(Written by kencraw)

I’m one of those guys who reads through all of the various documents the University provides about the games. Everything from the A-Z guide to all the maps of the concessions. I was particularly interested this year with the renovations. A few notes for everyone:

• The company doing the shuttles from the BART stations and other locations around the area into the stadium has changed. More importantly, the price has doubled to $10 a person round trip for the short runs and more for the longer ones. That’s ridiculously expensive for a 2-mile trip in my opinion and makes it prohibitively expensive for a family of 6. Said another way, getting a kid TO the game is 2/3rds the price of getting them a ticket to the game. I’m very thankful we pay for parking passes at this point.
• They’ve got a new standing policy: “…Please keep in mind that when you stand, you block the view of others. We encourage fans to cheer, but continuous standing in the seating areas will not be tolerated…” That’s a bit worrisome to me. Is standing for meaningful 3rd downs or on key drives or in the redzone considered “continuous standing”? This feels a bit vague to me. No mention of the student section either.
• The root camera policy has not changed, but they’ve upped the visibility… “Professional Cameras” is now on the prohibited items list. When you click the link to the “Camera policy” it says this: “Guests may bring personal, still-photo cameras (lenses no longer than five inches to capture special moments from Memorial Stadium.” (note that it looks like there’s a missing close parenthesis there.) So effectively they’ve defined a professional camera as one that has a lens longer than 5″, which rules out low f-stop telephoto lenses.
• There is ZERO mention of personal seatbacks being brought into the stadium, either in the positive or the negative. However, considering the bag policy is 14″ x 14″ x 6″ and there’s no mention of an exception for seat backs (which are usually wider than 14″), this might be an issue. Hard to say for sure, but I’d be nervous bringing one that doesn’t fit in those dimensions.
• In more positive news, they now have a kids play area in the concourse behind the north endzone. Sometimes those are kinda weak, but I like the effort being made.

Finally, I think it’s worth looking at the maps of the entrances and concourses for the amenities available:
Overall stadium map with numbered gates
Concourse on West Side
Plaza level on the West Side
East Rim

Nice to see so many concessions. 🙂