(My Original Blog Post: http://retailanarchy.com/?p=185)
There are few things I can say about the design flaws and marketing gimmicks that have not been expressed already on a great website called “The Mets Police“, but I would like to share my experience at the park from my point of view.
There is rampant over-employment, and I’m not just talking about the woman whose job was to stand at a curb and scream “Careful, look out for the curb!” over and over again all night, or the fact that the concessions suffer the same plight as Yankee Stadium. I think the excess was clear when I witnessed practically every condiment stand manned by a person. When the ketchup dispenser was empty they just pumped it really fast, allowing it to splatter all over my jacket. I know many people fear that technology may render their career obsolete, but I actually saw at least a dozen people last night whose jobs were in danger of being replaced by ketchup packets.
More or less the one thing that confused me on this sign was the business center. I thought I was in a hotel for a minute. Auditorium and a business center, what’s my room number again? Do they have a free continental breakfast? Note this stairwell is only one of two places which features the Mets colors of orange and blue, the other is the mens room.
As you can see, there was a big demand for parking. Cars are $18, but I’ve seen pre-paid parking passes on eBay for $10. This is the problem with selling everything pre-paid, just like the tickets themselves the secondary market demonstrates the true market value is well below the asking price. My ticket had a face value of $23, I paid $12. This is what Chuck Schumer’s BS law is really about. The primary ticket sellers are trying to manipulate the secondary market price, not because of “fairness” to fans, but because they don’t want to compete with trying to sell unsold tickets at face value against already sold tickets at half-price. Using Bruce Springsteen to illustrate the point is moronic grandstanding, this photo of a parking lot is symbolic of that reality. That he is from New York is no surprise, two years from now this place is going to be a ghost town. They need to lay down the foundations now. The proposed law says only season ticket holders may resell without FTC approval, therefore if you want to speculate you would have to buy worthless strips.
Behind the giant sign is the much discussed Queens outposts of NYC’s “Shake Shack” and “Blue Smoke”. The lines for both are incredibly long, the entire line is watching the game on the back of that screen. Underneath the Fox News ad you can see a “[We Buy Gold]” advertisement. Note they do not buy Mets tickets, just gold. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that per ounce, Mets tickets are actually more expensive.
It just feels like a theme park in here. I don’t know what the theme is exactly, it’s sort of half New York, New York Hotel & Casino and half Disney’s All-Star Sports. In the lower level I saw almost forty people waiting on line to spend over $3 on a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. In my section it seemed almost no one was actually watching the game, they were just talking to each other and eating.
I will give them credit for at least trying to put some effort into the design. There were some aspects of the architecture which I felt were very creative and the subtle use of color was indicative of minor league ballparks which was subliminally comforting. Clearly it is a serious improvement over Shea Stadium which was barely functional by the end of its use.
Why then did they award concessions to ARAMARK? I mean it’s just such a cheap and easy cop-out. Why do the same handful of companies get these same rights over and over again? I think this is where part of the problem is. For example the two main themes in concessions after Hot Dogs are Italian and Seafood.
Citi Field is located directly between Main Street, a Chinese neighborhood and Jackson Heights, an Indian neighborhood. There is no prominent Italian neighborhood on Roosevelt Avenue. Why then do we have these screwed up interpretations of Italian sandwiches (many of which start with the word “Mama’s”) throughout the park? For that matter it looked like the Italian food you get in Disney World (and I don’t mean at the Alfredo’s in EPCOT).
The game? Oh I have no idea. I was too busy eating and talking s–t.
