DHL Stadium

The Cape Town Stadium, I think is a good fit for Cape Town. One has a good sight of the ongoings on the field. When full there is a beautiful vibe especially if the team that you support is doing well. I did find the P. A . System can do with a bit of an upgrade. One couldn't hear announcements clearly. I also feel that the "big screens" need to larger. It was quite difficult for a person with compromised vision i.e. a senior citizen like myself who wears specs, to see clearly especially the sport replays. The high cost of food is criminally expensive!!! As a senior citizen on a government pension to have to pay R45 for an ice cream on a stick is downright day light robbery. This item one could buy in a shop at R10. I do believe that whoever is responsible for food and beverage side of running the Stadium needs to investigate and put measures in place to control these costs. Either the stallholders are greatly overcharging and making huge profits in a short space of time or they are forced to charge these huge prices to cover the exorbitant rentals that they are being charged by Stadium Management. This cannot be allowed to go on. On the occasion of the URC rugby final there was a huge crowd of something like 50 000 people. This meant that one had to be in the Stadium at 3 hours before kickoff. Now since one is not allowed to bring your own food into the Stadium, one is now forced to buy food inside same. For a family of 4 (Father, Mother and 2 children) it would cost a small fortune to keep them all fed for 5 to 6 hrs. OUCH, OUCH, OUCH!!! I also felt that as a first time attendee, it was difficult to find the entrance to the stands that we needed to use. There were insufficient, properly trained ushers available. We had to be moved more that once as we had been directed by security personnel to the incorrect seating positions. Very annoying!!! The City of Cape Town laid on transport to and from the Civic Centre at no cost. Very well done. On leaving the Stadium after the event one had to enter the underground parking area then traverse through a tunnel to catch the bus back to the Civic Centre. There were no officials with loudhailers on hand to direct passengers to the correct boarding areas. In a 100m long tunnel where the only movement was forward one felt like cattle being herded to the Abbatoir. It took more than half and hour to get out of same on a stop, start procession waiting for busses to arrive back from their last trip. My great fear was for people who were claustrophobic would be overcome as well as us senior citizens who have health issues could get sick being caught up in that throng. Not a good idea for this system to be used. I do believe that there were and are alternatives but I won't say anything about that. There was not preferential arrangements made for us senior citizens or the sickly. I guess in this case we should just have stayed away.

As a first time user, I don't think that I would want to attend an event of this magnitude at the stadium again. Thank you very much. I sincerely hope that the Mayor reads this review. Signing off along with the great disappointment that the Stormers Rugby team dished up on the night when they were supposed to "MAKE CAPE TOWN SMILE" . Most when away absolutely miserable at the loss.