Win The Event?

[CajunRage]

I’m speaking realistically. You can’t just rip up a contract without other consequences. It’s my understanding that the contract is up for renewal soon (or at least someone said that). There needs to be a serious discussion with their reps about what is acceptable and not. If they cannot meet the standards, they should not have the rights.

I’ve always said that UL events should have some of the best food around. If it was up tk me there would be Judixe Inn burgers, Olde Tyme poboys, Deanos pizza, etc. hell, I’d even find a way to make Fridays during lent crawfish boil days. Our events need to be a celebration of our culture, which includes food. We should be known for our concessions.

main point I'm making is that you can do all the "fanbase growing" you want but if you convince them to walk through the gates and they experience the garbage that sodexo provides, they aren't coming back and all that effort was wasted.

[cajun_lannister]

I’m speaking realistically. You can’t just rip up a contract without other consequences. It’s my understanding that the contract is up for renewal soon (or at least someone said that). There needs to be a serious discussion with their reps about what is acceptable and not. If they cannot meet the standards, they should not have the rights.

I’ve always said that UL events should have some of the best food around. If it was up tk me there would be Judixe Inn burgers, Olde Tyme poboys, Deanos pizza, etc. hell, I’d even find a way to make Fridays during lent crawfish boil days. Our events need to be a celebration of our culture, which includes food. We should be known for our concessions.

We had food trucks around Cajun Field for games. Had some great local grub during games. Can't understand why they ran those people out

[ManAboutTown]

main point I'm making is that you can do all the "fanbase growing" you want but if you convince them to walk through the gates and they experience the garbage that sodexo provides, they aren't coming back and all that effort was wasted.

One day, when RR is over and I have a weekend to myself, I'm gunna pour up the spirits heavy one night and write a detailed post on all the things that I've personally witnessed over my years following this program and getting to know the decision makers that have held us back. And how they did it. A memoir of sorts. Sodexo and the people that continue to excuse their failures will be very high on that list. I have asked the person directly in charge of hiring Sodexo why we continue to do business with them. Answer, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, that I got: "They're good people. They're just having to deal with shortage of workers that want to do the job. But they are good people to work with."

If only I could retain "good people" that didn't do their jobs but were "good people to work with". It is a disease within our administration. Oh well, we'll fix it when we fix it. Until then, Please and donate.

[ManAboutTown]

We had food trucks around Cajun Field for games. Had some great local grub during games. Can't understand why they ran those people out

Priced them out. UL wanted WAY too big of a cut of their profit. It's not worth it to them to provide the service to our fans.

[cajun_lannister]

Priced them out. UL wanted WAY too big of a cut of their profit. It's not worth it to them to provide the service to our fans.

Typically want money now instead of building a lifelong relationship.

[CajunRage]

Priced them out. UL wanted WAY too big of a cut of their profit. It's not worth it to them to provide the service to our fans.

The stupidity runs so deep.

[ExecutiveCajun]

I think it is time to re-think everything we do from a fan experience perspective. We have hit a wall. There are so many issues that you just need to rip everything up and start over.

First, Maggard should start forming internal and external committees. Internal committees would be made up of anyone who works in the department. External committees will be made up on three pertinent demographics: (1) long-time fans, (2) new fans, and (3) students. These committees will be referred to as the “gameday committees”, and include:

Promotion and marketing: how to get people excited about UL Athletics and to come to events.
Tailgating: how to make it thrive like it used to.

In-game experience: how to get people to the game and stay for the game.

The internal committees need to take a look at what we are doing, and what we can do better on. The external committees need to discuss their experiences and make recommendations on how to make the events more fan-friendly. They should do this separately. Then they meet up. The phrase “we cant do that” cannot be stated unless there is a damn good reason that follows. The committees shouldn’t be focused on everything we did wrong in the past, but rather, focused on the future and how to make the gameday experience better.

Once we have a plan in place for these four main gameday items, we can start focusing on age demographics. You need to talk to kids (5-12), teens (13-14), high schoolers (15-18), college-aged (19-26), young adults (27-35), middle-age adults (36-45), adults (46-59), and seniors (60 and up). The four gameday committees objective here will be to attract and retain the age groups

The next focus should be on region. You start with Lafayette Parish, which has a population of 240,000. The parish has multiple cities. People in Carencro are different than the people in Youngsville. What do people want to see? What do they like? What don’t they like? Once you determine Lafayette Parish, you move on to the five surrounding parishes and do the same. These include Acadia (57,576), St. Landry (82,540), St. Martin (51,767), Iberia (69,929), and Vermilion (57,359). You get buy-in from the city councils and mayors.

I think a lot of people get caught up in trying to do too much at one time. We have a very limited staff. It is a fact. You need to start with one thing (how to make gameday experience better), then move on to demographics and region. You need to perfect your product before you sell it. We have not perfected our product.

The goal cannot be to fill up a football stadium. The goal should be to grow the fan base, one-by-one, through the athletic department’s six largest events in the fall. We don’t need surveys. Surveys give us averages. We aren’t going after the average person. We are going after a person. A fan base must be built one-by-one.

nice way to package it. now who do we kidnap and torcher to convince it needs to be put in action

[Bandwagon King]

nice way to package it. now who do we kidnap and torcher to convince it needs to be put in action

That's about how far you'd have to go to get anything done.

[shof]

Priced them out. UL wanted WAY too big of a cut of their profit. It's not worth it to them to provide the service to our fans.

Heaven forbid they consider making the fan experience better vs greed. A reasonable flat rate to have trucks there would be so easy and be a win-win for vendors and fans; and as a result a win for the program!

[ZoomZoom]

We had food trucks around Cajun Field for games. Had some great local grub during games. Can't understand why they ran those people out

For the same reason we let Louisiana get used by B&N. Gotta make a buck. If money is being spent “on site” on food, food trucks compete with the offerings inside CF. I know, makes zero common sense. Contractually, probably an issue.

[RaginCajun309]

Priced them out. UL wanted WAY too big of a cut of their profit. It's not worth it to them to provide the service to our fans.

Maybe the food truck people were not “good people to work with”. I’m kidding of course. Are the Sodexo people local?

[fanof71]

Maybe the food truck people were not “good people to work with”. I’m kidding of course. Are the Sodexo people local?

Sedexo is a world wide companythey aren't local, not sure of home base.they contract food services for hundreds of schools and organizations.https://us.sodexo.com/home.html

[Turbine]

Sedexo is a world wide companythey aren't local, not sure of home base.they contract food services for hundreds of schools and organizations.https://us.sodexo.com/home.html

Good point. That's probably why the gameday experience feels so generic.

More needs to be done to make game day Louisiana unique.

Louisiana's being first in the country with collegiate (in stadium) beer sales was a great start, but I'm not aware of any innovation since then.

More needs to be done.

[fanof71]

Good point. That's probably why the gameday experience feels so generic.

More needs to be done to make game day Louisiana unique.

Louisiana's being first in the country with collegiate (in stadium) beer sales was a great start, but I'm not aware of any innovation since then.

More needs to be done.

Aside from the football team, there is nothing Ragin or Cajun awaiting fans inside CF.and the sad part, UL has or can get the assets to do that within a 30 mile drive of cajun field, and at very little or no cost.

[fanof71]

What year was CF finished and opened?