I like the idea of focusing the lighting on the court and killing the lighting on the rest of the bowl - obviously one of the cooler aspects of the Garden and the Staples Center.
Build a big, glass annex on the west end of the building. Adorn it with a grand entrance like the old arch/stairs at Archbold and fill it with: preferred parking/bus parking, upgraded kitchen facilities, modern locker rooms, modern press facilities, and expanded fan amenities on each concourse level (with sweet views into the entrance hall and through the curtain wall into the valley and downtown).
Also, maybe build an annex onto the north side of the building for some proper football coaching boxes. The current ones are bush-league, and a waste of a couple dozen good seats on the south side of the field.
I second the annex on the west side of the Dome. There is a lot of congestion in the hallways of the Dome. It is uncomfortable to walk around, there isn't adequate space for customers buying things from the concession stands, and there is no room to just stand around, talk with friends, walk a bored child, stretch your legs, etc. You really notice it when you visit other venues, where the aisles are twice as wide and there are large open areas every so often.
Glad that we are finally getting ribbon scoreboards. Hope that the staff chooses to use them for things fans care about:
For basketball, there should be real time breakdowns for each team of 2 FG, 3 FG, FT shooting, rebounds broken out by offensive and defensive rebounds, we should see assists, turnovers, steals, all that stuff should be available for review at any time.
For football, we should be able to see rushes, rushing yards,rushing TDs, rushing YPG, passes attempted, passes completed, yards passing, passing TDs, interceptions, first downs, total yards, penalties, penalty yards, leading rushers, leading receivers, sacks, etc. For both teams. Available at all times.
And we should be able to see all out of town scores. In legible typeset. Updated in near real time.
Handled properly, ribbon scoreboards can be a real boon to the fan experience. I worry they are going to abuse this horribly like they have the use of PA, and we are going to be assaulted by blicking garish glow in the dark colored advertisements all the time. Hope that they also maintain them, unlike what they did with the auxiliary scoreboards at the Dome, which feature so many washed out or no functioning bulbs that they are almost useless.
Hope the new replay scoreboards are of decent quality and a decent size. The original ones were really bad. Hope someone competent is hired to supervise content on them as well. They did a poor job with the original ones. Showing out of town scores in tiny font almost no one could read was not a good move.
