The man from Homeland Security was stern.
We had an important responsibility, he told arena event-day staff this week. We see bags, we see behavior, we see the look in someone’s eye. We have the safety of thousands of patrons in our hands.
He needed to know, can we handle that?
In the wake of the Boston terror attacks, caused by explosive devices hidden inside a backpack or duffel, regional officials from the federal Department of Homeland Security visited venues around the state. The fact that Webster Bank Arena is a popular destination makes us a target, as venues around the world have known known since 9/11.
All patrons entering Webster Bank Arena have their bags checked and their body wanded. It’s been like that for more than a decade. Most of the time, we remind people that outside food and beverages are not allowed in. Sometimes, we ask people to take their pocket knives back to the car. Rarely, an off-duty law enforcement officer is reminded we don’t allow concealed weapons in the building.
Now, after Boston, things are changing. We have closed one of the three main entrances to the building. All patrons now must enter through the two front sets of doors. A table is set up, bags are checked thoroughly and patrons are searched. An inconvenience? Yes. Understandable? Of course.
We recently installed a new surveillance camera system that watched the plaza and exterior locations. We’re considering better monitoring in the building.
On Tuesday, the Sound Tigers played a blizzard make-up game. The crowd was light, but the new procedures were in place. Our fans understood the rules and realized it was for everyone’s safety. For future, more busy events, it will cause some delays. But it’s the world we live in.
The man from Homeland Security watched and he was pleased.
We can handle it.

The word is presale.

In the prehistoric concert world, fans would line up at the box office window hours or even days in advance, set up a beach chair and wait for the tickets to go on sale. Simple. You make the sacrifice, you get good seats.

Several decades ago, online ticket sales meant you could put the beach chair away, but you still had to move quick at the keyboard to avoid the nosebleeds.

Then, in the last ten to fifteen years, presales started to eat up the ticket inventory. This led to the common complaint from a fan who logged on to Ticketmaster, clicked “buy” the second the public onsale started, and saw that only the worst seats in the arena were available. If any were available at all.

Most of today’s concert goers are savvy enough to understand that a big arena concert will have several presales. They will go to the artists’ website and see if there is a fan club presale. They will figure out if there is a corporate presale from a sponsor like American Express or Citibank. They will determine if there is a venue/Ticketmaster presale. They will get the presale code and get access to the best seats.

Here at Webster Bank Arena we recently went onsale for a concert by fun., the Grammy-winning superstar pop group. Those three catagories mentioned above? All of them applied to the fun. show. Thousands and thousands of the best seats to sold during the presales. We believe there’s not a bad seat in the arena, so the public onsale ticket buyers will have a great experience here, as well.

Times have changed. Is the new way fair? Some say yes, some say no. But fans can still get the best seats if they know the strategy.

Just remember that word.

Postponing an event at Webster Bank Arena is always a last resort. Too much effort goes into scheduling a hockey, basketball game, concert or family show. Tickets have been sold, travel plans made, work schedules adjusted, budgets set.
Pulling the plug is avoided at all costs.
Then something like the Blizzard of 2013 comes along and obliterates everything in its path – including two Sound Tigers hockey games and two Fairfield University basketball games. Up at the XL Center in Hartford, Monster Jam was canceled and its unlikely it can be rescheduled.
When nearly three feet of snow falls overnight, arenas really don’t have a choice. Our parking lots were snowed in, waiting to be cleared by overwhelmed Bridgeport plow crews. Driving was either unsafe or impossible. Today, Monday, was our first chance to really start getting rid of the mountains of snow on our plaza,walkways and driveways. The arena operations crew is hoisting shovels and pushing snow blowers, and getting soaked by a cold rain in the process.
We rescheduled the Sound Tigers games: April 9 and 16, when thoughts of spring will render this blizzard a memory. We’re working on the Stags’ games.
Some things can’t be postponed. The Sound Tiger players, many of whom traveled from snow-clogged locations, were on the ice today, practicing hard. After all, we’ve got the rest of the season to think about.

This drives us crazy: We’re talking to someone about Webster Bank Arena and they say, “I didn’t know (insert band name) is playing there.”

Arrgghh.

So, you didn’t see any of the website and print ads, the Facebook and Twitter posts, the e-mail blasts or the press releases? Disney On Ice, Harlem Globetrotters, NCAA basketball, none of this rings a bell?

Concert marketing gurus often say the first 6,000 tickets to a big show are sold quickly to rabid fans. It’s the next 4,000 tickets that takes work. Lots of strategies are trotted out. Social media, ads, interviews. Sometimes it works, but frequently a potential customer is missed.

So we decided to do something that can’t be missed, no matter how hard you try. We’re installing a digital billboard overlooking Interstate 95, located right in front of the arena. It’s double-sided, 800 square feet each side. Each side will have six “flips,” of 10 second each. The million or so cars that pass by the arena each month will see ads for events at the arena, events in the city and some commercial advertising.

It should be ready to go shortly after Christmas. So no more excuses. You’re going to know what’s happening at the arena.

He had his own dressing room at Saturday’s Boston Pop Holiday show at Webster Bank Arena.

If there was one thing we could change about Webster Bank Arena, it would be making it easier to park without sitting in traffic on event nights. (We’d also like The Rolling Stones to play here, but that’s a whole different challenge). We always hear complaints from patrons coming to a big concert or game that the exit off Interstate 95 to the arena is jammed with cars and they were late getting into the building.

We sympathize and explain that we can’t change how the highway is designed or where we are located. The Bridgeport Police Department does an outstanding job keeping the traffic flowing as quickly as possible, but bottlenecks are created as cars come down the I-95 off ramps and wait to get into the parking lots and parking garage.

One of our biggest concerts in years, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, is here on Tuesday, Dec. 4 and we’d love to get everyone into their seat on time. Here’s some tips on making that happen.

- If you can, leave early for the show. Rock legend Patti Smith and a talented band called Everest is opening the concert. Traffic starts to build on the highway around 6 pm. Doors open at 6:30 pm. A few minutes of standing around or hanging out in your parked car beats being stuck on the off ramp as precious minutes tick by.

- Use Route 8. The best way to beat I-95 is not to use I-95. If you’re coming from points north, take Route 8 to downtown Bridgeport. Police will direct you to the nearest lot.

- Use local roads. If you’re coming from Fairfield, for instance, take Park Avenue into downtown Bridgeport and use Main Street to get to the arena. That way, you’ve bypassed the off-ramp bottleneck.

There’s no perfect solution to the traffic issue. Use a little creativity and try some alternatives, and you’ll be watching when Neil Young walks onto the stage.

That “thing” is Webster Bank Arena’s massive, brand new, center-hung videoboard. It’s an 18,000-pound monster made of millions of blinking LED lights, operated by a specially-constructed Sony control room that would make NASA envious.

Since the high-definition board debuted November 11, thousands of people have seen it in action and were amazed. This is one of the largest videoboards in a mid-sized arena in the nation. Daktronics built two side panels 30 feet wide and 15 feet high. The two end panels are 13 feet wide and 10 feet high. It’s bigger than the scoreboard at TD Bank arena in Boston.

What isn’t well known is the story of how the board came to be and how it was installed, in the middle of a raging hurricane that knocked out the arena’s power. So here’s the inside look at our pride and joy, the biggest toy we’ve ever played with.

Webster Bank Arena opened in 2001 without what most arenas have: a center-hung scoreboard, which most refer to as a Jumbotron. Not having one saved money, but it limited the arena experience. Over the years, more arenas installed fancy, flashing ribbon boards around the perimeter of the arena bowl. All we had was a case of arena envy.

When Harbor Yard Sports and Entertainment, LLC took over the arena in March 2011, one of the first things we did start planning for the purchase of a center-hung videoboard and ribbon boards. One and a half years and $3.5 million dollars later, the first crates began arriving at our loading dock.

The installation was deceptively simple. A hardworking crew bolted the the metal frame together on the floor of the arena. Prefabricated LED panels, 64 of them, were bolted to the frame. Then came the delicate part: hardwiring it to the control room and hoisting it to the ceiling by a massive winch. Much of that happened shortly before and right after Hurricane Sandy, when most of the region was without power. The arena lost power for one day, which kept us on schedule for the debut at the Nov. 11 Sound Tigers game.

We’ve had lots of oohs and aahs since the boards erupted to life in a riot of color and flashing graphics. We’re now a modern arena, and replays of hockey hits, basketball dunks and livestreamed screaming guitars are thrilling fans.

It feels good to have someone envy us for a change.

More than 17,000 people packed Webster Bank Arena for two Bridgeport Sound Tigers games last weekend. We gave most of those tickets away for free, because people needed something fun to do in the wake of nasty Hurricane Sandy.

Many were seeing a Sound Tigers game for the first time and plenty of folks were enduring power outages and damaged homes. They were grateful, but they also did their part. Enough nonperishable food was donated over the two games to fill two offices here at the arena. We spent the day Monday delivering the food to charitable organizations around the arena. Several Sound Tigers players helped with the deliveries.

Let’s hope we never see the likes of Sandy again, but it’s good to know people care about each other.