren't cut out for this. Does it suck... Kinda. But it doesn't suck bad enough to throw your dignity away and complain to the GTAA muchless publicly on a forum like this.

Enter the game with a full stomach and/or buy some concessions and consider it a 50% donation to the GTAA / 50% cost to eat food.

Dumb post

 

[JJacket]

Anyone who thinks that not renewing season tickets is a "that'll show 'em" response to this is just being ridiculous. If you don't want to renew your tickets, fine. But it is the same group of people whining and complaining about every little thing, yourself included for your rant on the Admissions Office Instagram post.

Maybe I'm unique in that I don't let little öööö like this bother me like you do? Who knows. If it improves getting through security I'm all for it. And I don't come to games carrying a bunch of food. I eat before, or make plans to eat after. Eating concessions food just isn't that big of deal to me.

If getting a copy/paste of a tweet is their idea of customer service, then they will lose what little fanbase we have.

 

[DressCheeseSideSeaboard]

Looks like drama runs deep with her.

She kind of reminds me of that car dealer lady that piqued your interest earlier.

 

[gtg970g]

The issue is not simply losing the ability to bring in food and drink. Our concessions are literally run by volunteers with zero experience. Our concessions experience is abysmal. They need to fix concessions BEFORE forcing their best patrons to use the service. Guarantee the first game will be a cluster in the concessions. Also doubt discount will be applied to anything but s**ty concessions, no discount on BBQ, Chick-fila, etc.

 

[JJacket]

The issue is not simply losing the ability to bring in food and drink. Our concessions are literally run by volunteers with zero experience. Our concessions experience is abysmal. They need to fix concessions BEFORE forcing their best patrons to use the service. Guarantee the first game will be a cluster in the concessions. Also doubt discount will be applied to anything but s**ty concessions, no discount on BBQ, Chick-fila, etc.

Is it seriously 5% off for season ticket holders? Not that I expect anything. Just let me bring my water or carry my candy bar in and I will be fine. I remember walking in with a Varsity box when I was a kid back in the olden days when it was more fun to attend games.

 

[Rodzilla]

There's literally no way I don't renew my season tickets over this. But I'm a season ticket holder that hasn't lived in Atlanta since I was a student. Odds are that I continue to move farther away from Atlanta and have more and more things in life that make it harder for me to come to games. I plan on always keeping my season tickets, even if I can't make it to a single game, but things like this don't exactly come across as the GTAA doing what it can to reward loyal customers.

Look at this purely from a business perspective: does this move make the GTAA more money? One could say people not bringing in outside food/drink will mean concessions makes more. I know for myself that I would still get a souvenir coke and maybe Chick-fil-A or a hot dog at least a few games during the season. So I was already spending money despite the policy. Will I spend more now? I doubt it, I'll probably just eat/drink more before games. Meanwhile, this is pissing people off. Pissing people off is not a good way to make more money. Right or wrong, fewer people are going to be renewing season tickets because of this. I don't see anyone who doesn't currently have season tickets suddenly decide on getting some as a result. They took a product and made it less attractive and in a way that almost certainly doesn't result in more revenue. It just makes no business sense.

 

[gte490v]

Do you guys go to away games or other college football games? The concession experiences I've had at Clemson, UGA, Auburn, the Rose Bowl NC, UNC, and even @Kansas were equal or worse for similarly packed games at Bobby Dodd.

 

[LeonardWood]

Do you guys go to away games or other college football games? The concession experiences I've had at Clemson, UGA, Auburn, the Rose Bowl NC, UNC, and even @Kansas were equal or worse for similarly packed games at Bobby Dodd.

I once went to 20 consecutive away games.

And nobody cares what happens at other stadiums.