Zona Zoo Executive Director David Roost and student body president Tommy Bruce held a press conference in the Student Union Memorial Center yesterday afternoon to discuss their plans for Zona Zoo. Now in its fifth year of existence, they finally think they have got it right.
“”We didn’t have to make too many changes because we think that after last year, we finally have a stable system,”” Bruce said. “”It is important to have both stability and growth to allow us to improve the system whenever we need to.””
Two things were made clear during the press conference, both of which seemed to be pressing issues amongst the students. The first was that another fiasco like the one that occurred at the first football game last year – where students were arrested, including one who was tazed by police when they closed off seating before game time without notice – will not happen again.
“”We fixed the problems that we had with the football game last year,”” Roost said.
Another policy that Bruce said Zona Zoo has made clear to prevent any violent outbreaks is that there is no guaranteed seating at football or basketball games for Zona Zoo members.
Another major improvement made by Zona Zoo is that it’s going to try and expand to the “”smaller”” sports in an effort to spread school spirit all around campus and to help support teams that may not get as much recognition as others.
“”We want to start to spread out to all sports and this includes having a Zona Zoo night for every sport,”” Bruce said.
The new and improved Zona Zoo system has a lot of hype from people around campus and as the year continues there are sure to be more improvements. This year there will be a 5 percent revenue-sharing fee taken off of each pass sold to go into a fund that would be used to make improvements to the system if needed.
“”We want students to feel an investment in their Zona Zoo pass,”” Bruce said.
Zona Zoo will host the first Bear Down Fridays event of the year tonight at 5 on University Boulevard in hopes of drawing a lot of support for the UA football team’s season opener against Idaho tomorrow. Mike Stoops, Lute Olson, Niya Butts, Robert Shelton and Chris Vlahos are all expected to be in attendance for the event today, the Zona Zoo directors said.
“”We are trying to develop (the program) so that it works for everyone,”” Roost said.
