BLueFirm

Evening all. Cheers to all who have posted here so far. Managed to get down to the consultation / exhibition yesterday. Overall it seems to be coming together nicely and is a fairly impressive proposal in my opinion. I will endeavour to summarise a few points from my discussions and hope not to repeat what has already been said as best possible. Architecturally, I have faith in what I've seen that the stadium will be both iconic and cater appropriately for the club's needs. I think there's good clarity in the way the design has been formulated and they have done well to maximise the proposal within the constraints of the site. Personally I like the monumental scale and style. The proposal seems reminiscent of Grundtvigs Church in Denmark (see below) - extensive use of brickwork, buttressing, verticality, monumental scale, etc. I'm confident that Herzog & de Mueron will deliver an outstanding building. I was told that the facing side of the brick piers (as seen in the proposed visualisation image with the old shed wall on the right) will have bricks that have been cut in half, in order to provide a varying texture. Most of my questions were geared around the allocation of tickets and atmosphere. I had heard differing views on where the tickets will be going, with some suggesting there would be as little as 750 extra season tickets. I was told that the additional 18000 seats will be around a 50-50 split between corporate/hospitality and general admission. 10% of the current stadium is set aside for corporate/hospitality and the rebuild will have 25% of the total seating as corporate/hospitality. The bloke I spoke to was very open about the fact that this is a conscious effort and the additional corporate seats will triple our matchday hospitality income. Indicative of the times I guess. There will be a new 'bronze' club level bracket of ticket but this will also be part of of the hospitality allocation. The corporate/hospitality seating will be located in the middle tier within the West and East (as it is now). Much of the club level seating will be located within the West (and East?) upper tier, focused around the halfway line as these are seen as the most 'desirable' seats. I have seen people commenting on the irregular vomitories emerging on the upper tier. The upper tier will be reachable from two separate floors, hence the difference in height. I was told that great consideration had gone into this and that the different floors and vomitories (coupled with barriers and stewards) would mean that the West and East upper tiers could be a mix of club level tickets and general admission. Not 100% on how that will work logistically but that was the information I got. The middle tier in the North and South stands will be general admission. All the tiers have been designed to have the optimum pitch for spectators view. I was told that the pitch of the tiers had actually been increased a few degrees above what is allowed resulting in steeper stands and a more enclosed stadium. The distance from the back row of seats in the upper tier to the pitch conforms comfortably with guidelines apparently, again highlighting that the stadium should feel fairly intimate and more enclosed than other similarly sized stadia. All seats everywhere in the ground will have a sightline to the back row of the upper tier opposite them. This will resolve the issue of any restricted views (e.g. the current MHL from about row DD backwards). The North and South lower tiers will have provision for safe standing should it be brought in. The enclosed design and 'acoustically treated' roof panels will both have a substantial impact on augmenting the acoustics of the stadium compared to the current arrangement. I did ask about demographic and what plans the club had to actively encourage a good atmosphere, but the bloke I spoke with got quite shirty and essentially said "well people should sing more, they don't now". A bit of a cop out in my book. Hopefully we will see the club be more proactive in time. There are no plans for a singing section as I understand. I was told there would be around 5000 additional season tickets made available. This is very different to what I've heard from some sources, and the bloke did seem a bit unsure I must say. I would hope it is around that figure. There will be around double the amount of tickets for young people, and the club are actively looking to encourage a younger demographic (with the average age of a season ticket holder at around 50). Whether this is true who knows, I'll believe it when I see it. The general impression I got from discussions with various members of staff was that the scheme is still at a reasonably basic level of refinement, and actually changed a lot off the back of the first consultation and only recently did it all begin to fall into place. It seems there has been a lot of back and forth between all involved parties (architects, structural engineers, planners, etc.) to ensure that a 60000 seater stadium was logistically possible on the site, and this has only been realised in the last few months (so it seems). The scale model of the proposal was put together very last minute for the exhibition, and it seems that there are a lot of issues still to be resolved. I think this should explain the lack of refinement in areas (particularly the interior of the stadium) and we will see a much better final result. I include a link to a folder of images I have put together of the exhibition, both my own and also images of come across from various other sources. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rgk826m4gsvrgwa/AAATEffxTX9rntDy6t5fNoKya?dl=0