Yesterday was the first day of the conference and while I was in sessions from 7 am to 5:45 Paul wandered about the city. He has more interesting tales to tell about Denver than I but he is still snoring away in the bedroom.
I won't regale you with tales of the conference for that would bore anyone except for those who are into online leanring and use Desire2Learn as their learning management system (see, I bet I bored some fo you regular folks there didn't I?).
On to the client celebration. Every year the company honours its clients with a party that generally ties in to the area in some way - last year we had a world's fair theme on Chicago's Navy Pier. This year we loaded up on buses and headed to Denver's famous Mile High Stadium where we found all sorts of activities, games, tours, food, drinks, and music.
While on the tour we learned a great deal about the stadium. For example:
Groundbreaking took place on August 17th, 1999.
INVESCO Field’s opening event was an Eagles Concert that occurred on August 11th, 2001.
Total seating capacity of the stadium is 76,125. Football games are always sold out.
There are a total of 132 Luxury Suites on two levels and 8,800 club seats.
Construction of the stadium cost more than $400 million, including $2.6 million for video boards and $7 million for stairways and handrails.
Total stadium square footage equals 1.8 million square feet.
The stadium is comprised of 12,000 tons of structural steel, 200,000 pounds of aluminum, 130,000 bricks, 1.6 millions masonry blocks, 1,500 plumbing fixtures and 25,000 light fixtures.
The stadium holds 530 televisions, 633 speakers, 686 1,500 watt GE metal halide lights in the stadium bowl and more than 1,000 phone lines throughout the stadium, with 350 in the press box alone.
The first row of the Level 4 Suites is officially one mile (5,280 feet) above sea level.
There are 560 concession stand points of sale.
There are 48 miles of tubing to deliver beer from the beer cooler rooms to the various concession stands.
A small bowl of peanuts costs $ 29 in one of the private booths.
INVESCO Field hosts approximately 300 events each year.
An event like the one we attended where the entire stadium was rented generally costs $ 250,000
There games and challenges were cool . . .
You could ride a mechanical bull . . .
Or bounce on a giant trampoline . . .
There was a giant obstacle course - that is Paul race to the finish line!
Human Bowling
Paul was a good sport and was strapped into the ball. He 'scored' a spare.
You could outdraw a colleague - the score on the right was mycolleague Nancy. The one on the left was her sister - a police officer. Hmmmmm
There were nerf footballs on the tables so I smuggled one out on to the field where silliness ensued.
The live music/duelling pianos was great!
As was the view of the skyline from the club level lounge.
What a fun night at Invesco Mile High Stadium - thanks D2L!
Fantastic...what fun to see all this, thanks for sharing. Love that bowling ball thing, Paul is such a good sport!
Posted by: Kayte | July 12, 2011 at 09:37 AM
He sure was - I'd have gotten all clastrophobic in that but he looked and said 'strap me in, I'll do it!'
Posted by: JDeQ | July 19, 2011 at 08:35 AM