The Virginia football team opens its season Saturday night in Pittsburgh, but the season-opener is one week from tonight against William & Mary. Before the Hoos return to Scott Stadium, UVA Athletics announced some enhancements to the game day experience.
Read the full news release here, but here are some of the changes:
- The price of bottled water for sale at concession stands has been reduced to $3. Two additional hydration stations will be available to provide complimentary water in sustainable cups. One hydration station is located inside the northwest gate on the outer concourse of the stadium near section 128. The other hydration station is located on the northeast side of the stadium on the outer concourse near section 104.
- Beverage gardens will be located inside Scott Stadium’s east and west gates and will serve beer, wine, and hard cider to fans of legal drinking age. The beverage gardens will open 90 minutes before kickoff and will be open to the public. Beer, wine, hard cider, water, and light snacks will be available for purchase. Guests 21 and older will be given a bracelet following an ID check. The bracelet will enable each guest to purchase two drinks at one time and up to four drinks during the game. All alcohol must be consumed inside each beverage garden and sales will end at the conclusion of the third quarter.
- A point-of-sale system has been installed at concessions stands that is designed to improve the transaction time for each order.
- Live bands will be playing on the patio outside the Aquatic and Fitness Center starting one hour, 45 minutes before kickoff.
- Pedestal scanners will be added at each gate. The pedestal scanners reduce the amount of time it takes to scan tickets at the gate and will help expedite entry into Scott Stadium.
- Scott Stadium will feature a new sound system for the 2019 system. The sound system will improve the clarity of the music, PA announcements and videos played on Hoo Vision and will more evenly distribute the sound across all seating sections.
- The Ting WiFi network has been optimized. WiFi will continue to be available for free to all fans during the season. Fans will be prompted to complete a one-time sign-in page upon registering to the network. Once a user has signed in, their mobile device will automatically be connected to the network at both Scott Stadium and John Paul Jones Arena. Fans will not be asked to complete the sign-in page again unless they are attempting to do so with a separate mobile device.
- The game day script has been revised to enable more music from the Cavalier Marching Band and DJ Ron Manila to be played in-game. DJ Ron Manila will move into the student section as well.
- A countdown clock will be located next to the red hat timeout coordinator on the field during each media timeout. The clock will display the time remaining in the timeout.
Again, those are just some of the changes. Read the full release for more changes made the game day experience.
Just a few weeks ago in this article series, the intro section featured this very topic after a post prompted some discussion on the football message board. Those threads listed some complaints and suggestions. Undoubtedly, some of those same thoughts were shared in an end-of-season survey sent out by the department requesting feedback on the game day experience as well.
The enhancements had a lot of fans excited Thursday on the message boards. So let’s get on with Fan Friday! As a reminder, if you’re featured in this series as a poster of fan selection, you win a free month on the Sabre EDGE – just shoot us an email.
Thread Of The Week
The threads of the week highlight some fan thoughts on the game day changes. Click here and here for the whole threads and read some select posts below.
Fan(s) Of The Week
Mr. Jefferson and his fellow Hoos love the Cavaliers!
Student Fan(s) Of The Week
Students are looking forward to good times in Scott Stadium again soon.
Feature Photo Of The Week
Heskin Smith is on the depth chart at cornerback and should see some action in 2019.
Post Of The Week
The featured post this week comes from the Corner message board where jackethoo shared the photo and caption below. If you’re a frequent visitor of that board, you’ll appreciate the humor!
Question Of The Week
The question this week comes from SamzHoo on the men’s basketball message board: “What do y’all think Jay Huff’s ceiling is realistically this year? PPG/RPG/Minutes?” SamzHoo wrote in the post that 13 points per game seemed possible. Read the whole thread here for other answers. What about you? What do you think Huff’s ceiling might be?
And while we’re on the topic of Jay Huff, here’s a fun video UVA released with him asking students about their first day of classes.
