Local Businesses Hope to Score with Thousands Coming for Prestigious Soccer Event
John Palminteri
UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – With a major soccer event set for Tuesday at UC Santa Barbara, many nearby businesses are expecting a large economic boost including restaurants, hotels, soccer stores and apparel vendors.
The U.S. Women’s National Team will take on Chile at Harder Stadium at 7 p.m.
Already more than 14,000 tickets have been sold and there’s room for more. Additional bleachers have been added. There is also a General Admission area. Harder Stadium is also known as “Soccer Heaven.”
Advanced sales included early access to tickets for students. There was a sweeping response and thousands of tickets were sold. A check online shows there are still several good seats available especially for single ticket buyers who would like to sit at mid-field.
For those providing extra services and food, the 72-hour period prior to the match will be as if a large rock concert or community festival will be taking place.
Elubia Orozco at Elubia’s Kitchen in Isla Vista will be providing food at the event as a regular caterer with UC Santa Barbara in addition to the restaurant she owns. “For us it is super super exciting, it is an honor to be there because it is international.” She will be working on menu items before dawn. “Everything needs to be fresh. The food, the beans and the rice.”
At the restaurant it is a multiple item menu and meals. At the sporting events and festivals it is simple and fast for the quick turn around needed to meet the demand on the spot. “We are planning to have burritos, the street tacos, the pupusas and potato taquitos and they are the most popular.”
Logistics, ordering, preparations and set ups are now all underway for many vendors.
Woodstock’s Pizza in Isla Vista has been one of the longest running UC Santa Barbara athletic supporters with a presence on and off campus. The crew will also be making pizza’s all morning to deliver to the stadium in warmers. They will be feeding hungry fans slice by slice as soon as they enter.
For student athletes, many will be staffing paid positions for this event. It is some side money but also a payoff with the exposure to the world class competition.
Parker Simmons is a UCSB Track and Field Athlete who says, “something as big as this, I have never seen before on campus it’s really exciting to bring USA stuff here.” He says, “we’re going to have a packed (stadium.) We will definitely have a stadium pulse so it’s going to be so much fun to work in.”
There are other aspects of the event that will include traffic control and security. Attendees will be arriving well before the event begins.
Harder Stadium has been upgraded with special red, white and blue event wraps and it will be an international showcase for UCSB and its nationally known soccer reputation.
For nearby Goleta businesses, they too should be expecting an increase in customers before and after the match on the streets heading in to UCSB.
There are many food places near the campus like those in the Camino Real Marketplace, in Old Town Goleta and neighboring areas, that are already the go-to spots for big crowds coming and going to the campus.