The stadium: the way in
The Extant 2000 Stadium stands east of the office on the street, past the garage ramp and the booth. It is an oval 220 feet across and 200 deep, with a wall 64 feet high and a roof ring at 70. It is open at every hour, and nothing asks for a ticket.
This post covers the way there, the outside and the concourse. The bowl, the field and the stage are in the next one.
Getting there
From the front steps of the office, face the street. The lot on your right is the stadium. It runs back past the old hedge line into ground that used to be empty grass, and that ground is now paved. The lot on your left is the complex with the market, the courts and the lawn cinema.
You can also skip the walk in three ways.
- The card that greets you in the lobby has a “Go to the stadium” button. It shows once per browser session.
- Press B anywhere and pick “The stadium” from the Go panel. The line under it reads “The forecourt, facing the gates”.
- Add ?stadium=1 to the address. The link skips the card and puts you on the forecourt.
On a phone, the Go button opens the same panel.
Each of these stands you 18 feet out from the wall, facing the gates. At that distance the open gate shows the stands and the field beyond it.
The outside
The outside is a ribbed concrete and glass oval. Eighty concrete fins stand proud of the wall all the way round, each 66 feet tall, and they stop only at the gate. Between them two bands of glass run at 20 to 32 feet and 42 to 54 feet. Behind the glass is the concourse, so after dark the bands glow from inside.
The roof ring sits on top. On a desktop browser it is a painted steel deck on 64 cantilever trusses with a ring truss at the inner edge. The name, EXTANT 2000 STADIUM, is in lit letters on the roof over the front, 92 feet wide.
The gate is 26 feet wide. A marquee hangs over it and reads EXTANT 2000 STADIUM, then CONCERTS, MATCHES, EVENTS. A smaller sign on the lintel says GATE A, ALL TICKETS.
Four floodlight towers stand just outside the wall, at the four corners of the oval, with the lamps 118 feet up. On a desktop each is a lattice mast with 28 aimed lamps. They switch on after dark when something is on, and their beams show faintly in the air. The floodlights also light you. Inside the bowl at night with an event running, the sky light gets a lift so the seats and the crowd keep their colours.
A video board, 40 by 20 feet, hangs on the front of the bowl, off to one side of the gate. It changes every five seconds. The first line is today’s event. After that come three lines for what is coming:
- Friday 7 pm, a concert
- Saturday 7 pm, a concert
- Sunday 1 pm, the match
Four banners hang on the ribs in the front half. They read EXTANT 2000 LIVE, FRIDAY SATURDAY CONCERTS, SUNDAY MATCH DAY and EXTANT 2000 STADIUM, in navy and orange.
On a desktop the forecourt is laid in the same grey stone slabs as the plaza. An apron of slabs runs round the front of the bowl, and an approach runs from the street to Gate A.
Six steel turnstiles stand across the gate under a canopy, 4 feet apart. They are scenery. You walk through the gaps between them, and nothing checks you. Two glazed ticket windows stand either side, 26 feet from the centre line, each 9 feet wide and signed TICKETS. Queue rails run toward the gate on both sides and leave the middle lane open.
The rest of the forecourt is flagpoles with waving flags, lamp posts with banners, and litter bins by the gate and beside the lamp posts. People walk the forecourt and the concourse while anything is on. On a desktop the ones nearest your camera are the same rigged figures the street uses, so they walk like the people on the plaza.
You can hear the stadium before you reach it. Sound carries down the street from the bowl, full inside the bowl and fading with distance down the street. A concert gives the strongest roar and a bass thump. A match gives a crowd. A practice is a faint murmur. A sound check carries the band but no crowd. The mute key is M, the same as everywhere.
What is on and when
The stadium keeps its own calendar, on New York time, the same clock the sky uses. It is built on the office’s working hours and a weekend.
| When | What | Field |
|---|---|---|
| Monday and Wednesday, 10:00 to 14:00 | Comets open practice | Pitch |
| Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 10:00 to 14:00 | Sound check | Stage |
| Friday and Saturday, 19:00 to 23:00 | Concert | Stage |
| Sunday, 13:00 to 17:00 | Match | Pitch |
The match is Brookfield Comets against Harbor Lights. The concert acts are The Low Orbit Band, Marigold Static, Neon Comet Revue, The Perihelions and Velvet Quasar. The day of the year picks which one is on.
At all other times the bowl is empty and the board says WELCOME TO EXTANT 2000 STADIUM. The field is still there, set for the pitch or the stage by the day, and you can walk it.
The concourse
Go in through the gate. You pass between the turnstiles into the concourse, which runs the full circuit of the bowl between the stands’ back wall and the outer wall. The floor is power-floated concrete on a desktop. Strip lights run along the soffit overhead.
Six concession stands stand against the outer wall. Each is 11 feet wide, with a navy unit, a steel counter and a canopy in navy or orange:
- Hot dogs
- Pretzels
- Tacos
- Drinks
- Popcorn
- Merch
They are spaced round the circuit, and each has its name on a board over the counter. While anything is on, a vendor in an orange shirt stands at each one.
The concourse has four ways down to the field, one at each compass point. Each is a tunnel under the upper rows, 14 feet wide, with an EXIT sign at the concourse end and a section sign over the field end. Between the tunnels the stands’ back wall is solid, so the tunnels are the only way down. They lead into the bowl, which is the next post.