The Jaguars hope tonight's "Hard Hat Party" will help the team sell about 2,300 club seats that remain available for the 2004 season.
Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver will speak to fans who attend tonight's event at Alltel Stadium's West Touchdown Club, where ongoing improvements to the stadium's two clubs will be unveiled. Three thousand square feet will have been added to the clubs for the Aug. 20 preseason game against Tampa Bay.
"The reason for most of these changes is we did an extensive surveying of our club seat holders after last season, asking them what we could do to enhance their club experience. We're responding to their answers to that survey," Scott Loft said. Loft is the Jaguars' executive director of ticket sales and service.
Changes to the two clubs include new food and beverage options, new large-screen and plasma-screen televisions throughout the clubs, the addition of three bars to each club and more points of sale that will decrease wait time, additional seating and high-top tables, and a re-do of the décor that will replace carpeting, wall coverings and furniture to give the clubs a more contemporary atmosphere.
Oh, yeah, the Jaguars have remodeled something else about their clubs: the price.
Two thousand of the 5,500 club seats on the east side of the stadium will be part of the price reduction. Nine hundred of those 2,000 seats will have their price reduced from $1,925 to $1,200 per season, and the remaining 1,100 price-reduced seats will drop from $1,925 to $1,500.
Alltel Stadium provides for about 11,000 club seats, of which about 8,700 are sold for the 2004 season. Most new stadiums have club seating of 6,500-8,500; Gillette Stadium in New England provides for 6,000 club seats.
"Our fans have really supported our club seats," Loft said. "We challenge any other team in the league, as far as our aggressiveness in satisfying our club seat holders. We believe we're providing a real positive product."
The Jaguars are also offering other perks to multi-year club seat holders. They will receive a one-year membership to the Golf Club at North Hampton, a $25 gift certificate to Morton's Steakhouse, a free replica game jersey, and a guarantee to those who've purchased eight or more club seats through the 2005 season that they might buy two tickets to next February's Super Bowl.
Loft said the team has currently sold about 52,000 season tickets – that's the figure at which the Jaguars began the 2003 season – for the 2004 season. "We think we can get to 55,000," he said.
The potential for TV blackouts remains imminent, however. "We still have a challenge as it relates to blackouts for the upcoming season. While we hope to increase our season ticket base, we're still challenged with a large stadium in one of the smaller NFL markets," Loft added.
