2021 Game day Experience

[fanof71]

We live in an area crowded with Grammy nominated and Grammy winners. I don't mind the team warm-up music, I get that..however the rave "music" all the GD time...what are they thinking? Mix it up with our musicians, and I'm not talking just "Cornbread" either...so much good zydeco and cajun music that can rock the house.

PS...loved the dedication to 9/11 and our military..

[Turbine]

We live in an area crowded with Grammy nominated and Grammy winners. I don't mind the team warm-up music, I get that..however the rave "music" all the GD time...what are they thinking? Mix it up with our musicians, and I'm not talking just "Cornbread" either...so much good zydeco and cajun music that can rock the house.

PS...loved the dedication to 9/11 and our military..

1) If players are listening to the music they are dropping passes and missing tackles.

2) Students don't come for the music or stay for the music.

Hospitality Management might as well make Louisiana Saturday Nights the most unique experience in football.

[RaginCajun309]

We live in an area crowded with Grammy nominated and Grammy winners. I don't mind the team warm-up music, I get that..however the rave "music" all the GD time...what are they thinking? Mix it up with our musicians, and I'm not talking just "Cornbread" either...so much good zydeco and cajun music that can rock the house.

PS...loved the dedication to 9/11 and our military..

I wasn’t at the game only watched on TV a second time today and was particularly paying attention to the music/PA.

It did seem weird how the music would stop and start. I agree the band should be the music not from the PA. As far as “rave” music I did hear some songs that are like 20-30 years old like “Jump Around” which isn’t playing to just the young crowd.

I can’t speak to the concessions but it sound horrific. Didn’t they add a bunch in the S end zone? That being said I would have eaten in the lot and only needed a pee break and maybe a few beers, I do understand wives and kids who want food, soda and other stupid things.

[DannyP]

I tried the RCAF fast pass line. It was an equally horrible experience. Line was a little shorter, but still didn’t move.

[HoustonCajun]

I wasn’t at the game only watched on TV a second time today and was particularly paying attention to the music/PA.

It did seem weird how the music would stop and start. I agree the band should be the music not from the PA. As far as “rave” music I did hear some songs that are like 20-30 years old like “Jump Around” which isn’t playing to just the young crowd.

I can’t speak to the concessions but it sound horrific. Didn’t they add a bunch in the S end zone? That being said I would have eaten in the lot and only needed a pee break and maybe a few beers, I do understand wives and kids who want food, soda and other stupid things.

In addition to all of these things, and more importantly in IMO, is our failure to get fan interaction in the game. Watch a game at Texas or LSU. The fans are singing The Eyes of Texas or spelling TEXAS or TIGERS with the bands continually playing their fight songs. The entire stadium is in chorus. After great plays or scoring, play the fight song and end it with the fans spelling out C A J U N S. Play some unique songs like Louisiana Saturday Night and other fan favorite Cajun songs. In the absence of these kind of interactive things throughout the game, the fans just sit there and yell briefly following a score or great play. The rest of the time they are bored with the poor selection of music on the speaker or by the band and the lack of coordination of both. And with lackluster play as in the Nichols game, in addition to the concession issue, the initial impression of the avg fan is not good. I am a loyal fan and I am bored at games because of a lack of any interaction to bring us fans into the game experience.

With all of the big time games we have played in packed stadiums and seeing what makes those programs successful and the fans excited to go to games, we have learned nothing.

Create something unique and fan special to make fans want to come out every game. Give them a great experience from concessions to interaction and they will want to come out each week, even on weekday games. Did anyone see the VA Tech game this week. Voted the best fan experience in the country. The stadium was rockin. Indoctrinate the students like at Texas A&M and give them a reason to want to come out each week. Make Cajuns Field THE place to be on game nights fir all of the Acadiana area.

And, while we are at it, change the name of the band to the Pride of Louisiana to reflect the name of the university.

[LouisianaB]

Agree with this. John Dugas oversees event management. Is game day experience his responsibility?

Concessions is probably outside your of his duties

[BananaHammock]

And to pay a company to solve our problems will cost more which will lead back to the countless complaints about concession prices. I still don’t understand the folks that come to the game and live at the concession stands. I get an item before game and maybe another at half time but some people near my seats watch less than half the game b/c they can’t stay seated.

[Duckster]

Lower the PA volume. IDK, maybe dial it back -25% from current level? Just test at a lesser level before Thursday. This has been suggested in years past. Should be easy fix.

[fanof71]

He was right to get out in front of this concession fiasco Saturday night. And, you can bet he also probably got an earful about PA and the rave music...

so what are his next steps, especially considering this is not the first time these issues have come up...

Is it going to be enough this time to just say those issues (as has happened in the past)
Have been taken care of without explaining how and why it happened as well as the steps he took to fix it...if it can be fixed.

[NolaCajun87]

The problem with the RCAF fast pass line was that non-members were jumping in this line knowing that RCAF cards weren't being checked. I've never been asked to show my card.

[BabbForHeisman]

Since yall are complaining about the PA, let me throw in one other thing. I know this was just an ESPN3 production, not exactly the highest quality level. But the way the PA was drowning out the commentators was ridiculous.

Maybe its my own personal bias because I hate hate hate hate the "And that's another Louisiana...." thing over the PA. 1) We copied it from ULM, they were doing "And that's another Warhawk..." way before we did; 2) It sounds stupid on TV when you can't hear the crowd yelling "first down"; 3) It sounds stupid in general. Sounds like high school amateur hour every time we do something good on offense. End rant.

[KajunKrazy]

Is it not obvious?? The long time fans predict it every time. Game day experience is still bad, maybe the worst it’s been.

Last years problems have only gotten worse. Spend all the time and resources to get a good crowd to the game to support a good program,and the administration fails to support the crowd. People waited in line for 45 min at the concession stands. Not only is it unacceptable, it’s unbelievable. Why wasn’t the beer stand separate from the food stand?? Don’t tell me 25,000 people are too many to handle in a timely manner in a 41,000 seat stadium. You were at Missouri. They seat about 65,000. People must have waited 2 hours over there. (bet not)

This happened at soccer Thursday night as well. Social media push for a record crowd. Cajun rush soccer night. 1 guy working concessions. Got in line score was 0-0 walked out of line and stadium 30 minutes later when the score was 3-0.

Good news, bad news; good news is you don’t have to worry about this the rest of the year.

Bad news is you get one shot the first game of every season to gain fans and y’all screwed it up again. We’ll be right back to our diehard 15,000 fans.

I had my wife and 2 kids at the game. Good news; I’ll be solo the rest of the season.
Bad news, 3 less butts and probably $50 a game the school could make.

Also PA is obnoxiously loud, music selection is bad, band doesn’t play enough, and fireworks in daylight is a waste of money.

Someone should be in charge of the game day experience. If it’s not you dr. Maggard then it’s someone under you. My advice as one of the diehard fans is, make some drastic changes and heads roll or turn in your badge.

See you Thursday night with 15,000 fans and no lines. CAN’T WAIT.

Signed
A Lifelong Cajun fan dying inside

John Dugas is in charge of game day management I do believe.