Roof: Opened or closed?

[Qman]

my view is the roof should be open in the summer unless its a raining cats&dogs outside. Given the humidity here is the summer, the stadium gets way too hot with roof closed. The fans are covered if it rains a bit. The stadium has drainage now.

[B.C.FAN]

The Lions are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Is the turf already wet from the rain? I hope they keep it closed until a couple hours before game time and then open it if the rain stops. There's no sense having a roof if it isn't going to be used in bad weather.

[Qman]

Its 2:30pm, i vote roof open.
weather.ca hourly forecast says we might get some a bit of rain in the afternoon, but should be just cloudy from 5pm onwards (similar to Game #1 vs WPG)

FYI: With the new field turf surfaces water makes the surface better (many stadiums actually spray the field with water a few hours before games).
The issue with rain is slickness on the balls if its a downpour and high tech receiver gloves that everyone wears now.

[TheLionKing]

It's beginning to clear somewhat where I am (approx 2 miles from the stadium). I vote to open the roof. If begins to rain we can close it. After all we spent $500 million to have the retractable roof.....

[korey&dante4ever]

Don't know why the common theme is "open the roof, we spent 500 million".. Well guess what, that peephole of a roof is a farce, plain and simple. The money is already spent. Didn't add to the experience two weeks ago. Close the thing, make the stadium louder.

[almo89]

It's beginning to clear somewhat where I am (approx 2 miles from the stadium). I vote to open the roof. If begins to rain we can close it. After all we spent $500 million to have the retractable roof.....

The problem is that they can't close it immediately once it starts raining. That's why they usually decide early in the day if they want to close it or not based on the weather forecast.

[sj-roc]

Looks like they've flip-flopped on their decision earlier this week to open it; it'll be closed tonight:

Gonna be at @bcplace tonight? Please note that the roof will be closed for tonight's tilt versus the #Esks. #BCLions #CFL #ROH97

In hindsight it was probably not smart to make an announcement earlier in the week, especially since (it was my impression) that the official announcement would always be made a few hours before kickoff.

[sj-roc]

The Lions are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Is the turf already wet from the rain? I hope they keep it closed until a couple hours before game time and then open it if the rain stops. There's no sense having a roof if it isn't going to be used in bad weather.

Isn't the default status closed? It ought to be. It would be pretty lame if if was wet from a morning and afternoon of rain and then they had to close it up just as the sun broke through at 5pm and heated everything up. Playing in an oven on a wet field: a double whammy.

The Lions will have to be careful with how they handle this long term or they're just going to hand people *another* reason not to come to games: "Oh, I wasn't sure whether the roof would be open. I heard one thing Tuesday, but then they changed their minds yesterday or something? "

Here's an experiment for tonight: ask the people sitting around you if they knew the roof status coming in and/or if it matched up with their expectation.

Seriously. I'd be curious to hear any anecdotes.

[TheLionKing]

Just got to my seats. A bit muggy....

[notahomer]

Maybe its just imagination but I found the seating area fine last night. A little muggy but not too bad. However, once one stepped out into the concourse (probably part due to the volumes of people) it just really seemed to heat up.

[sj-roc]

Maybe its just imagination but I found the seating area fine last night. A little muggy but not too bad. However, once one stepped out into the concourse (probably part due to the volumes of people) it just really seemed to heat up.

I had no trouble with the humidity levels last night or even in the first game this year when the dome was also closed. My memories of the BCPI humidity are still vivid and I have to say there is NO comparison. For anyone reading this who's shy about attending on a closed roof night because they think it'll be like the BCPI era climate-wise, put your fears to rest; the building is MUCH better ventilated these days, even under the closed roof.

Re: seating area vs concourse, I only spent <10 mins in the concourse during halftime so I didn't notice much difference. My main complaint with the concourse is that radio reception out there is far worse than in the seating area; I'd prefer to hear some halftime talk as I'm taking a respite from my seat but that isn't possible right now.

[David]

Another example of a front office that can't seem to get anything right this year. Why make this bold pronouncement that the roof will be OPEN on a Tuesday when they didn't really know the long term forecast? That's not really a rhetorical question. The answer is because they're struggling to sell tickets and were trying to pull out all the stops. If they need to announce it at all, this can be done 24 before the event. My policy would be to keep it open before Labour Day unless it's raining sideways come game time (which is extremely rare). In the cooler weather games, well, that's their decision but I would still keep it open. Cold + wet in October and November = closed.

And for the those keeping score or from out of town, it still did not rain outside during a Lions game. Like the home opener, it rained on gameday, but dried out in the late afternoon and stayed that way for the game. Therefore, the roof could have been open.

DH

[SammyGreene]

Was the Beatty Street pre-game party called off because of the potential rain too or have they decided to shelf it altogether?? It definitely took place for the first two games but not yesterday.

[TheLionKing]

Are you referring to the band ? If so, it was definitely there