Lynah Attendance

[The Rancor]

Look at the attendance numbers around the league... abysmal, compared to Lynah. No, they probably wont sell out every game, but, a Natty might change that. Kinda nice to be able to pick up a pair of tickets when we roll to town. That would have been much harder years ago.

[BearLover]

Even if winning materially helped attendance (unlikely), good luck winning any more than we currently are: back to back ECAC champs, on track to make ECACs for the 8th time in 9 seasons, just one or two "bad" seasons in the past 30+ years.

[VIEWfromK]

Either the folks were listening or had it planned all along but there have been a lot of changes since the start of the season in terms of game day experience.  They continue to hold intermission participation challenges.  The radio music is increasingly less prominent (thank you pep band!).  They added back in the merchandise stand.  They are adding new items to the concessions. They continue to have ice resurfacer riders.  There is a lot less scoreboard videos or audience prompts.  They have continued to do giveaways (free shirts last Friday.  Sure they were old ones but they were from seasons where they didn't hand them out to season ticket holders).  They keep asking for youth team participation so that will be fun if that comes into existence.  The hockey is all that I need to attend a game but they are trying new things that are pretty harmless to what we think of as the institution.  I don't know if any of it will create more fans but it has made things more interesting.

[stereax]

Either the folks were listening or had it planned all along but there have been a lot of changes since the start of the season in terms of game day experience.  They continue to hold intermission participation challenges.  The radio music is increasingly less prominent (thank you pep band!).  They added back in the merchandise stand.  They are adding new items to the concessions. They continue to have ice resurfacer riders.  There is a lot less scoreboard videos or audience prompts.  They have continued to do giveaways (free shirts last Friday.  Sure they were old ones but they were from seasons where they didn't hand them out to season ticket holders).  They keep asking for youth team participation so that will be fun if that comes into existence.  The hockey is all that I need to attend a game but they are trying new things that are pretty harmless to what we think of as the institution.  I don't know if any of it will create more fans but it has made things more interesting.

They're experimenting. I enjoy that. And thank fuck that stupid Tompkins Trust Shuffle is out.

[pjd8]

Either the folks were listening or had it planned all along but there have been a lot of changes since the start of the season in terms of game day experience.  They continue to hold intermission participation challenges.  The radio music is increasingly less prominent (thank you pep band!).  They added back in the merchandise stand.  They are adding new items to the concessions. They continue to have ice resurfacer riders.  There is a lot less scoreboard videos or audience prompts.  They have continued to do giveaways (free shirts last Friday.  Sure they were old ones but they were from seasons where they didn't hand them out to season ticket holders).  They keep asking for youth team participation so that will be fun if that comes into existence.  The hockey is all that I need to attend a game but they are trying new things that are pretty harmless to what we think of as the institution.  I don't know if any of it will create more fans but it has made things more interesting.

Sports are full on theater now. The Oregon State football games are tightly choreographed with the marching band, cheerleaders, firework launchers, announcers/scoreboard video (thankfully air guitar cam instead of kiss cam) and announcements of other sports teams acheivements during tv ad breaks.

The Seattle Kraken put on a big show as the team comes out. It's got to be at least two minutes of video (on both scoreboards, plus projections on two big banners and the ice itself), music, and a big Kraken shaped arch that comes down from the ceiling that the guys skate under as they take the ice. There are stages at the top level on both ends that lead out to bars. The DJ is stationed at one, and they sometimes have a band at the other. And there's the usual intermission games on the ice for a few lucky fans and the tshirt tosses.

Even our high school wrestling coach is thinking of drawing people in with getting special singlets for a blacklight match.

When I was attending a science fiction writing workshop 25 years ago, we were at Greg Bear's house, and he brought us down to his home theater, popped a copy of the movie Contact in the dvd player, and said "Always remember, this is what you have to compete with when you're writing science fiction."

The same is now true for sports.

[The Rancor]

Either the folks were listening or had it planned all along but there have been a lot of changes since the start of the season in terms of game day experience.  They continue to hold intermission participation challenges.  The radio music is increasingly less prominent (thank you pep band!).  They added back in the merchandise stand.  They are adding new items to the concessions. They continue to have ice resurfacer riders.  There is a lot less scoreboard videos or audience prompts.  They have continued to do giveaways (free shirts last Friday.  Sure they were old ones but they were from seasons where they didn't hand them out to season ticket holders).  They keep asking for youth team participation so that will be fun if that comes into existence.  The hockey is all that I need to attend a game but they are trying new things that are pretty harmless to what we think of as the institution.  I don't know if any of it will create more fans but it has made things more interesting.

Sports are full on theater now. The Oregon State football games are tightly choreographed with the marching band, cheerleaders, firework launchers, announcers/scoreboard video (thankfully air guitar cam instead of kiss cam) and announcements of other sports teams acheivements during tv ad breaks.

The Seattle Kraken put on a big show as the team comes out. It's got to be at least two minutes of video (on both scoreboards, plus projections on two big banners and the ice itself), music, and a big Kraken shaped arch that comes down from the ceiling that the guys skate under as they take the ice. There are stages at the top level on both ends that lead out to bars. The DJ is stationed at one, and they sometimes have a band at the other. And there's the usual intermission games on the ice for a few lucky fans and the tshirt tosses.

Even our high school wrestling coach is thinking of drawing people in with getting special singlets for a blacklight match.

When I was attending a science fiction writing workshop 25 years ago, we were at Greg Bear's house, and he brought us down to his home theater, popped a copy of the movie Contact in the dvd player, and said "Always remember, this is what you have to compete with when you're writing science fiction."

The same is now true for sports.

Yes, to the theater part I agree... which is why Cornell has to encourage the traditions, old and (begrudgingly) new. As we are all aware, the pure spectacle, the participation, the calamity that is the Lynah Rink Hockey Experience is what sets it apart and is in it's self entertaining, beyond the on ice product.
Keep the cheers loud. The band louder. The student seats full. Make it analog and interactive and special and different than all those other shows.

[Trotsky]

Incoming rant.

The enshittification is driven by old people (so ancient, they are merely a decade younger than I) in positions where spending and deployment decisions are made.  They regard students condescendingly as desensitized consumers who can only be detached from their iPacifiers by LET'S GET READY TO RUMMMMMMMMMMBLE!

It's the usual category error: uninteresting and uncreative people are deaf to creativity and have no experience with the creative process, therefore they substitute their own ersatz equivalent.  We see this everywhere from committee-chosen art to libertarianism to pink pussy hat marches.  It is the illusion of doing work via time- or cash-consuming performative nothingness.

If I were given the university reins of the Lynah experience, I would rip everything top-down out.  No piped in music.  No images on scoreboards.  No "content" of any kind.  Burn the field.  Force the students and the band to fill the space.  The band would dominate the space between whistles.  They are great however, as we know from their endless masturbatorial Jeopardy drone, the band only cares about the band.  That leaves the time during play, when the students need to shine.  That is when old cheers are lovingly recapitulated.  It's when the Darwinian combat to launch new cheers is fought.

If I could hammer two messages into the skulls of the Tracy Flicks who try to remake Lynah over as a familiar profit-generating mall, they would be: (1) Stop.  You're an idiot and you don't know what you are doing.  Go to business school and find your level.  (2) Less is more.  Take all the obstacles away from the little no-necked monsters in A and B.  Make them live or die by their own merits. 

The Lynah Expereince is the crowd.  Make that crowd rise to the challenge or sink into the comfort of their indolence.  The crowd is a second Cornell team playing that night in a game against their own laziness.  The creative people scattered through it will know what to do.  They always do.  The rest will follow along.  They always do.

It will be okay if you just leave them the fuck alone.

[upprdeck]

Some sports you have the X that come to every game and the Y who come on occasion.

Cornell has the 50-60% townie side who come all the time, The 20% students who show up half the time and then the rest is filler. Harvard everyone shows up.  BU if they play here.

Pro arenas are all over in how many STs they sell but they have so many more games that many people sell off 25-50% of the STs.  That means many people its that once a yr or once ever thing and people want to get wowed.

I dont think a better experience draws more casuals to a Cornell game.  Better score board work and music would make it more fun for those of us there all the time though

[BearLover]

It would be helpful to know, of the ~4,300 seats at Lynah:
How many are townies
How many are students
Of these townie/student subgroups, how many are season ticket holders

I'll add one thing to this convo, which is that the video quality on ESPN+ is really poor. The lighting and sight lines are so bad that no matter what size screen I use to watch, it's difficult to tell where the puck is. Often I track the puck by implication, i.e. I can figure out where the puck is because the skaters are moving in a direction, or they're battling in the corner, or the goalie just put his glove up and the whistle blew—but rarely can I actually make out the puck. When a player takes a shot, I usually have no idea where it ended up. All that is to say, the experience of catching a game at Lynah is so much superior to watching on ESPN+ that I have a hard time believing the existence of streaming has any material effect on attendance. (Plus the fact that the only people streaming are the crazy fans who wouldn't miss a game if they're in town.)

[pjd8]

If I were given the university reins of the Lynah experience, I would rip everything top-down out.  No piped in music.  No images on scoreboards.  No "content" of any kind.  Burn the field.  Force the students and the band to fill the space.  The band would dominate the space between whistles.  They are great however, as we know from their endless masturbatorial Jeopardy drone, the band only cares about the band.  That leaves the time during play, when the students need to shine.  That is when old cheers are lovingly recapitulated.  It's when the Darwinian combat to launch new cheers is fought.

Yes, we as a society are terrified of "being bored". Yet that is where the greatest creativity comes from.

The band does care mostly about the band. I think there's room to sync better with the crowd, but given that the conductor position has the potential to turn over every semester, it's unlikely that better synergy will ever develop.

And it can be worse for a band that has a staff director. It can lend stability and opportunity for a longer learning curve, but there's often little room for spontaneity that comes from student energy, and that's where the magic is.

Crowds respond better to live bands. Universities know this. Some colleges give band members stipends. Cornell loves having the marching band/pep band play at non-sporting events. Why schools then won't get out of the band's way is beyond me.

[Trotsky]

Our band is great at what they do.  You gotta set the tone and coming into the building with the band playing is thrilling.  Davey after a goal is joyous.  The Dragnet theme for an opp penalty is essentially another crowd cheer.

I love the band, but they are an igniter.  The real fuel is the crowd itself.  That is where the fire either starts or doesn't.  We've all been to enough games that we can feel the difference, and generations of players have said they can too.  When that fire is truly burning, it helps the team.  When the team is playing well it builds the fire.  It is a wonderful symbiosis.

There is a reason every opponent loves to come into Lynah, and why generations of star opposing athletes have said they felt most spectacular when competing against the Lynah crowd because to be the best you have to beat the best.

Coming into the building only a few times a decade, now, it still always feels like going to my church with my congregation.  Lynah is sacred and hellfire consume anyone who harms it either through deliberate action or ineptitude.

[stereax]

It would be helpful to know, of the ~4,300 seats at Lynah:
How many are townies
How many are students
Of these townie/student subgroups, how many are season ticket holders

Pretty sure A through E are student only sections, and sell student only season tickets at the beginning of the year. I believe ABC are assigned seats, DEF are general admission?

I know students who like to catch games from O (seriously?), I know of many others who buy tickets in FGHJ and just clamber over to C.

As per the bigredtix site, B and C are entirely sold out. I truly doubt that's the case for C, or, if so, a bunch of STMs are not showing up. Either is likely tbh.

So my guess is probably like...
2500 townies
1800 students
Probably like 800 student STM? Mostly in B and some spots in A and C. Idk if anyone is buying season tickets for E.
Townies probably more around 1500 or so. Feels like there are a LOT of townie STMs.

[Trotsky]

Yes, we as a society are terrified of "being bored". Yet that is where the greatest creativity comes from.

Harvard sucks and Business School is Clown College, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQKfIXMiA8

[pjd8]

Yes, we as a society are terrified of "being bored". Yet that is where the greatest creativity comes from.

Harvard sucks and Business School is Clown College, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQKfIXMiA8

The exact video I was thinking of, though it was a lesson life had already taught me.

[ursusminor]

It would be helpful to know, of the ~4,300 seats at Lynah:
How many are townies
How many are students
Of these townie/student subgroups, how many are season ticket holders

Pretty sure A through E are student only sections, and sell student only season tickets at the beginning of the year. I believe ABC are assigned seats, DEF are general admission?

I know students who like to catch games from O (seriously?), I know of many others who buy tickets in FGHJ and just clamber over to C.

As per the bigredtix site, B and C are entirely sold out. I truly doubt that's the case for C, or, if so, a bunch of STMs are not showing up. Either is likely tbh.

So my guess is probably like...
2500 townies
1800 students
Probably like 800 student STM? Mostly in B and some spots in A and C. Idk if anyone is buying season tickets for E.
Townies probably more around 1500 or so. Feels like there are a LOT of townie STMs.

I am surprised that over 40 % of the Cornell attendance is townies as this does not appear to me to be reflected in the postings here at eLynah. RPI threads on USCHO have a much larger percentage of townie posts, not that I know how it compares with the HFH attendance percentage.