New temporary stadium promises 'great experience on the lakefront'

Construction hasn’t started yet, but Northwestern’s temporary lakefront stadium is beginning to come into focus.

Just a couple months ago, the Lanny and Sharon Martin Lakefront Facility wasn’t even a solution on the table to host football games. Last month, the plan was approved to host football games over the next two years. This week, they released a schedule with five games slated to be played there this fall, including three Big Ten contests. And on Thursday, we got a seating chart and ticket information for the first time.

In other words, this is really happening.

One of the big reasons that this temporary lakefront stadium is a reality is Jesse Marks, Northwestern’s Assistant Vice President & Deputy Athletic Director. He did a lot of work behind the scenes to push the idea through the athletic department, according to multiple sources. For the last few weeks he’s been working on game day and operations planning. So he’s been a busy guy, and we’re starting to see the fruits of his labor.

Marks, who has been in his position for less than three years, is clearly excited about what the temporary facility will mean to Northwestern football, and the university in general. But at the same time, he’s also a realist.

“It’s going to be exciting,” he said over the phone on Thursday. “Is it perfect? No. It’s a temporary situation, but it’s going to be a great experience on the lakefront for two years.”

The program released the seating chart for the new stadium, but that’s only part of the picture. Marks envisions the area around it, too. Several times during our conversation he used the term “activate the entire lakefront” to refer to activities going on around the stadium that will engage fans.

In addition to parking lots with traditional tailgates, there will be “tailgate villages” on the lakefill, said Marks, offering “turnkey tailgating solutions” that may include tents and catering. “It will be a Ravinia-type experience,” he said, referring to the famous outdoor concert venue up the coastline in Highland Park.

There will be beer gardens and television screens, so that fans and students who don’t have tickets will still want to come and watch the game just to be part of the event.

As far as the stadium itself goes, there will be seating on all four sides of the gridiron. Capacity will probably be “a bit under 15,000,” said Marks, who added that they are still working to add seats wherever they can.

Of those nearly 15,000 seats, about 3,000, or 20%, will go to fans of the visiting team, as per the Big Ten contract, according to Marks. Somewhat surprisingly, Marks said that the new stadium will accommodate all season ticketholders (STHs) from the old Ryan Field for up to four seats.

“InProduction are magicians,” said Marks about the company building the facility. “They’ve worked in tighter spaces.”

STHs will get first dibs on season tickets, and their points status won’t be dinged if they decide not to renew, as the basketball program did when they played at Allstate Arena in 2017-18, while Welsh-Ryan Arena was rehabbed. “That’s only fair,” said Marks.

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There will be a lot more information released in the coming weeks about ticket packages for STHs deciding whether or not to buy tickets for the next two years. The presale for STHs will start on June 10 and run through July 16, according to an email from Northwestern Athletics.

Marks points out that the program already has a waiting list of 2,000 non-STHs who want to buy tickets for these next two seasons. Plus, with fewer than 15,000 total seats, there are no guarantees that single-game tickets will be available after season tickets are gobbled up.

“There are a lot of hungry people who want tickets,” he said.

Marks said that he expects the majority of STHs to buy tickets for the new facility. That was a driver behind building this temporary stadium on campus in the first place, instead of playing at venues such as Soldier Field or Seat Geek Stadium in the city and south suburbs, respectively.

“We felt like the farther south we went into Chicago, the fewer season ticket holders will go to games,” said Marks.

Northwestern, a program that already struggles with attendance, can’t afford that kind of attrition. They want to keep all the fans they can get. “We want to widen the tent going into the new Ryan Field [in 2026],” said Marks.

Last season, coming off of the hazing scandal and firing of head coach Pat Fitzgerald in July, the Wildcats averaged a paltry 23,257 fans per game. That’s the lowest single-season average since 1980, according to HailToPurple.com.

After the five games on the lakefront, the Wildcats will also play their last two home games at Wrigley Field, where they’ve played games before and have an existing partnership with the Chicago Cubs. Northwestern will host Ohio State on Nov. 16 and Illinois on Nov. 30 at the Friendly Confines. Tickets for those games will be sold separately, as they have been in the past.

As for the stadium itself, the North end zone stands will be “the grandstand,” says Marks, bleachers that will be home to close to 5,000 fans, or about a third of the capacity. This is where visiting fans, students and the Northwestern band will probably sit, he said.

The West side structure will be built on top of the existing stands for the lacrosse/soccer stadium that are there now (men’s and women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse will also play their games in the temporary stadium for the next two years). They will include sideline seats, a mezzanine, a “ledge” with tables, and then the press box for media and game operations.

The East stands will offer bench seating backing up to Lake Michigan, and will seat about 1,000 fans, according to Marks.

Finally, there’s the South end zone, what Marks calls “a first-class structure,” where a lot of the current Wildcat Den/Stadium Club STHs will sit. There will be a loge area of 18-20 tables for up to four people at field level, and then a large seating area with about 2,400 seatbacks. Finally, there will be two levels of 850+ open-air club seats, with 16 suites of capacities between 11 and 14, depending on the level, with all inclusive food and beverage.

“Think of a hospitality chalet at a major golf tournament,” said Marks.

In addition, the Kellogg building that sits just west of the stadium has a balcony with breathtaking views of the stadium and Lake Michigan. That area may be used to host recruits during games.

As far as parking goes, there are enough surface lots to accommodate what will be, by comparison, a small crowd for a football game. Some will offer traditional tailgating, others will have restrictions, such as no open-flame cooking devices, according to Northwestern’s release.

Both Northwestern and the visiting teams will utilize locker room facilities in the Walter Athletics Center, which sits just north of the what will be the North grandstands.

There are a lot of details yet to be worked out and a lot more information coming, but Marks likes where he and his team are at. It may have taken Northwestern a while to work out a plan, but now that it’s in place, they are all in.

Why not? As Marks put it, “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing for two years.”