Why some other bum may get to sit in your arena seat

If you pay to get your name on a plaque on one of the seats in the Sault's new sports and entertainment facilty, you won't necessarily get to sit there.

"There's no relationship whatsoever," says Ken Lajambe, fundraising chair for the new facility.

"People can buy a plaque to put on a seat and, as far as the season ticket holders go, we will ask them first if they want to buy a plaque on a seat," Lajambe says.

But the plaques have nothing to do with what seat a season's ticket holder is assigned.

There's also little relationship between the picture we've used to illustrate where the plaques will go, and what the actual seats in the new arena will look like.

But this image was supplied to SooToday.com by the committee to give a rough idea.

The seat plaque campaign was designed to give everyone an affordable opportunity to invest in the new sports and entertainment centre, said Lajambe.

"People are going to pay $150 to have a plaque engraved and affixed to a seat," he said.

The message will be limited to 20 characters on three lines or less and may be a message or a name, as per the purchaser's preference.

Seats will be randomly selected unless otherwise specified, and specifying otherwise could be a challenge at this point, since the architects have not yet assigned rows and numbers to the 4,000 or so seats that will be in the new facility.

Once that is done, and the 2,500 or so season-ticket holders have been assigned seats in the new facility, they will be offered the opportunity to put a plaque on the seat of their choice before it's opened up to the general public, said Lajambe.

Lajambe says a media blitz is being planned for late January to launch the seat plaque campaign to the general public.

The plaques will be affixed to a hollow on the front of the seat backs.