Open House at Hadlock

On Saturday I took a drive down to Portland to visit the Sea Dogs' Open House. This was an opportunity to get the first ballpark hot dog of the year and to check out the new pavilion seats over the bullpen in right field. This was also an opportunity to experiment with capturing digital images with my own camera, and transferring them to the Blog.

When one enters the stadium, the new RF seats are easily noticeable, and perhaps even a bit of an eyesore, just a big block of seats rising toward the sky:

New RF Pavilion. Not an architectural treasure.

However, the perspective is a lot different from the seats. There is a wonderful, expansive view of the field that is unlike any other in the stadium:

View from the Top.

The seating is in the style of Fenway's Monster Seats, with "bar table" frontage that allows a place for the patron to place his or her food and drink. It also appears to be a good surface to keep score on. It's a lot nicer than balancing everything on your lap. The seats are folding chairs, and the tiering is steeper than the traditional seating, which allows for much less obstruction from the patrons in front of you. When the design was orignially announced, management stated that they could have installed more seating in this section, but that they wanted it to be a unique experience. That it appears to be. I believe that this will be a popular setup for the fans and that, along with the fact that this is the only place in the ballpark that one can catch a home run ball, will make the pavilion a popular ticket.

Waiting for the first pitch. I'll have to wait for a few more days!