T-Mobile Arena Open House Recap

From 8:00 AM on February 21 until 8:00 AM on February 22, T-Mobile Arena hosted a unique Open House.
While hope that many of you will masw it down to enjoy the festivities with us, you can also look back at all of the events here on what was our 24-hour running Open House Blog.

8:00 AM
Exactly 24 hours after we started, our Open House has now ended. More than 9,000 fans attended.
The entire Golden Knights organization has been blown away by the support, which is very much appreciated.
We can't wait to see everyone back out at T-Mobile Arena again soon.

7:07 AM
Our last winner of the day has just rung the gong. Perhaps it was fitting that the loudest was saved for last?

6:09 AM
We've officially made it through the night at T-Mobile Arena!
Or perhaps we should say Knight?

6:03 AM
The gong has been going all night long for winners.

3:13 AM
What's really been interesting to see is what sort of crowd is showing up at this time of night.
From talking to our guests, it seems as if many are either getting off or beginning their work shifts (isn't that what they say about Las Vegas being a three-shift town?)
We had one group that came together after finishing their shift at the Beerhaus at 1:30.

We also had one guy stop by before his shift at Monte Carlo, and a handful of Aria employees came in right after their shifts.
One of them ended up winning tickets to our home opener in the 3:00 AM hour.
2:31 AM
Foot traffic has slowed considerably over the past few hours.
But what's impressed us is that there has been a steady flow of people in T-Mobile Arena all night. The team's staff has been working nonstop, and even though the amount of traffic has slowed since last night, there still is a lot of enthusiasm every hour, when someone wins tickets to our home opener.
After all, that's what enables them to ring our gong.

We also had to do a double take when one of our visitors arrived where a vintage IHL Las Vegas Thunder jersey. We don't see too many of those anymore, but loved the nod to this city's hockey history.

12:00 AM
Over the past few hours, we've seen the departure of the "day" crowd and arrival of the "night" crowd. This has made for some spirited pickup hockey games on the arena floor.
It's also made for some uncharted territory as our Open House began its second day.
As far as we know, no NHL team has ever hosted an Open House that has shifted into a second day like this, with no break in between.

10:11 PM
We're now a bit past our halfway point, and foot traffic has slowed down a bit in T-Mobile Arena.
But while the numbers have thinned a bit, it's been made up for by the continuous flow of action.

8:00 PM
We've officially hit our halfway point!

7:07 PM
We just check in with a few of our ticket winners, who by attending our Open House ended up winning free tickets to our team's home opener this October.
We've done about 11 of these now, but seeing the winners' faces never stops being a whole lot of fun.

5:51 PM
Golden Knights owner Bill Foley just finished meeting with the media.

In addition to our Open House, he was also asked about other pertinent issues such as the Raiders and the Golden Knights' process of continuing to fill out the team's business and hockey staffs.
On what's been a pretty lighthearted day today, most of the questions matched in tone.
However, Foley delivered one answer that seemed to to epitomize the team's day at T-Mobile Arena. After all, its not every day that a team holds a 24-hour Open House at its arena.

4:43 PM
The activity on the arena is starting to get intense. We've seen a few slap shots ride high, a few goalies take a couple stingers and a few giant games of Jenga have made crashing noises upon conclusion.

We've also had quite a few kids getting in some good shots on the arena floor, too.

4:20 PM
Something that has made this morning and afternoon more fun for our team has been the presence of CBS RADIO.
Throughout the day, CBS RADIO has been on-site, producing a variety of programs live from T-Mobile Arena. The consensus seems to be the same: everyone is just hungering for the day when our team has players and when our team plays games.
Although he hasn't played in the NHL since 2000, one NHL player on staff is senior vice president Murray Craven, who played in the league for 18 years.
Craven is currently a guest on KLUC 98.5. For those of you listening on the radio, he's what Craven's radio interview looks like, behind the scenes.

2:23 PM
As fans roll on in -we've had more than a few thousand already, for sure, and are only about six hours into the Open House, more and more are making their way to the arena floor. It's there that they have the opportunity to participate in a variety of interactive games.

1:15 PM
Just awarded another fan with tickets to our first-ever home game this October.

10:07 AM
One of the real interesting things that we've seen so far this morning is people's reactions when they find out they've won free tickets to our home opener this October (exact date TBD).
Reactions have ranged from excited to delirium.
Here is one happy family who smiled for our camera after their victory.

The other fun part of seeing two winners selected every hour is seeing the look on people's faces when they ring our ceremonial gong to signal their win.

Is it possible that nobody has actually rang a gong before?
8:41 AM
We've had hundreds of people come through the gates in the first hour here. We also go to see this beauty of a hockey stick, which Golden Knights head equipment manager Chris Davidson-Adams showed off for us.

Of course, NHL players have their own model of sticks that they tend to favor.
So we're not sure how many Golden Knights will use a stick like this. But still, what a beauty this stick is
8:34 AM
It wasn't quite what we expected, but we saw fans actually camped out on Toshiba Plaza, waiting to come running into T-Mobile Arena the second the doors opened.
We're not sure if they slept here. But they were out in chairs, ready to go before we even started. That's awesome!
7:43 AM
We're only about 15 minutes from the doors opening. But looking at the setup on the arena floor, it really has us anticipating the coming day here.

We hope many of you can come by to take your best shot!
4:32 AM
Hey, Golden Knights fans! It's super early in the morning, a few hours before the doors to our Open House open at 8:00 AM.
In a way, being at T-Mobile Arena this early kind of feels like getting up for youth hockey practice, before dawn, when your mom or dad drags you out of bed and helps you throw your gear on.

Except we're not even tired.
We're really excited about what today's going to bring, and hope you're here either in person, or to follow along on VegasGoldenKnights.com.