Did he say that on TV? I was not able to watch the parade. Just read that on Twitter so I took it at face value. If he said it at the parade, I would agree that it was probably a joke. My bad.
Printable View
I was in 126, and while there was a lot of frustration with people standing in the aisles and concourse's, I didn't experience anything like the letter writer did. I hope she's exagerating, but who knows. I will say there was not nearly enough SAFE staff at the stadium. Usually there is someone at every concourse keeping people from standing on the steps and blocking ingress/egress. That definitely did not happen yesterday.
All things considered though, I think Baltimore did okay. As others have said, other places have fared a lot worse in recent years.
At the stadium, Bisciotti opened by saying on the plane back from NO, when talking to Kevin Byrne, Kevin thought there might be 30,000 people at the stadium, and Steve said "what if there's more than 30,000?", and Kevin said "I guess we'll have to open the upper deck". He then noted that they FILLED the Upper Deck.
Honestly, I have to imagine that was a joke. Steve Bisciotti HAD to have known that more than 70k people were going to show to a victory parade. There was 200,000 in 2000. Not like our franchise has gotten LESS popular since then.
EDIT - Had Kevin and Steve backwards. KEVIN, according to the story, thought they'd have 30,000. Still think it was a joke
I think Bisciotti meant 30k in the stadium. This estimate didn't include the people on the parade route, at least that is how I took it.
Still, I have to think Bisciotti knew that the place would be full. As we saw from the pics taken after they shut the gates, people following the parade back took to SCALING the gates to try to get in.
Absolute pandemonium!
I hate to say this, because it would exclude me most likely as a non-PSL owner...But in the future, they probably should make it so that PSL owners can request tickets based on their number of PSLs, and whatever's left will be distributed among the general public (either have a "lottery" like they did for the Mustang Stadium practice, or have it so the first X people to the gate without tickets are allowed in, everyone else will be turned away). Then, they should also have screens setup to project the feed from inside the stadium to the crowd outside.
Or, have it be another 50-50 style lottery like with the Facility TC practices, where half the tickets go to PSL owners, other half goes to non-PSL owners.
For some reason I feel the need to counteract the negative here. My two buddies and I brought our children to the stadium and got excellent seats right up front in section 203. Great views of the stage, and no obstruction for the kiddos. We had two seven year olds, two four year olds, and a three year old and could not have had a better time. EVERYONE was beyond respectful/patient with the kids. One lady poured them hot chocolate from her thermos. Excellent time, and I am beyond proud of the fans in that area of the stadium. It was 100% celebration and 0% crap.
I was in that section and was there when they opened the gate at 9:45. Did not see or here anything like that and in fact there were plenty of seats still open for a good hour
I agree with NOLA and Zisi. Some of you are really blowing this out of proportion. There obviously were a couple of bad incidents (thanks for confirming kronus), but I'm telling you that 99.9% of the people in the stadium had a fantastic time and enjoyed one another's company immensely. I'm going to remember the shit eating grins on the faces of thousands of Ravens fans for a good long spell!
Quit trying to make a disaster based on a couple of isolated incidents out of what was really an excellent time. If you were there you would know the truth.
Getting back to the original post - i was up in sec 511 and could see commotion in these lower sections 120 or so, with people climbing up the ramp walls and police not able to get through due to the crowd there.
I didn't have any issues either...but you have seen the insanity that went on, right? If there were a couple bad sections, that is STILL a problem. If it'd happened in your section, you'd be pissed, right?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4950978745814
Watching that video, and seeing that once a couple made it up the fence, a THRONG joined them...And you hear people screaming "OPEN THE GATES!!!!!". It didn't turn into a mob scene, but it could've very quickly....