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Re: Attendance idea

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:30 pm
by HorseSense
My daughter (who is a non-drinker--thus my designated driver) , a senior, indicated that until liquor is allowed in Ford, students coming back after half is not going to happen. Not a valid argument to me, but apparently makes sense to a 21 year old.

Re: Attendance idea

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:37 pm
by S....M....U
my friends still in school said the same thing about wanting beer in the stadium...i told them never gonna happen. (grab a flask) and be a fan

Re: Attendance idea

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:38 pm
by S....M....U
i hate the excuses, would have killed to have gone 5-1 while i was in school. and i stayed entire games going 1-11...so of course i don't understand what goes through their minds.

Re: Attendance idea

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:52 pm
by johnangle
With regards to the food thing for non-SMU folks here's something I hadn't thought through. So, this past year I planned SMU Family Weekend (I also unfortunately had to make the call to put Family Weekend on Northwestern State game. I wanted to put FW on the UCF game but athletics and development begged me to do NW St)

One of the big events we put on during Family Weekend is the Boulevard Barbeque on Clements Hall lawn. We send a registration book in the summer to SMU families allowing them to buy a ticket to eat Sonny Bryan's BBQ/fixins for $10. We presold about 1800 tickets to the BBQ and then on-site sold about 1300 (we ordered catering for 1600 and made a nice profit). I helped sell tickets for a bit and not all of the people buying them were parents of current students, but there were actually a number of families with little kids/old people/randos buying tickets. Perhaps going forward SMU just needs to set up the barbeque type thing in front of Clements and just plan on selling food to walk-ups?

Also, I know that for Homecoming Development is planning to set up a "kid zone" in front of the Health Center with face painting, bounce houses, etc to help draw in more families. Might be another good thing to have going forward to appeal to people with kids.

Re: Attendance idea

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:54 pm
by S....M....U
sounds good to me. thanks john