High winds and pretty miserable weather are forecast all day tomorrow so the fan zone will not operate. (Winds forecast are much higher than the max rating for the gazebos etc)
There aren't any obvious places within Oakwell that are indoors. Speaking without any Trust hat on or anything, the only thing I can think of is to somehow utilise the East Stand concourse. But that opens up lots of planning and safety challenges as well as managing people who want to enter the ground early. Bigger priorities right now but I'm sure the conversation around next season will happen at some stage in the coming weeks.
Needs the east east finishing off really which creates a lot of space but as the owners are unwilling to spend their money and rely on hard working volunteers to run things that's not realistic. How robust are those semi permanent wedding marquees? Would one of those stand up to the Barnsley weather?
New licensing required for anything that is a permanent structure - hence the 'Pop up' benefits of the FanZone. Even the semi-permanent marquees won't have survived some of the wind speeds we've witnessed this season. I have to say though, as it's been mentioned twice, the club have invested money in to the Fan Zone. Now whether that is to levels that some find acceptable is another question, but only fair to be clear on that one.
Obviously it would cost significantly but a mezzanine could be put in the East stand, concrete/ beams already in to support a floor. Have a look up next time you’re on the lower concourse
Whilst I totally applaud the efforts involved with our fanzone from a supporters group What our new owners said would would happen re improving the match day experience turned out to be a load of bollacks. Sooner they go the better.
Genuine question. What did they say would happen. Re the matchday experience. Football issues to one side.?
They said nothing specific, just that they would improve the match day experience From what I can see there’s been a amazing effort but fans and volunteers but minimal investment from the Club
“At Nice, we dramatically improved the revenue of the club in the first year and with that, we complimented the squad, built a brand new training facility and academy and built the fan experience. So more fans are coming and having a good time and the performance improved.” “They were in need of a little help on the commercial side, a bit of help in terms of nationalisation of the club. And our philosophy for football is very disciplined, at Nice we keep a balanced budget but we believe that using our resources we can drive revenue up, we can improve the fan experience" We all saw what the fan experience at nice was so highlighting that and saying they can improve it here would heavily imply something similar to what they had. Interesting he also said this "There’s a great academy in place here, we believe we can enhance that. If you look at everything we’ve done with Nice, it speaks for itself. We intend to have that similar model here at Barnsley. We’re not going to be crazy, we’ll remain disciplined, but we will grow the club, year upon year.” I would argue that revenue here wasn't dramatically improved in the first year. That it hasn't improved year on year, that the academy hasn't been enhanced (we are desperate for centre backs and yet no academy player has managed a single minute for us). That the club has shrunk not grown under them as demonstrated by our capacity being lowered, attendances getting lower, players signed being of a poorer quality etc and that save for the volunteer led fanzone the matchday experience hasn't changed one bit.
Been thinking same, am sure we have hed games called off for strong winds before. Might have to wear a crash helmet for flying debris and also flying coppers truncheons.