In Houston, there's no venue like Reliant Stadium
This ain't Reliant Stadium's first rodeo. Literally.
Hosting the Final Four brings a unique set of challenges, but Reliant has a history of big event planning that should make it all fall nicely into place.
The NFL's Houston Texans are the best-known tenants of the structure, which opened in August of 2002, but the football team is likely matched if not exceeded in popularity by the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which took place between March 3rd and 19th. The 79th edition of the enormous event attracted over 2,000,000 paid visitors to Reliant Park over the course of more than two weeks, just days before hoops-mad visitors from around the nation were scheduled to descend on the very same spot.
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| Reliant is the 'First Retractable Roof/Natural Grass Stadium' in the world. (photo by E. Angevine) |
Take more time to walk around outside, and you'll begin to get a sense of history and progression that puts it all in perspective. Reflected in Reliant's rows and rows of windows is the Astrodome, once considered to be the pinnacle of stadium design. In fact, the world's first domed stadium, completed in 1965, was called the "Eighth Wonder of the World" for decades.
Attempts to have a domed stadium and real grass failed in the Astrodome, but that failure led, in some ways, to the clever design of Reliant. Texans care a lot about being biggest, best and first, so Reliant became the "first retractable roof, air-conditioned, natural-grass football stadium" in the world. Not quite as catchy as "Eighth Wonder," but you get the drift. It's special. On rainy days, the roof stays closed. On sunny days, it's open. The real, green, natural grass is very happy.
Still, the design of that special roof includes a pair of gridlike structures that protrude from the top of the building and resembles nothing so much as the gantries that provided access to the rockets housed at the nearby Johnson Space Center. Yet another reminder of Houston's past, right in the here and now.
If the extreme proximity of the weathered old Astrodome gives visitors a sense of where Houston has been, the surrounding sculpture gardens really get at the roots of this city by the Gulf. Dozens of bronze statues, almost uniformly Western-themed, dot the alcoves and small ponds that proliferate between the old and new stadiums. Any visitor from Indianapolis, Richmond, Lexington or Storrs who doesn't quite get the cowboy mystique will feel it after a walk through the Reliant Park sculpture garden.
There's plenty else to do outside the park on game day. One portion of the parking lot is given entirely over to the tents and awnings of the Infiniti Tailgate Tip-off, which will fill the outside air with live music, excitable chatter and the smell of BBQ from 1-4 p.m. on Saturday.
Speaking of food smells, there's nothing like the aromas that waft through the massive interior concourses of Reliant. Open-fronted restaurants with names like Tejas Nachos and Bum's Smokehouse send out olfactory tractor beams that remind anyone within smelling range that meat is king in Houston. Sure, there's a grudging nod to the rare vegetarian -- it's called the jalapeno.
Venture upstairs to the private dining area reserved for tenants of the corporate suites, and an even more jaw-dropping menu awaits. Plenty of food-related words are used to describe the Texas BLT, but it really doesn't take more than the first four -- 'candied bacon stacked high' -- to turn it from a want into a need.
But enough about food. Let's talk hoops. Fans on the main level have the best view of the action, which takes place on an elevated court perched about 18 inches off the actual floor level. A sharp eye can discern where additional seats, angled gently toward the playing surface, have been added, bringing the seating capacity for the Final Four to 76,500.
So, that's nice for the folks on the lower level, but what's the benefit for someone who bought a ticket on the upper deck? Well, for one, that lucky fan can eat all the candied bacon he wants, because he will work it off getting to his seat. It feels like there is roughly a quarter-mile of steps leading to the fourth level of the arena. The view of the floor from there is nonexistent, unless you really enjoyed your ant farm as a kid, but that's why the massive video boards exist. The action below is rebroadcast on screens that make your wall-mounted flatscreen look like an iPod nano.
Reliant isn't offering an intimate experience. The Final Four is all about packing 'em in these days. A pilot could park a 747 inside Reliant with room to spare. In a way, it only seems fitting for the biggest weekend devoted to the greatest championship event in the U.S.
Everything's bigger in Texas, and the Final Four is huge. In Houston, there can be no other venue.
