Oilers fans "may have to pony up even more dough to attend future games at the new Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton," according to surveys cited by Trevor Robb of the EDMONTON SUN. The Oilers Seating Options surveys that were sent to season-ticket holders last Friday "describe some of the swanky suites that may be available" inside the $480M (all figures C), 819,200-square-foot, downtown arena for the '16-17 season. Such amenities "include a trendy two-level premium sky lounge and nightclub located high above the end of the ice surface which features two-service bars and 'extra-roomy' 22 cushioned seats." Following the game, the sky lounge "will remain open and morph into a private-post-game nightclub." In the surveys, fans "are asked to think about the amenities and benefits of each seating option and then rate the prices and rank them from least expensive, inexpensive, expensive, and very expensive." In one survey, season tickets to the sky lounge are listed at $9,500 per seat. One of the surveys lists season-ticket prices for the 25 suite-level, "private Theatre Box seats" at $18,000 per seat. Prices for upper-level, nose-bleed seats "appear to have surged the highest." One Oilers season ticket holder wrote that in some areas of the survey he received, upper-level gallery seats, which priced at Rexall Place go for $1,372.05, "are priced as high" as $3,000 between the face-off circles (EDMONTON SUN, 2/9).
DRILL, BABY, DRILL! In Edmonton, John MacKinnon reported Bannister Research, a marketing firm engaged by the Oilers, "distributed a number of different versions (they wouldn’t say how many) of the survey to the 6,000 people who currently hold about 14,000 season tickets, as well as its waiting list of about 2,000 more names." Oilers President & CEO Pat LaForge: "In the last three years, we have really been specific in doing research with our customers, on the registry, on Rogers Place, getting their ideas, getting their interests in focus groups and in hardcore numeric research. You don’t build a building and not know who’s going to sit in it." MacKinnon noted the surveys "are one step in a process that has included focus groups, town hall meetings and face-to-face interviews, all to gather information about what seat options and amenities spectators want in the new building." The ticket-price proposals -- the club "stresses nothing has been firmly set just yet -- which were culled from a number of surveys, suggest prices will increase, perhaps dramatically." But some surveys "showed prices that were about the same as or lower" (EDMONTON JOURNAL, 2/10).
