Protective Stadium — Attraction in Birmingham

Beautiful facility! Customer service was a struggle. At one point a person on way to restroom stopped and vomited in the seats when the occupants were at concessions. Medical services removed him but no one came to clean up the substantial (smelly) mess. Next to my seats. This was 1st quarter of game. I approached an attendant who said that the paramedics would handle that. I approached the paramedic captain who seemed to be in charge and was told he'd handle sending someone to clean up. NEVER HAPPENED! The paying customers of those seat were forced to relocate to vacant seats and my wife and I were forced to endure the odor for remainder of game. ( A accommodating fan donated his rain poncho to cover up the vomit.) 2nd disappointment: Apparently the venue wasn't built to accommodate larger bowl game crowds. The concession lines overwhelmed the concourse making passing through very difficult. And then there's the overwhelmed concessions operation! Hundreds of people waiting while fresh food was cooked and waiting for extended times. I stood on line for 70 minutes for a beer and soft drink. Before joining the line I moved forward and asked 1st if beer was still available. By the time I got to my turn the same concessions manager that I watched for almost an hour simply observing (micro managing) the employees, said himself, "what you haven't gottenyour beer yet? You've been online for an hour!" Duuuuh?! fyi- concession was...

I love the stadium. It is a great addition to the UAB campus. However it is NOT handicap accessible at all. We were there for a highschool game and the parking set up they have is managed by people who have not been properly trained or been equipped with basic information about the area they are serving. I blame the management company for putting their attendants through this. Once you actually get into the stadium there are handicap wheelchair areas but getting from the parking areas is inaccessible to those who cannot walk long distances but do not necessarily need a wheelchair. No one could tell us where the handicap parking lot was! We were just told to drop off anyone who couldn't walk. Well when both people are in the same condition it isn't possible to just drop off . Even if you decide to do the drop off getting into the stadium is still an uphill battle. We paid $20 for parking that we were led to believe was across the street from the entrance but it turned out to be a grass field down a dirt road about 1/4 mile from the paved parking lot we thought we were paying to park. We ended up sitting in the van trying to hear the game as much as possible. Drivers beware of scam parking attendants who take your money and lead you down the wrong road. We saw several people who were led back to the road only to find themselves shut out of the lot. Stadium gets 4 stars, parking and city police get...

A fairly new facility that is home to the UAB Blazers and the Birmingham Bowl. I was there for the Birmingham Bowl.

The crowd flow left a lot to be desired. On the "city side" there was one gate area and, even 45 minutes before kickoff, the lines to get in were building. Returning to my seat after the half, there was a major bottleneck above the home side 1xx seating sections. With the bar against the press box/suites and the people standing behind the handicapped seats watching the game, it was completely packed in with no flow there. Just very slowly inching along as one big mass. When we left, the crowd going back down the ramp was again very thick with no other way to leave.

On the positive side, while there was a line to get in the men's restroom - ironically, there was no line for the women's restroom next to it! - it moved fairly quickly as there were plenty of stalls and urinals and ample sinks. The video board was large and had an excellent image quality. Sound system was good. I can't speak to concessions as all we had was a soft drink. Parking was fine as we parked in a parking deck on the downtown side of the I59/20 viaduct, which was a fairly short walk to the stadium and was only $20.

Overall, it's a pretty good stadium, but it's not efficiently designed for a...