X Games Sacramento was Disappointing
Flew from out of state to attend X Games Sacramento. My husband and I are huge BMX fans and attend many BMX events. We also both grew up watching the X Games events on tv every year.
This event felt like a spectator mess. The viewing situation was terrible. There was no official spectator seating and being able to see the course from the standing crowd was nearly impossible. And that was even with standing near the “front”. For skateboard park, we were right in the front, but the VIP crowd was in an additional crowd in front and it was so hard to spectate. The only events you could truly spectate were FMX and dirt jumps since they were in the air.
Aside from just the spectator situation, there was no where to sit down at all. No tables to eat purchased food, no benches, nothing. People all around were sitting on the bare cement to rest from standing for all of the events.
The weather was decent overall for it being June in Sac, but it was still very warm overall (nothing that can be done about that). The issue here is that the vendors were running out of water and there was nowhere to refill water bottles. We went to purchase water and were told they were out, along with other vendors.
The last event of the day was the triple jumps. Everyone was waiting (standing) around for about an hour before it started. Then it officially started another 30 mins past when it was supposed to. When it finally got started, they did 2 runs and then cut to a “competition break” for almost 10 minutes. This pattern of 2 runs and then commercial went on for the rest of the event. At this point, we had been standing and walking around the venue for almost 9 hours (again, no sitting areas) and were a little fed up.
X Games needs to host their events at venues that can adequately seat the crowd they attract to their events. Not even just for sitting but actually being able to watch the event the people pay for. The fact that the park course, skatepark, and even the vert ramps were difficult to watch is crazy considering that is what the event is for.
Attached is a photo of my view from BMX park.
Edit:
FMX best trick: when spectating this event, the spectator area was directly facing the sun. It was difficult to spectate because on each run, the sun was blinding the crowd looking up.
The venue did have an entire stadium with bleacher seating. This was the area for the music part of the event (not sure why x games has a music festival) . I feel like it would’ve made much more sense to have the park, street, and vert events to be held in the arena where everyone could actually see what’s happening.