Time It Takes To Go Through Stadium Security

[DianefromNJ]

Last year I couldn't seem to leave enough time to go through security and take my seat by the time the game started. For big games, getting 100,000 people through security took forever. Does anyone know if the same scanning/security process is being used this year? I hate to leave my tailgate sooner, but I may have to.

 

[Raffycorn]

Last year I couldn't seem to leave enough time to go through security and take my seat by the time the game started. For big games, getting 100,000 people through security took forever. Does anyone know if the same scanning/security process is being used this year? I hate to leave my tailgate sooner, but I may have to.

They are using a different company this season - obviously, no idea on whether they'll be any more effective than the guys from last season. I didn't experience any major issues at the Blue-White game (which had the new company doing security) but that's obviously a different animal than the regular season.

My advice would be to stick with the same timing that you used last year to start the season. You'll know by the Pitt game whether you can readjust.

 

[BOSCO2]

Last year I couldn't seem to leave enough time to go through security and take my seat by the time the game started. For big games, getting 100,000 people through security took forever. Does anyone know if the same scanning/security process is being used this year? I hate to leave my tailgate sooner, but I may have to.

Leave your tailgate sooner. You failed to tell us 2 things. Are you a student? What time do you normally arrive at Beaver Stadium?

 

[Limestone_Lion]

Last year at the whiteout game it took me 5 minutes to get through security. I left my tailgate 2 hours before kick. Got to the gate in roughly 10 minutes. It's not that difficult

 

[psuro]

You mean you are not in line yet?

 

[rohrmd9]

Last year at the whiteout game it took me 5 minutes to get through security. I left my tailgate 2 hours before kick. Got to the gate in roughly 10 minutes. It's not that difficult

Well yea, if you're going to go into the stadium almost 2 hours before game time then security isn't going to be an issue.

 

[psu1969a]

Last year I couldn't seem to leave enough time to go through security and take my seat by the time the game started. For big games, getting 100,000 people through security took forever. Does anyone know if the same scanning/security process is being used this year? I hate to leave my tailgate sooner, but I may have to.

O
Depends on gate, some wands are off.

 

[lockhavenlion3]

Last year at the whiteout game it took me 5 minutes to get through security. I left my tailgate 2 hours before kick. Got to the gate in roughly 10 minutes. It's not that difficult

we tg close to the stadium. i rarely leave more than 20 minutes till game time, and haven't missed a ko once.

 

[Limestone_Lion]

Well yea, if you're going to go into the stadium almost 2 hours before game time then security isn't going to be an issue.

Exactly. There are ways to avoid the lines, but it seems that most just want to magically appear in their seats just before kick off

 

[PS4814]

I'm a fan of being in my seats during warmups as I enjoy the blue band pregame performance. Due to seats in the north upper deck and time from tailgate we usually head for the stadium an hour before kickoff and are in the seats with time to spare. Never any issues waiting in lines at D gate.

There have been some times where due to friends dragging ass we leave from the tailgate later, anything less than 30 minutes before kickoff and we're not making it.

 

[rudedude]

Well, from reading the thread about tickets, and the potential for changes in parking levels (tailgating/nontailgating associated with price levels), perhaps the next thing will be something like pre-clearance at the airport. Pay more and walk in easier!
The same thing happens at concerts. People come in late and are always excusing themselves to get in to their seats while the band is playing. Get there a little earlier and there is no problem, especially with a big, crowded game. If you want to tailgate longer, get to the lot earlier!

 

[pandaczar12]

This is why I became a Pitt fan. With only 1/5 the attendance of a PSU home game, I never have to wait in line. On the rare occasion that PSU comes to town and sells out our rented stadium, I can get there a little early.

 

[hagberg]

I find it odd that people will acknowledge the fact of nearly 100,000 people trying to get into the stadium, but will become indignant at the suggestion to get to the gates earlier. I picture them as the road ragers who time their daily commute to coincide with the height of the rush hour.

 

[DianefromNJ]

I am not a student. I just wanted to get input as to whether the same process is in place as last year, in which I adjust accordingly, or some new process is in place. Hearing that a different security firm is being used will hopefully help.

 

[PSU_l]

This is why I became a Pitt fan. With only 1/5 the attendance of a PSU home game, I never have to wait in line. On the rare occasion that PSU comes to town and sells out our rented stadium, I can get there a little early.

And all those "mythical" NCs - don't forget about those!

 

[PS4814]

I am not a student. I just wanted to get input as to whether the same process is in place as last year, in which I adjust accordingly, or some new process is in place. Hearing that a different security firm is being used will hopefully help.

I just don't understand why you're blaming the security staff for not getting to your seats on time. Even if they change to a different firm things are not likely to be that much different. The time it takes to wand someone down / search a bag is pretty much standard less you get a real granny or something. You could have the best people at the gates but with tens of thousands of people coming in at crunch time, no matter how good they are, there will be lines.

To add on - one thing that could possibly help this would be, as some have suggested, to have a secure perimeter around the stadium so people could get cleared farther out and then once inside there are food / fun options before going through the gate itself.

 

[pandaczar12]

And all those "mythical" NCs - don't forget about those!

It is pretty awesome that Pitt has so many national championships that were won before I was born. Many schools will never experience greatness, we (Pitt fans) can at least read about a time when schools were arbitrarily awarded national championships retroactively.

 

[DianefromNJ]

I just don't understand why you're blaming the security staff for not getting to your seats on time. Even if they change to a different firm things are not likely to be that much different. The time it takes to wand someone down / search a bag is pretty much standard less you get a real granny or something. You could have the best people at the gates but with tens of thousands of people coming in at crunch time, no matter how good they are, there will be lines.

To add on - one thing that could possibly help this would be, as some have suggested, to have a secure perimeter around the stadium so people could get cleared farther out and then once inside there are food / fun options before going through the gate itself.

 

[DianefromNJ]

Notice that I was questioning the security process, not just the scanner. Last year I approached a gate, and it was like 12 lanes of cars trying to get into a single lane of the Lincoln Tunnel. Except you couldn't tell the Lane you were in. Similar to an airport, crowd control ropes to handle the heavy flow of traffic might have been helpful.

 

[pandaczar12]

If only there was a way to get to gate sooner, when the lines are shorter, and one has more time until kickoff. Maybe PSU can hire a new associate AD to figure this out.

 

[PS4814]

In answer to Diane's question: I would not expect anything significantly different from your experiences over the last two seasons, with regard to stadium entry.

I saw this post from Diane earlier, and decided not to comment, but some of the responses were such a stunning example of the ability to ignore common sense, that I felt a brief comment was appropriate.
The issues with Beaver Stadium entry are simple, and abundantly clear with just a simple analysis.

Says simple analysis and goes on ~10 paragraph diatribe.

It's your last paragraph that shows your true colors though, you take no personal responsibility for the problems in your life eh? It's the cops fault you got busted for speeding, it's the teacher's fault you failed that class, it's santa's fault that you didn't get what you want for xmas, you're just a victim of circumstance.
Fact of the matter is that if a fan says they "just can't leave early enough" from their tailgate to get to their seats in time that's on them - not anyone at or from Penn State. Tailgate lots open early and don't close until the next day, so if so much time and money was invested in getting together I'd recommend coming earlier and staying later to make up for those darned 15 minutes you can't sacrifice to get to the gate on time.

Maybe when the PA taxpayers, or PSU alums pony up $1.6 Billion to build a stadium on par with the one in Atlanta then a fair apples to apples comparison can be made with a stadium that was built in 1960 and added onto for a half century.

 

[rudedude]

In answer to Diane's question: I would not expect anything significantly different from your experiences over the last two seasons, with regard to stadium entry.

I saw this post from Diane earlier, and decided not to comment, but some of the responses were such a stunning example of the ability to ignore common sense, that I felt a brief comment was appropriate.
The issues with Beaver Stadium entry are simple, and abundantly clear with just a simple analysis. The extraordinarily long delays in gate entry are due to simply having insufficient gate personal and insufficient gate entry points.
Penn State fans should NEVER have to go through a process to get into the stadium that takes more than 10-15 minutes. And they wouldn’t, if Penn State ICA was simply committed to opening and staffing the maximum number of available entry gates.
Comments like “Fans should just go to the gates an hour or two before game time” sounds like the type of oblivious and pretentious thinking I hear coming from the PSU ICA Administration, which kind of makes one wonder who is making those posts. The kind of PSU ICA thinking that has resulted in nothing being done to deal with the Stadium entry issues, aside from last year’s humorous effort to offer discounted concession snacks for fans who entered 1-2 hours ahead of kickoff.

Looking at the facts:
Beaver Stadium has 4 general admission gates, Gates B C D and E. This does not include the Student entry point (Gate A) or the ADA entry gate (on the West side of the Stadium), or Gate F, or the special Club Suite, Letterman, Recruiting entries etc. Approximately 75,000 fans enter those 4 general admission gates when there is a full house at Beaver Stadium. The total linear feet of openings at the four primary general admission gates is 360 feet (110 feet for Gates B and E, 90 feet for Gate C, and 50 feet for Gate B). This is equivalent to 140 separate entry gates (at 31 inches per gate).
Room for 140 +/- staffed entry gates, without any changes to the stadium configuration and without created/building any additional entry portals, and yet the typical number of staffed gates for games in 2015 and 2016 was under 70.
If every gate were made available and staffed with entry personnel, it would require that 535 fans pass through each gate, approximately 75,000 fans passing through the 140 GA gates. At a relatively slow rate of passage through entry gates, in a ridiculously worst-case scenario, it would take 25-30 minutes of total time for every fan to pass through the gates - under the Extreme and Unreasonable Assumption that every single fan appears at the entry gates at the exact same moment, and even in that case the 25-30 minutes is the length of time that the very last fan in the line has to wait. Obviously, that is a ridiculous worst-case assumption.
This is just simple math, and yet it has been common – even in real experience, not absurdly worst-case scenarios – for fans to sometimes be in 45-60 minutes of chaos when trying to enter the Stadium. Why is that?

Just as a comparable, the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, which holds approximately 75,000 fans, claims to be able to get every fan through the gates in 5 minutes. Personally, I doubt that they could actually do that in a worst case scenario, but I do expect they could reasonably get in done in under 10 minutes.

http://mercedesbenzstadium.com/fan-experience/

So why DOES it take so long to get into Beaver Stadium?
The answers are simple, and by far the single greatest reason is that Penn State ICA has never had anywhere near the maximum number of entry gates open and staffed. Over the last two years, the typical number of staffed entry gates has been LESS than 70 (out of a maximum of 140 that could be fit into the existing gate portals). There are several reasons for this – including inefficient use of space in the portals, and simply having inadequate staffing levels to man each available gate. This is by far the largest problem, and “solving” this problem – and doing nothing else – would tremendously alleviate the entry issues. And yet, for two years the problem has not been addressed. I won’t get off into the tangents as to why that is the case.
While the lack of an adequate numbers of staffed gates is the most significant problem, there are other issues which have impact as well. There are numerous other issues, I'll just go over one of them - the refusal to utilize walk-through scanners in the pre-entry process (Magnetometers for those more technically comfortable) and the reliance on slower, manual hand-scanners (“wands’). As you can see in the link from the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, walk-through scanners are not only more effective and reliable, but also allow fans to pass through nearly twice as fast as wand-waving. The costs to acquire walk-through Magnetometers for a full allocation of gates would be around $300,000 (all-weather equipped scanners cost about $2,500 per unit). This one time cost would be offset by operating savings of about $350 per gate per football season - vs the costs of contracting “wand-waver” personnel (assuming the units could only be used for Penn State Football games).So the break-even time from a cost standpoint is about 8 seasons. For those folks unfamiliar to typical investment analysis, the 8 years to cost break-even isn’t a great number – but it is not a horrible one either, and the increased ease and reduced delays for the fans, along with a much higher degree of security (untrained wand-wavers are significantly less reliable from a safety and consistency standpoint) would, it would seem, make the expenditure a “no-brainer”. The gross cost is probably about on par with what the Penn State ICA wasted trying to triage their ticket-mailing fiasco, and about ½ of the increased revenue PSU ICA realized – from a single football game - from the recent increases in Parking income.
There are also issues – some of which date back to the 1990s renovation – with regard to entry gate layout. All of them are easily fixable, at relatively minor costs, if anyone felt the need to address the problems. But this post is getting longer than I had planned, so I will just mention one that illustrates the dumbfounding design issues. The 1990s renovation was primarily to add a second deck to the North End of the Stadium, effectively doubling the number of fans with seats on that end. In addition to the renovation reducing the number of entry points, it reduced the size of the Gate on the North End – the end of the stadium that was getting all the additional seating – such that that gate, Gate D, was less than ½ the size of the gates on the East and West sides of the Stadium. The structure of the stadium would allow for easy expansion of the linear feet of entry portal on the North Side, but I am not aware of any serious consideration ever being given to this issue, or any of the other obvious issues. The thinking involved in these types of decisions just leaves you wondering.
There are also issues with the Student entry process, which is an entirely different animal, and I’ll abstain from commenting on those issues, since I don’t think anyone here is a student or would care about that situation.

The level of pretentiousness and privilege that are necessary to suggest that the onus for solving this problem falls on the Paying Customers. That it should be the customers responsibility to leave their friends and family - in many cases, people who they may only see a few times per year - and abandon the event (the tailgate or other get-together) they may have assembled at significant investment of time and money, in order to enter an empty stadium and sit in the elements on a metal bleacher, not for 10 or 15 minutes, but for an hour or two before the start of the event, simply because the people who's salaries they are supporting are unable to competently address the basic elements of their position (such as managing an entry process is a way that is not completely idiotic), is disconcerting.

Jackass award for one of the most pretentious posts ever! I bet you are one of them fellers who stays in the left lane on the highway not passing anyone too!

 

[DianefromNJ]

Msg from University Police:

Thank you for your inquiry. Penn State University has taken steps to facilitate a better experience this year for entry into the game. First, they have added a substantial number of additional lanes entering each gate in an attempt to cut down on the crowding at the gates. Also, they have tweaked their entry protocol. You can expect to be wanded first before entering your ticket lane, which will hopefully speed up the process.

I hope this information helps. Have a great day.

Chief Keith A. Morris
Penn State University Police

 

[Zenophile]

... Most just want to magically appear in their seats just before kick off

If this is a thing, I want in also.

 

[psuro]

If this is a thing, I want in also.

Beam me up, Scotty.

 

[Zenophile]

Beam me up, Scotty.

Cheers to that.

 

[rudedude]

So according to the article, the bulk of the crowds try to get into the stadium 1/2 or less before kickoff. Not really too smart of an idea with crowdsnin excess of 85,000.

 

[Limestone_Lion]

Beam me up, Scotty.

looks like your sig pic would accomplish that for you

 

[PennState1997]

No reason to miss an 8 pm kickoff if you arrive in State College at least 2-3 hours before gametime. 3:30 is pretty much the same. You can get to your tailgate a little before lunch or earlier. Noon game typically aren't as big anyway. I almost never have an issue getting to my seat. Put aside 10 minute walk or less to the gate and 15 minutes from gate through security to seat. 8 pm game I'm walking by 7:15 for sure. The one thing I'll complain about is ushers not doing anything to get people into the right seats quickly if they haven't been to Beaver Stadium before. They always seem to end up in the wrong row and cause a holdup.

 

[bwifan]

FYI... additional 31 lanes will be open for entry... Some good info on this link...

http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/082917aaa.html

 

[bwifan]

This is a very valid point.....

>>>>
Beaver Stadium average fan entry times in 2016 (Gates open two hours before kick):

30 minutes after gates open: 7.0% of total crowd inside stadium
60 minutes: 19.0% of total crowd
90 minutes (30 minutes before kickoff): 44.0% of total crowd
105 minutes (15 minutes before kickoff): 64.1% of total crowd
120 minutes (kickoff): 82.5% of total crowd


While some of delay is due to the lines as a result of the security measures, Beaver Stadium simply cannot accommodate more than 35 percent of the total audience trying to enter the facility in the last 15 minutes before kickoff. <<<<<

 

[LioninNC]

It's not the staff, it's the process they are choosing to use. Sadly it sounds like they have still not purchased any walk-through Magnetometers, which means each person that enters the stadium needs to be hand wanded. With the Magnetometers, 80% of the fans just walk through and only those that trigger the Magnetometers go through the much slower hand wand process. How about they cut one of the new Assistant AD positions and use the savings to pay for some Magnetometers to get people into the stadium in a reasonable time.

 

[rudedude]

LOL

Or maybe the Penn State ICA could implement the incredibly complex solution of actually opening up and staffing all of the entry gates?
The idea that people would tend to want to attend events at a time in relative proximity to the time the event commences. Is that a unique characteristic of Penn State Football fans?
Some dogs will bark up the wrong tree until they get hoarse. Of course, dogs have little choice, they are not capable of higher reasoning, or the ability to analyze basic logistical situations or perform the four primary components of mathematics.

But logic dictates if you know it's a FUBAR situation in the first place, then you can wish all you want for more lanes and staff. Until it actually happens consistently, I'll choose my own method. This is why science is empirical, it uses actual data not postulation.

 

[bwifan]

If all of the available gates were open and staffed, Beaver Stadium most certainly could accommodate those figures. There is no doubt about it, it is simple mathematics. The one (two) and only issue is not utilizing all of the gate space (and having poorly trained/untrained staff).

See how it all works out as with 31 additional lanes open if that helps this time around

 

[MilesBarkley]

Trying to get fans into the stadium earlier...

How about get the fans their season tickets earlier...

If my tickets come 3 days before the season opener next year, I want CJF hand delivering them to me on my doorstep with a case of beer in the other hand.

• Fans will receive up to a 20 percent concessions discount ($1 off a $5 purchase, $2 off a $10 purchase) during the first 45 minutes after the gates are open. Cash, credit card, and LionCash purchases are accepted at the concourse concession stands.
• Other college football games will be shown on the stadium videoboards starting two hours before kickoff until approximately 70 minutes before the game. For noon games, highlights of previous Penn State games will be shown on the videoboards.
• Penn State championship trophies will be on display on the Pepsi Fan Zone (above Gate A) when the stadium gates open until 30 minutes before kickoff. Fans are then encouraged to find their seats in time for kickoff.
• Fans can meet members of the Penn State Dance and Cheer team in the Pepsi Fan Zone during the first hour after the stadium gates open.

http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/c-lionclub/spec-rel/082917aaa.html

 

[kgilbert78]

Personally, as I want to watch the band, I always headed toward the stadium about an hour before kickoff.

But points about poor training are well taken. Parking and traffic fall under the same issue. Two stand out to me--the first being missing most of the first half of the first Michigan game. We were in line on 322 heading toward Park 2-3 hours before the game. Didn't move *at all*. And the radio kept telling us to wait and we'd get in. Finally they parked us at the Nittany Lion Inn *after* kickoff and we walked as fast as we could toward the stadium.

The second was a few years ago--early in the season. We came in off Fox Hollow, as we found that better to get in and out--most days. Not only weren't we allowed to park in the lots back there, partly because they hadn't opened them all, they took us all the way down Fox Hollow--making us *cross* Park and then stuck us somewhere behind the Jordan Center. Then we got sent up a hill into a section that was already full. There was an older guy handling the parking there, and we finally found a spot--he just should his head as he'd been trying to tell the students sending cars this way that they were full and no one would listen.

I guess you get what you pay for in terms of employees.

 

[#1PSU]

In answer to Diane's question: I would not expect anything significantly different from your experiences over the last two seasons, with regard to stadium entry.

I saw this post from Diane earlier, and decided not to comment, but some of the responses were such a stunning example of the ability to ignore common sense, that I felt a brief comment was appropriate.
The issues with Beaver Stadium entry are simple, and abundantly clear with just a simple analysis. The extraordinarily long delays in gate entry are due to simply having insufficient gate personal and insufficient gate entry points.
Penn State fans should NEVER have to go through a process to get into the stadium that takes more than 10-15 minutes. And they wouldn’t, if Penn State ICA was simply committed to opening and staffing the maximum number of available entry gates.
Comments like “Fans should just go to the gates an hour or two before game time” sounds like the type of oblivious and pretentious thinking I hear coming from the PSU ICA Administration, which kind of makes one wonder who is making those posts. The kind of PSU ICA thinking that has resulted in nothing being done to deal with the Stadium entry issues, aside from last year’s humorous effort to offer discounted concession snacks for fans who entered 1-2 hours ahead of kickoff.

Looking at the facts:
Beaver Stadium has 4 general admission gates, Gates B C D and E. This does not include the Student entry point (Gate A) or the ADA entry gate (on the West side of the Stadium), or Gate F, or the special Club Suite, Letterman, Recruiting entries etc. Approximately 75,000 fans enter those 4 general admission gates when there is a full house at Beaver Stadium. The total linear feet of openings at the four primary general admission gates is 360 feet (110 feet for Gates B and E, 90 feet for Gate C, and 50 feet for Gate B). This is equivalent to 140 separate entry gates (at 31 inches per gate).
Room for 140 +/- staffed entry gates, without any changes to the stadium configuration and without created/building any additional entry portals, and yet the typical number of staffed gates for games in 2015 and 2016 was under 70.
If every gate were made available and staffed with entry personnel, it would require that 535 fans pass through each gate, approximately 75,000 fans passing through the 140 GA gates. At a relatively slow rate of passage through entry gates, in a ridiculously worst-case scenario, it would take 25-30 minutes of total time for every fan to pass through the gates - under the Extreme and Unreasonable Assumption that every single fan appears at the entry gates at the exact same moment, and even in that case the 25-30 minutes is the length of time that the very last fan in the line has to wait. Obviously, that is a ridiculous worst-case assumption.
This is just simple math, and yet it has been common – even in real experience, not absurdly worst-case scenarios – for fans to sometimes be in 45-60 minutes of chaos when trying to enter the Stadium. Why is that?

Just as a comparable, the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, which holds approximately 75,000 fans, claims to be able to get every fan through the gates in 5 minutes. Personally, I doubt that they could actually do that in a worst case scenario, but I do expect they could reasonably get in done in under 10 minutes.

http://mercedesbenzstadium.com/fan-experience/

So why DOES it take so long to get into Beaver Stadium?
The answers are simple, and by far the single greatest reason is that Penn State ICA has never had anywhere near the maximum number of entry gates open and staffed. Over the last two years, the typical number of staffed entry gates has been LESS than 70 (out of a maximum of 140 that could be fit into the existing gate portals). There are several reasons for this – including inefficient use of space in the portals, and simply having inadequate staffing levels to man each available gate. This is by far the largest problem, and “solving” this problem – and doing nothing else – would tremendously alleviate the entry issues. And yet, for two years the problem has not been addressed. I won’t get off into the tangents as to why that is the case.
While the lack of an adequate numbers of staffed gates is the most significant problem, there are other issues which have impact as well. There are numerous other issues, I'll just go over one of them - the refusal to utilize walk-through scanners in the pre-entry process (Magnetometers for those more technically comfortable) and the reliance on slower, manual hand-scanners (“wands’). As you can see in the link from the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, walk-through scanners are not only more effective and reliable, but also allow fans to pass through nearly twice as fast as wand-waving. The costs to acquire walk-through Magnetometers for a full allocation of gates would be around $300,000 (all-weather equipped scanners cost about $2,500 per unit). This one time cost would be offset by operating savings of about $350 per gate per football season - vs the costs of contracting “wand-waver” personnel (assuming the units could only be used for Penn State Football games).So the break-even time from a cost standpoint is about 8 seasons. For those folks unfamiliar to typical investment analysis, the 8 years to cost break-even isn’t a great number – but it is not a horrible one either, and the increased ease and reduced delays for the fans, along with a much higher degree of security (untrained wand-wavers are significantly less reliable from a safety and consistency standpoint) would, it would seem, make the expenditure a “no-brainer”. The gross cost is probably about on par with what the Penn State ICA wasted trying to triage their ticket-mailing fiasco, and about ½ of the increased revenue PSU ICA realized – from a single football game - from the recent increases in Parking income.
There are also issues – some of which date back to the 1990s renovation – with regard to entry gate layout. All of them are easily fixable, at relatively minor costs, if anyone felt the need to address the problems. But this post is getting longer than I had planned, so I will just mention one that illustrates the dumbfounding design issues. The 1990s renovation was primarily to add a second deck to the North End of the Stadium, effectively doubling the number of fans with seats on that end. In addition to the renovation reducing the number of entry points, it reduced the size of the Gate on the North End – the end of the stadium that was getting all the additional seating – such that that gate, Gate D, was less than ½ the size of the gates on the East and West sides of the Stadium. The structure of the stadium would allow for easy expansion of the linear feet of entry portal on the North Side, but I am not aware of any serious consideration ever being given to this issue, or any of the other obvious issues. The thinking involved in these types of decisions just leaves you wondering.
There are also issues with the Student entry process, which is an entirely different animal, and I’ll abstain from commenting on those issues, since I don’t think anyone here is a student or would care about that situation.

The level of pretentiousness and privilege that are necessary to suggest that the onus for solving this problem falls on the Paying Customers. That it should be the customers responsibility to leave their friends and family - in many cases, people who they may only see a few times per year - and abandon the event (the tailgate or other get-together) they may have assembled at significant investment of time and money, in order to enter an empty stadium and sit in the elements on a metal bleacher, not for 10 or 15 minutes, but for an hour or two before the start of the event, simply because the people who's salaries they are supporting are unable to competently address the basic elements of their position (such as managing an entry process is a way that is not completely idiotic), is disconcerting.

 

[#1PSU]

really....way to much time on your hands

In answer to Diane's question: I would not expect anything significantly different from your experiences over the last two seasons, with regard to stadium entry.

I saw this post from Diane earlier, and decided not to comment, but some of the responses were such a stunning example of the ability to ignore common sense, that I felt a brief comment was appropriate.
The issues with Beaver Stadium entry are simple, and abundantly clear with just a simple analysis. The extraordinarily long delays in gate entry are due to simply having insufficient gate personal and insufficient gate entry points.
Penn State fans should NEVER have to go through a process to get into the stadium that takes more than 10-15 minutes. And they wouldn’t, if Penn State ICA was simply committed to opening and staffing the maximum number of available entry gates.
Comments like “Fans should just go to the gates an hour or two before game time” sounds like the type of oblivious and pretentious thinking I hear coming from the PSU ICA Administration, which kind of makes one wonder who is making those posts. The kind of PSU ICA thinking that has resulted in nothing being done to deal with the Stadium entry issues, aside from last year’s humorous effort to offer discounted concession snacks for fans who entered 1-2 hours ahead of kickoff.

Looking at the facts:
Beaver Stadium has 4 general admission gates, Gates B C D and E. This does not include the Student entry point (Gate A) or the ADA entry gate (on the West side of the Stadium), or Gate F, or the special Club Suite, Letterman, Recruiting entries etc. Approximately 75,000 fans enter those 4 general admission gates when there is a full house at Beaver Stadium. The total linear feet of openings at the four primary general admission gates is 360 feet (110 feet for Gates B and E, 90 feet for Gate C, and 50 feet for Gate B). This is equivalent to 140 separate entry gates (at 31 inches per gate).
Room for 140 +/- staffed entry gates, without any changes to the stadium configuration and without created/building any additional entry portals, and yet the typical number of staffed gates for games in 2015 and 2016 was under 70.
If every gate were made available and staffed with entry personnel, it would require that 535 fans pass through each gate, approximately 75,000 fans passing through the 140 GA gates. At a relatively slow rate of passage through entry gates, in a ridiculously worst-case scenario, it would take 25-30 minutes of total time for every fan to pass through the gates - under the Extreme and Unreasonable Assumption that every single fan appears at the entry gates at the exact same moment, and even in that case the 25-30 minutes is the length of time that the very last fan in the line has to wait. Obviously, that is a ridiculous worst-case assumption.
This is just simple math, and yet it has been common – even in real experience, not absurdly worst-case scenarios – for fans to sometimes be in 45-60 minutes of chaos when trying to enter the Stadium. Why is that?

Just as a comparable, the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, which holds approximately 75,000 fans, claims to be able to get every fan through the gates in 5 minutes. Personally, I doubt that they could actually do that in a worst case scenario, but I do expect they could reasonably get in done in under 10 minutes.

http://mercedesbenzstadium.com/fan-experience/

So why DOES it take so long to get into Beaver Stadium?
The answers are simple, and by far the single greatest reason is that Penn State ICA has never had anywhere near the maximum number of entry gates open and staffed. Over the last two years, the typical number of staffed entry gates has been LESS than 70 (out of a maximum of 140 that could be fit into the existing gate portals). There are several reasons for this – including inefficient use of space in the portals, and simply having inadequate staffing levels to man each available gate. This is by far the largest problem, and “solving” this problem – and doing nothing else – would tremendously alleviate the entry issues. And yet, for two years the problem has not been addressed. I won’t get off into the tangents as to why that is the case.
While the lack of an adequate numbers of staffed gates is the most significant problem, there are other issues which have impact as well. There are numerous other issues, I'll just go over one of them - the refusal to utilize walk-through scanners in the pre-entry process (Magnetometers for those more technically comfortable) and the reliance on slower, manual hand-scanners (“wands’). As you can see in the link from the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, walk-through scanners are not only more effective and reliable, but also allow fans to pass through nearly twice as fast as wand-waving. The costs to acquire walk-through Magnetometers for a full allocation of gates would be around $300,000 (all-weather equipped scanners cost about $2,500 per unit). This one time cost would be offset by operating savings of about $350 per gate per football season - vs the costs of contracting “wand-waver” personnel (assuming the units could only be used for Penn State Football games).So the break-even time from a cost standpoint is about 8 seasons. For those folks unfamiliar to typical investment analysis, the 8 years to cost break-even isn’t a great number – but it is not a horrible one either, and the increased ease and reduced delays for the fans, along with a much higher degree of security (untrained wand-wavers are significantly less reliable from a safety and consistency standpoint) would, it would seem, make the expenditure a “no-brainer”. The gross cost is probably about on par with what the Penn State ICA wasted trying to triage their ticket-mailing fiasco, and about ½ of the increased revenue PSU ICA realized – from a single football game - from the recent increases in Parking income.
There are also issues – some of which date back to the 1990s renovation – with regard to entry gate layout. All of them are easily fixable, at relatively minor costs, if anyone felt the need to address the problems. But this post is getting longer than I had planned, so I will just mention one that illustrates the dumbfounding design issues. The 1990s renovation was primarily to add a second deck to the North End of the Stadium, effectively doubling the number of fans with seats on that end. In addition to the renovation reducing the number of entry points, it reduced the size of the Gate on the North End – the end of the stadium that was getting all the additional seating – such that that gate, Gate D, was less than ½ the size of the gates on the East and West sides of the Stadium. The structure of the stadium would allow for easy expansion of the linear feet of entry portal on the North Side, but I am not aware of any serious consideration ever being given to this issue, or any of the other obvious issues. The thinking involved in these types of decisions just leaves you wondering.
There are also issues with the Student entry process, which is an entirely different animal, and I’ll abstain from commenting on those issues, since I don’t think anyone here is a student or would care about that situation.

The level of pretentiousness and privilege that are necessary to suggest that the onus for solving this problem falls on the Paying Customers. That it should be the customers responsibility to leave their friends and family - in many cases, people who they may only see a few times per year - and abandon the event (the tailgate or other get-together) they may have assembled at significant investment of time and money, in order to enter an empty stadium and sit in the elements on a metal bleacher, not for 10 or 15 minutes, but for an hour or two before the start of the event, simply because the people who's salaries they are supporting are unable to competently address the basic elements of their position (such as managing an entry process is a way that is not completely idiotic), is disconcerting.

 

[PSU Mike]

If this is a thing, I want in also.

Drones. We need 85,000 big personal delivery drones dropping people into their seats in a 3-5 minute window.

Does anybody else believe that the decision to have so few gates open in prior years just came down to the pain in the ass to bring in/train 70 extras staffers for 2 hours? It's not fast getting around game day - maybe it's tough finding takers.

 

[PSU_Nut]

In answer to Diane's question: I would not expect anything significantly different from your experiences over the last two seasons, with regard to stadium entry.

I saw this post from Diane earlier, and decided not to comment, but some of the responses were such a stunning example of the ability to ignore common sense, that I felt a brief comment was appropriate.
The issues with Beaver Stadium entry are simple, and abundantly clear with just a simple analysis. The extraordinarily long delays in gate entry are due to simply having insufficient gate personal and insufficient gate entry points.
Penn State fans should NEVER have to go through a process to get into the stadium that takes more than 10-15 minutes. And they wouldn’t, if Penn State ICA was simply committed to opening and staffing the maximum number of available entry gates.
Comments like “Fans should just go to the gates an hour or two before game time” sounds like the type of oblivious and pretentious thinking I hear coming from the PSU ICA Administration, which kind of makes one wonder who is making those posts. The kind of PSU ICA thinking that has resulted in nothing being done to deal with the Stadium entry issues, aside from last year’s humorous effort to offer discounted concession snacks for fans who entered 1-2 hours ahead of kickoff.

Looking at the facts:
Beaver Stadium has 4 general admission gates, Gates B C D and E. This does not include the Student entry point (Gate A) or the ADA entry gate (on the West side of the Stadium), or Gate F, or the special Club Suite, Letterman, Recruiting entries etc. Approximately 75,000 fans enter those 4 general admission gates when there is a full house at Beaver Stadium. The total linear feet of openings at the four primary general admission gates is 360 feet (110 feet for Gates B and E, 90 feet for Gate C, and 50 feet for Gate B). This is equivalent to 140 separate entry gates (at 31 inches per gate).
Room for 140 +/- staffed entry gates, without any changes to the stadium configuration and without created/building any additional entry portals, and yet the typical number of staffed gates for games in 2015 and 2016 was under 70.
If every gate were made available and staffed with entry personnel, it would require that 535 fans pass through each gate, approximately 75,000 fans passing through the 140 GA gates. At a relatively slow rate of passage through entry gates, in a ridiculously worst-case scenario, it would take 25-30 minutes of total time for every fan to pass through the gates - under the Extreme and Unreasonable Assumption that every single fan appears at the entry gates at the exact same moment, and even in that case the 25-30 minutes is the length of time that the very last fan in the line has to wait. Obviously, that is a ridiculous worst-case assumption.
This is just simple math, and yet it has been common – even in real experience, not absurdly worst-case scenarios – for fans to sometimes be in 45-60 minutes of chaos when trying to enter the Stadium. Why is that?

Just as a comparable, the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, which holds approximately 75,000 fans, claims to be able to get every fan through the gates in 5 minutes. Personally, I doubt that they could actually do that in a worst case scenario, but I do expect they could reasonably get in done in under 10 minutes.

http://mercedesbenzstadium.com/fan-experience/

So why DOES it take so long to get into Beaver Stadium?
The answers are simple, and by far the single greatest reason is that Penn State ICA has never had anywhere near the maximum number of entry gates open and staffed. Over the last two years, the typical number of staffed entry gates has been LESS than 70 (out of a maximum of 140 that could be fit into the existing gate portals). There are several reasons for this – including inefficient use of space in the portals, and simply having inadequate staffing levels to man each available gate. This is by far the largest problem, and “solving” this problem – and doing nothing else – would tremendously alleviate the entry issues. And yet, for two years the problem has not been addressed. I won’t get off into the tangents as to why that is the case.
While the lack of an adequate numbers of staffed gates is the most significant problem, there are other issues which have impact as well. There are numerous other issues, I'll just go over one of them - the refusal to utilize walk-through scanners in the pre-entry process (Magnetometers for those more technically comfortable) and the reliance on slower, manual hand-scanners (“wands’). As you can see in the link from the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, walk-through scanners are not only more effective and reliable, but also allow fans to pass through nearly twice as fast as wand-waving. The costs to acquire walk-through Magnetometers for a full allocation of gates would be around $300,000 (all-weather equipped scanners cost about $2,500 per unit). This one time cost would be offset by operating savings of about $350 per gate per football season - vs the costs of contracting “wand-waver” personnel (assuming the units could only be used for Penn State Football games).So the break-even time from a cost standpoint is about 8 seasons. For those folks unfamiliar to typical investment analysis, the 8 years to cost break-even isn’t a great number – but it is not a horrible one either, and the increased ease and reduced delays for the fans, along with a much higher degree of security (untrained wand-wavers are significantly less reliable from a safety and consistency standpoint) would, it would seem, make the expenditure a “no-brainer”. The gross cost is probably about on par with what the Penn State ICA wasted trying to triage their ticket-mailing fiasco, and about ½ of the increased revenue PSU ICA realized – from a single football game - from the recent increases in Parking income.
There are also issues – some of which date back to the 1990s renovation – with regard to entry gate layout. All of them are easily fixable, at relatively minor costs, if anyone felt the need to address the problems. But this post is getting longer than I had planned, so I will just mention one that illustrates the dumbfounding design issues. The 1990s renovation was primarily to add a second deck to the North End of the Stadium, effectively doubling the number of fans with seats on that end. In addition to the renovation reducing the number of entry points, it reduced the size of the Gate on the North End – the end of the stadium that was getting all the additional seating – such that that gate, Gate D, was less than ½ the size of the gates on the East and West sides of the Stadium. The structure of the stadium would allow for easy expansion of the linear feet of entry portal on the North Side, but I am not aware of any serious consideration ever being given to this issue, or any of the other obvious issues. The thinking involved in these types of decisions just leaves you wondering.
There are also issues with the Student entry process, which is an entirely different animal, and I’ll abstain from commenting on those issues, since I don’t think anyone here is a student or would care about that situation.

The level of pretentiousness and privilege that are necessary to suggest that the onus for solving this problem falls on the Paying Customers. That it should be the customers responsibility to leave their friends and family - in many cases, people who they may only see a few times per year - and abandon the event (the tailgate or other get-together) they may have assembled at significant investment of time and money, in order to enter an empty stadium and sit in the elements on a metal bleacher, not for 10 or 15 minutes, but for an hour or two before the start of the event, simply because the people who's salaries they are supporting are unable to competently address the basic elements of their position (such as managing an entry process is a way that is not completely idiotic), is disconcerting.

1. First in your estimation you assume they can use the entire gate area. How much area must be left clear for egress? They just can't have people lined up trying to get in blocking all exits.

2. Your entire estimate is based on 31 inches when PA Code requires 32 inches of clear space. You also didn't include the width of any barrier. So factoring in a width of 1 inch for the barricade each entry lane would need to be 34 inches. So leaving no room for egress there would be room for 127 gates.

3. Your estimate of $300,000 for walk through metal detectors doesn't include any other costs. Where are you going to store them? How are you going to power them? How are you going to install and set them up?

4. You can't widen gate D as the ramps to the north upper deck both empty into that area. That is why that gate is so narrow.

Bottom line is last year was the first year of metal detecting all people. Pat downs were started in the middle of the previous year. They made some improvements. Comparing it to a brand new facility designed and built during the time of increased security. Beaver stadium has not been renovated since the era of increased security. So you are going to have these issues.