COLUMN: Picking the right venue

As a part of my role as the CNA’s primary sports reporter, I’ve been to a lot of state tournaments and meets. Each arena and stadium has its positives and negatives.

State wrestling was the most recent with the girls tournament at the Xtream Arena in Coralville and the boys at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. The boys state duals are also at the Xtream Arena.

The Xtream Arena is definitely a much bigger pain to get into and out of. I always park in the hotel parking garage, but getting back out to the highway takes forever. I had no problem parking in the lot in Des Moines, but it is $12. That’s no issue for me since I’m being reimbursed, but that’s almost $50 total if you go all four days.

I think the next issue is more IGHSAU vs IHSAA, the girls union versus the boys union. The girls tournament in Coralville is well-marked for media with a big sign telling you which door to use. From there, a worker will direct you down the stairs to the area where cheerleaders, wrestlers and media are between matches.

In Des Moines, media uses the VIP entrance. Now that I know this, it’s easy, but how hard would it be to say the entrance is VIP, ADA and media? Once you get into the arena, you’re just on the top level with every other fan and no instruction on how to get to the mats.

My first year, I had to ask three people how to get to the floor level. The first two didn’t even know — maybe they were extra hands for the big event. The third finally directed me to a random, unlabeled door that leads to a staircase.

My second day I was just walking around looking for what felt like the door to Narnia. I’m terrible remembering directions. I opened more than one wrong door before finding the right one.

This year they had a worker posted outside the door the entire time checking badges, so it was easy to find. But again, why the secrecy?

I prefer the media room in Coralville as it’s much more spacious than the one in Des Moines, but I don’t need to use the one in Des Moines as often.

At the Wells Fargo Arena, there is plenty of space for media, cheerleaders, coaches and wrestlers to get around each other. They have chairs lining the outside of the floor for media to sit between matches. As a five-months pregnant lady, this was greatly appreciated. The chairs are even cushioned.

In Coralville, the space is simply too small. The mats go all the way to the walls meaning as matches are ongoing, wrestlers, cheerleaders, media and coaches are walking on the mats to try to get to whichever mat they are on. It is a huge pain to try to get anywhere quickly and the space for media and cheerleaders is tiny.

The small size of the Xtream Arena works just fine for state duals, but the girls tournament has already almost grown out of the space. By separating into two weight classes this year, they were able to get through day one without selling out. One weight class wrestled in the morning session while the other went at night.

However, on day two when both weight classes were competing in the final matches, the event sold out. There’s simply not enough space for the growing popularity of the sport.

You can also see this with the food. While I didn’t try to get anything this year at Coralville, last year I stood in line at one of very few food stands for more than 30 minutes before I had to hop out of line because Zoey Vandevender was up to wrestle. Many of the food stands were closed and the ones open were understaffed.

Wells Fargo Arena, on the other hand, had a place where you put your order in on a kiosk and they got it out to me almost as soon as I finished paying. It worked to have all the employees focused on getting food out.

I do really like both arenas for different reasons. I think if you could combine the clarity and behind-the-scenes space for media, wrestlers and cheerleaders of Coralville with the mat level, crowd space and food options of Des Moines, you’d have the perfect area.

Next up is Drake’s blue oval. Let’s hope for clear, mild weather rather than the typical thunder storms or heat wave.