BC Place renovation
 

Putting aside the debate about the sheer cost of the renovation, has anyone else been following the renovation? When the pillars started going up, I thought it was going to look pretty bad, but now that the roof is in place, it looks pretty good (at least from a distance.) And even with the roof closed, the stadium has more natural light going through it.

The Vancouver Sun has a story with a couple of pictures of the stadium's interior: Renovated BC Place stadium nears completion

There are also a couple of pictures with the stadium's new lighting effects on BC Place's twitter feed: twitter.com/bcplace2011

I think I'll try to get tickets for either the Lions or Whitecaps openers at the stadium.

question: i remember they talked about the roof not being able to retract. does that still stick? or have they essentially solved that issue?

Costs, aesthetics, and schedules aside, I was watching the news last night and whoever is in charge of the renovation AFAIK is set on changing the name of the stadium.

Why? Why does everything need a new name? I heard "Optik Park" was 1 suggestion, because Telus submitted x amount of dollars to the project. I would loathe any corporation that decides they need their name front and center. Be humble, submit your contribution, and keep the current name. I would think more favorably of a company who said, "Hey, we put in this amount of money, but we don't want to change name from BC Place. British Columbians' like it the way it is, and we agree. It's apart of our history that we feel should be left alone".

edit: I would be interested to see exactly what percentage the corporations put in, compared to the percentage that taxpayers have submitted for the renovation. If the majority came from tax payer dollars, then the tax payer should decide whether or not a name change is due, and what that name change should be.

If a corporation does want to rename this historical building, their "humble" way of doing it will likely be similar to what Telus did with Science World - "Science World at Telus World of Science"

We're looking at a huge deficit because of the HST.. any money the city can get I figure they will liekly take, and they will ignore the heritage of the name "BC Place."

It's like how Rogers paid "x" amount of money to rename GM Arena to Rogers Arena..

All just a cash grab =P

hypediss: Supposedly the roof cannot retract in "high winds or rain" (the main purpose of a retracting roof.....) I don't know 100% if this is solved. Their answer previously was that "we would know far in advance of an event if it would rain or not." Which again is highly unlikely considering we live in Vancouver, where it can be cloudly @ 10am, sunny @ 1pm, and pissing rain by 5pm when everybody gets off work... -.-

werd, reminds me of a story in an Archie comic from when i was a kid

where a wealthy guy renovates the town park so he could put his name on it for some great advertising

but the park/name had a special place in everyones hearts/mind so Archie and the gang had to teach him some humility and the guy ended up keeping the original name and everyone remembered him for it ;)

guess these corps never learned anything as a kid :D

Do these corporations think that naming rights actually work for advertising?

I didn't run out and buy a GM car when GM place was named, nor did I run out and buy a Rogers product when they changed the name to Rogers Arena. I'm certainly not going to go out and buy Telus Optik because they bought out BC place.

Maybe a weaker minded individual would fall for it...

^ its not so you will go and buy a product. it's so that the corp name will be in your vocab. how often do you use the word mobilicity from Oct - June? compare that with Rogers ...
whether it be Fuck Rogers or I'm at Rogers Area Seat 7 or you will use the word Rogers. In Canada, many people think cell phone when someone says Rogers --

Rogers wants what google has "google it" not "search it"

I'm no marketing guru - but it's all about brand awareness....

Even if they decide to give BC Place a corporate name the majority of people will still call it by it's old name out of habit. See: Sky Dome vs Rogers Centre.

does it still look like an upside down crab?

Opposing effect actually. If Rogers is used to refer something else, it starts to detract from the positive effect. Now Rogers can refer to the Stadium, and not the wireless company.

And obviously when you force shit like this, it doesn't work as well as if it was a natural effect.

yup.. you would be suprised how much you actually remember subconsciously.

Companies don't just get the naming rights of a building because they put money into the cost of construction (they hardly ever pay for the costs). Instead they would have an agreement with the building owners and pay X amount of dollars for naming rights every year for so many years. This applies to other things as well such as brand placement and ads in the building. If you go to Rogers Arena, you do not see anything with TELUS or Bell anywhere and Rogers is everywhere, whether you're aware of it or not. Most people will not be swayed towards a particular brand by the name alone but the exposure does help business.

Building owners are more than happy to sell naming rights too because it may mean a couple million dollars every year...depending on the building of course.

They weren't that humble to start with, their original name was "Telusphere"

:seriously:

Hence the " " around humble.

Not sure if this is still the case, but when I was at SFU downtown, the classrooms were named after companies.

lol @ it taking 15 posts to get to this one..

agreeed.

Whatever they name it, "bell pitch" is the name of the field during Whitecaps games. More corporate sponsors the better, imo.

"Bell's Bitch" is more like it.

Well looks like they've got a year round team of painters going to keep those pillars rust free.

anyone gonna be working there?