The Blue Cross Arena first opened in 1955 as the Rochester Community War Memorial. In 1996, the building underwent a $41 million dollar renovation to include state-of-the-art lighting, more concessions and restrooms, banquet/banquet facilities, and increased seating capacity. The arena remained fully functional throughout the two-year process and re-opened as the Blue Cross Arena in 1998.
The Rochester Arena hosts the American Hockey League, Rochester Knighthawks of the National Lacrosse League and Rochester Razorsharks of the Premiere Basketball League. It has a maximum seating capacity of 11,215 people for hockey and 12,428 for other events. Seats for all playing events are very affordable with $19.00 as the maximum ticket price for the Americans and $27.00 for the Knighthawks. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the box office, calling Ticketmaster, or ordering through the Ticketmaster website.
In addition to the regular seating capacity, a party committee that has 40 people is available for reservations for any arena event. There are also luxury packs that come with 12 tickets to the event, but you can purchase an additional eight tickets and bring up to 20 with you. Food and beverage service additives The charge and the cost of the excise tax varies by event type.
Group sessions are available for any group of at least 20 people. However, some events may have limited group seats available, so please contact the group sales office to check availability. The seats primarily serve as a base.
Located inside the arena is a shop on the lower level that sells Rochester sports merchandise. There is also an American commercial when you first enter the session level (accessible via a set of stairs at the entrance level). Concession stands are available through ARAMARK and feature a typical farewell event.
During my visit, the pillow seats were the best of any seat. This made my experience more pleasant as I was able to be more comfortable in my seat and not endure the plastic seating that most other venues offer to the public. Trucks are not known to get hot unless they are playing rival teams. At a hockey game, they’re usually pretty quiet and don’t really cheer too much.
The staff is very friendly, but not too strict about checking tickets or preventing fans from entering the section where the players are seated. You can pretty much walk in any section without any problems.
One of the things I don’t enjoy is that once you get out of your way, navigating the sand can be difficult. For example, one of the concessions is sitting far from some. I took the wrong, and in returning I thought I was lost; however, the messenger was there to assure me that I received my 100th level without any problems. Although I’m happy to have their attention, the area plan can be confusing if you’ve never visited it before. .
Even if you sit in certain parts of the arena, your view may be obstructed. For example, when I visited the arena with a group of hockey fans, the representative accidentally got us tickets in the wrong attack zone. We were sitting far outside the road from the area where our team scored twice and was leaning far to the right to see the action at the end. The combination was not comfortable, so you might want to try the virtual arena on the seat lessor’s website before you buy the tickets. When you click on the seat chart and then the section, you will be able to see what kind of view you have from your seats.
I will definitely come back to Blue Cross Arena again. The updates were very well done and are going to do little fanfare, if anything, if you don’t mind being an American fan. However, next time I hope I will be able to settle down better and know how to navigate a little better to build.
For more information about upcoming events and the arena itself, give them a call at 585-758-5330 or e-mail [email protected]
