Tips on taking stadium pictures and estimating the seating capacity of your stadium

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Tips on taking stadium pictures

Need a picture of your football stadium to send to TexasBob for the stadium database? here are few tips?

Unless you have any airplane to take an aerial photograph, the press box and field should be the main focus.
The best time is early in the morning. Most football fields are north south oriented and the morning sun give the best light for a shot of the stands and press box from the opposite side.
The next best time to take a stadium picture is during a game. All you have to do is sneak over to the visitor side, climb up as high as you can get in the stands and take a shot of the field, the folks on the field, (even if its the band), the fans on the home side of the filed and the press box. Even if you have a very small stadium the best shots, in my opinion is with the stands full.
After you take a picture of your favorite stadium send Texas Bob at copy to Bob<at>TexasBob.com.

A modest "Falcon Field" in Veribest, Texas. One of my favorite pictures that would be helped if a picture was taken of the crowd during a game.	Badger Stadium in McCamey, Texas. This would have been a good shot except when taking photos in low light you must hold the camera very steady.
A great picture of San Angelo Stadium - Credit San Angelo Standard Times. (No it is not photo shopped.)	Jack Rhodes Stadium, Katy, Texas - With crowds like this the stadium becomes secondary.

How to estimate the seating capacity of your stadium

Estimating stadium seating capacity is a dangerous business. Everybody thinks that their stadium is about 30 to 50 percent bigger than it actually is. I get email saying:

"The Snail Bowl holds more that the 500 you have on your webpage. I know for a fact that during the big play off game last year the newspaper estimated the crowd to be at least 4,000, why they were lined up all along the fence."

The count I try to get is what I call the "Butt on the Bench" count. I don't care how many you can out on the "berm" or how many old men line the fence. The true capacity is how many butts can you get "sitting" in the bleachers. This is the simple method I use.

Lets say a small stadium has on the home side has 15 rows. The stands run from the 30 yard line to the 30 yard line for a total of 40 yards. Here is a good formula:

15 x 40 = 600

600 x 3 = 1800

1800 / 2 = 900

Total seating capacity for the home side is 900

Rows x Yards x 3 / 2

The two foot per person eliminates the need to take out for ramps, aisles, etc. I have used this and later compared to official capacities and it’s very close.

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