First time I've been at QUALCOMM stadium. I could tell its older stadium from some others out there. Place is a concrete monolith, suspect it's a late 60's early 70's structure, they seemed to love concrete back then as the primary surface you see. It does not seem to have any of the fancy box seats, enclosed glass rooms that these new stadiums all love to charge an arm and a leg for, and make a ton of profit from. Surprised they have not added those to it, like I saw at Dodger stadium in LA, that’s even older, and they have tried to add some modern features.
We sat next to the score board in the "family section" V54 specifically. Problem with that section, is you are right adjacent to the loud speaker system for the entire stadium, thing must be set at 100 debacles. I could not hear anything else other then the constant music and announcements they have. I eventually took some paper towels and rolled them into ear plugs, that helped quite a bit, to a manageable level, but then I could not really talk to my friend. The field is surprisingly close and you can clearly see who has the ball, that is until they get close to the end zone nearest our seats, then I had to stand up, but even then, some of the end zone is blocked by other people standing and the bleachers.
They have a jumbo tron at the opposite side of the main score board we were next to, so at least we could see the replays, but there was limited info, other then the score board mounted on the other bleachers end. Meaning there were shorthand descriptions for quarter, downs etc.. Unless you know them, you may get lost in the shorthand jargon that the limited size of the small scoreboard can only hold. They don't have screens anyplace else, not even along the ends of the upper deck bleachers that Dodgers stadium has.
The food court area on one side of the building has an outdoor area and an indoor area. There also appears to be an inside upstairs area, but we never looked there. There are no TV's setup outside in the food court area to look at the early NFL games, they have some TV's on the inside lower bar/food area, but I think it was only showing QUALCOMM stadium video. When we went in there, they card you for ID, since they sell beer inside. But we found every chair and seat pushed to the windows side of the room. Reason being, all the TV's showing the one early game they had was above the bar area facing one direction towards the windows. Why they have only a few TV's and all of them on one side of the room is just plain bad. They need to set it up more like a sports bar with multiple TV's in many different areas, and showing a few different early NFL games. That way none of the chairs and tables would be to one side, and I think they could fit in quite a few more chairs and tables. Making for a far nicer area to be in, we skipped it, and went outside to the picnic tables they have setup. Thank god they have umbrellas over each picnic table, that was nice to be in the shade.
Since once we ended up in the stands in the V54 area, there was virtually no shadow to hide behind. The sun is incessant on that side of the stadium, and the shadows from the other side of the stadium never come close to you. If your on the last chair of a row next to the score board, you can lean yourself into the wall and get some shade, but as soon as the play starts, you need to move back. This is the only place you get any shade, and in the late morning when the score board is casting a shadow on the upper bleachers.
In terms of parking, they have enough, but get there early enough. It took us 45mins to get in. You wait in line for a very long time, circumnavigating the perimimeter of the parking area tell they ask for you to pay $25 for your vehicle. So fill up the car, or van to divide that cost up the most. Even at 11am, with a 1pm game, we ended up very far away, almost to the tram they have. There is a tram that drops people off, so maybe there is an alternate cheaper way by parking in some public parking at one of the tram stops, and then taking it to the stadium.
The vending area at least on the top level and it looks about the same on the bottom level, got very packed during half time. We spent all our time in line waiting, and the game began during our wait. At least they have monitors at the vendors to look up too. But there is not enough space or venders. The crowd has to squeeze around the vending area, maybe down to one or two people across to pass the lines on the back side. The drinks are not fountain, but rather 20oz bottles, that are rather semi cool, mostly because they are constantly refilling the frigdgerator with 20oz bottles from the back, so they hardly have time to cool off before they are taken off the shelf. I think they are like $5.25, rather steep for warm coke. But I needed the drink, being in the hot sun most of the day. If they actually had fountain drinks and ice on hand, then at least the drinks would be cold.
Overall it was cool to see a NFL game for the first time myself, I have mostly seen Big 10 football, and taken tours of other NFL stadiums, like Phoenixes’ one in Scottsdale. And been to some Dodgers games, and Dodger stadium is a well oiled place, enough room, short lines at the vendors with large cold drinks! Plus easy parking that flows into the stadium, instead of crawling into the stadium like Qualcomm. I think Qualcomm stadium needs to make some internal improvements, or start over at the stadium. I don't think it's kept up with the times and made the necessary changes that people now expect at a stadium.