Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park — Attraction in Charleston

I am a local that recently moved back home and was really excited to attend my first Riverdogs game. I purchased my tickets so that my lady and I could be seated just behind the home team. I was in Section 106, Row 9, seats 9 and 10. I was a bit frustrated that when we went to the concessions on that side, our order was not put in immediately and several people were served their specialty dogs that had been behind us in line. That said, it wasn't going to ruin our night so we went on into the game only to realize that we had missed the entire first inning while waiting on the food. Again, no biggie, we pressed on. Immediately to our left were a pleasant enough couple that we chatted briefly with and then began enjoying the home team. Inning 3, nice couple next to us had two men (either father son or a couple, who knows) come up behind them, stand in the aisle behind us, and begin a conversation with them. No big deal, except they stayed there until the 7th inning, talking, right behind me, and quickly made it apparent they had no intentions of leaving. I approached an usher and asked if people were supposed to be standing in the aisle, and was told no. So I made my way back to my seat and let it be known they shouldn't be standing (at this point my combat PTSD was beginning to kick in and I was getting agitated considerably). My lady then approached the usher and asked if something could be said to the gentleman since they had now been standing behind us, speaking loudly with couple next to us, and obviously didn't have the manners to realize they were aggravating people around them. Usher says to my lady and I quote "there are some other seats right over there and you folks are welcome to move". Nothing said to the inconsiderate people behind us, nothing said about them having Gen Adm tickets and I had paid a higher price to sit comfortably and again, the answer to the issue, according to the usher, was not to ask the guys to leave the aisle where they were standing and speaking loudly enough for the majority of our section to hear, but rather to ask us to move. To say I was aggravated, both with the guys and with the ushers response would be a gross understatement. We did in fact move down about 6 seats and then the gen adm guys jumped down and sat in our seats...in front of the usher, and nothing was said. Our ENTIRE experience up until the end of the game was absolutely horrible and we will not EVER attend another game for any reason whatsoever. Staff sucked, food sucked and the service sucked....all around. the ONLY reason you are getting 2 stars is because the fireworks were amazing...but we can watch that from our balcony which is only a few blocks away. Some of the Riverdog players live in our apartment building and they have been great to get to know and have been perfect gentleman! I applaud the players and whomever is in charge of fireworks, you did great! Everyone and everything else simply...

This venue is severely lacking in staffing and organization. We attended Bert Kreischer's Fully Loaded Comedy tour last night, and aside from the show, the event was unfortunately a total disaster. Even before setting foot in the stadium, navigating traffic and finding a parking spot alone took us 40 minutes. The lines to get wristbands and then in to the stadium were disorganized and incredibly long. The line for concessions (we timed it) took 1 hour 18 minutes -- This was after the show had already started and a majority of people should have been seated. When we finally got to the front of the line, they were out of beer. All the while, there were several rogue concession stands that were fully stocked with water and soda that were unmanned despite the sold-out stadium. When Jelly Roll -- one of the most popular artists in the country right now -- came out to sing a simple act with just him and his guitarist, the amps were static and not connecting properly to the guitar; the sound-tech had to come out and fiddle with the cords, delayed the performance from starting, and left the talent standing there awkwardly. The musicians were good sports about it, but it was an incredibly embarrassing representation of the City of Charleston, and further proof of the stadium's lack of general competence. Because of how epically bad it was, I was telling a coworker about it, while giving them the benefit of the doubt: "Maybe it was because it was a comedy tour; not a baseball game," but then she said the same thing happened to her on opening night of baseball season. The lines were so bad that she had her kids go sit while she stood in line for about an hour just to get food/drinks. I hope they get their act together for the city's sake. Somewhere in the Riverdog Stadium's structure, there is a severe lack of attention to detail and gross mismanagement of funding for them to blow it so hard on such a big event. They need more, better allocated staffing...

We were really disappointed with our visit to the Charleston RiverDogs game on Friday, 8/29 Labor Day weekend. We had prepaid for parking, only to arrive to a large unpaved lot that appeared to just be general free parking. Walking up to the stadium, we were yelled at by a young girl on her phone who we eventually realized was security - there was no signage, no line, and she treated us like we were going through TSA instead of a family night at a ballgame.

Getting inside wasn’t much better. We had to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke to reach the ticket scanners, who were too busy chatting to acknowledge us- I had to interrupt them just to scan our tickets. No “hello” or “welcome” at all.

Concessions were a mess. The first stand we waited at was sold out of both hot dogs and soft pretzels (the only things our kids wanted from that stand). After waiting in a second long line, we finally got hot dogs and stale nachos with a questionable cheese cup. When I asked for ketchup, I was directed to a condiment station that had none. After asking again, I was told the entire park was sold out of ketchup, which would have been good to know before buying overpriced hot dogs my kids wouldn’t eat plain.

To top it off, our seats were another disappointment. I had selected seat numbers when purchasing, but our section turned out to just be general bleacher seating with no space for our family of five to sit together.

At that point, we gave up. We left shortly after without ever sitting down, eating, or watching any baseball- or the fireworks we were looking forward to. A complete bust of what we hoped would be a fun...