The Memorial tailgating lot has been a tailgating tradition for University of South Carolina football games. This season, it will be under new ownership, changing from Morrison Memorial, LLC to Viral College Entertainment, LLC.
With new ownership comes changes, and The Daily Gamecock sports staff caught up with new operator Alex Waelde to explain them.
Q: Why did Memorial Lot change ownership?
“Last year's memorial was a ... disaster with the line ... I operate the fraternity lots as well. So when I heard all of the disaster stuff going on with Memorial, I basically put my name in the hat so to say and I was like ‘if ya’ll want me to take this over, I can take this over and run it like the fraternity lots', so they liked that.”
Q: What are the changes to Memorial Lot this season?
“For starters, last year I think there was like seven bathrooms on the property. Something like that. I’m putting a minimum of 15 this year. Quite frankly, they won’t even know which one to pick to go to. ... The owner of Chick-Fil-A is a friend of mine, so we put Chick-Fil-A in the lot this year. We’re going to be selling a limited menu, including Chick-Fil-A sandwiches for $5 —cash and card. They’re going to have a full tent set up and everything, like fresh sandwiches.”
Q: How can people access the lots this year?
“We did away with the wristband policy, so basically we’re doing pre-banding. Again, I’m running this the same way I run the fraternity lots where the fraternities get their wristbands ahead of time and they just hand them out to everybody they want. So what we're doing is this year, with spot owners, I'm doing the same thing. The spot owners are just going to pick up wristbands and they can give them out to whoever they want. That way, when you’re coming up to Memorial Lot, whenever you decide to get there, you’re not waiting in a line. You can just hold up your wrist and walk right in. Again, identical to how they do it in the fraternity lots.”
Q: What will the law enforcement presence be like?
“There is gonna be law enforcement there. Probably two to six officers. But I mean, that’s nothing compared to the riot squad that was there last year. Granted, also, half of them were dealing with the ... line. The line going away is the big thing that’s going to alleviate all of the pressure. We kept the spots at the same spot price, too so they’re still $350. I think they were like $360 or something last year. There was no price hike there.”
Q: Are there still spots left in the lot?
“We sold 180 spots in 12 hours. When I tweeted out that the spots were on sale, literally the website crashed. Like the server crashed. ... I think we have 30 spots left. I think the last time I checked it was like 31. We’ve still got a month before the first home game. ... We’re about to fill up and when we’re full, we’re full.”