Golden 1 Center held its first official event last night with a Paul McCartney concert, and NBA Kings execs and Sacramento city officials were "pleased with the pre-concert traffic and logistics," according to a front-page piece by Kasler & Bizjak of the SACRAMENTO BEE. It "appeared thousands of fans came downtown early to find a place to park." Golden 1 Center GM Juan Rodriguez said that things were "going well" as fans streamed in the gates through the electronic “smart turnstiles.” About an hour before the show, there was a "several-block traffic jam," but city officials "pronounced themselves pleased with how the evening was progressing." Fans said that the experience inside the arena was "worlds apart" from the Kings' prior home, Sleep Train Arena (
SACRAMENTO BEE, 10/5).
MAYBE I'M AMAZED: Kings Managing Partner Vivek Ranadive earlier this week called Golden 1 Center the "world’s best arena." Ranadive: "It’s an iconic structure, it’s 100% sustainable energy powered, it has a level of technology that is unprecedented and provides for a great fan experience." He said, "We’ve flipped the whole paradigm of what it means to be an arena on its head. Everybody lives on their phone, and that now becomes your remote. When you walk into the arena -- or even before you walk in -- you can access all of the assets and services of the Sacramento Kings by just using your remote control." Ranadive said the team has "individualized the climate" of each seat in the arena. He said, "This is the only time it’s ever been done in this country and it’s an amazing new system that we’ve put in place. On your remote control, you can say you want it cooler or warmer, and the temperature will get adjusted. We did all of this while also setting a high bar for sustainable energy" (
USATODAY.com, 10/3). CSNBayArea.com's Andy Dolich said regardless of the "technological advances" in the arena, Kings officials "better make sure that you have a heart and soul in that building, and you can’t build that right away." If the Kings "fail on the court this year" the novelty of the arena "wears off very, very quickly." Dolich: "One thing about new buildings: They’re advanced until they day after they open, and then they’re not quite as advanced” (
“Sports Talk Live,” CSN Bay Area, 10/4).
COMING UP: GEEKWIRE.com's Alan Sheckter noted the arena "includes plenty of high-tech talking points." Perhaps the "most obvious are the six-story tall, 150-feet wide hangar doors that fulfill the Kings’ intention to create the first indoor-outdoor arena." The doors take advantage of the "cooling, ocean-fed Delta Breeze that prevails here in the evenings." With the so called “Grand Entrance Doors” opened, an event could "accommodate 15,000 seated in the bowl, with another 5,000 in the plaza with the doors open, watching on large screens and hearing the same music that the people inside are hearing, similar to an amphitheater experience." Kings games will have the "capacity to be played with these doors open; the team just needs to guarantee on-the-court temperature, humidity, and wind are within the range of NBA standards" (GEEKWIRE.com, 9/30).
