Seating capacity at Barlow Stadium limited to 450 people

SANDPOINT — The seating capacity at War Memorial Field on Friday will be limited to 450 people in the Barlow Stadium grandstands and 200 people in the visitors bleachers, according to an email Tuesday afternoon from Lake Pend Oreille Superintendent Tom Albertson.

“The priority of LPOSD is to open schools on September 8,” Albertson wrote in the email. “As we lead up to September 8, we are taking safety precautions with crowd sizes for extra-curricular activities. In coordination with the city of Sandpoint who consulted with Panhandle Health District, we have developed a reduced seating occupancy for War Memorial Field.”

If the visiting school doesn’t use all of the tickets allocated to them, then those tickets will be made available to the general public, according to the email.

The seating capacity at the field was based on social distancing guidelines of 6 feet, which would allow the grandstands to seat 360 people. The school district then factored in “25% to accommodate for family members sitting together to reach the 450,” according to the email.

Kickoff for Friday’s football game against Post Falls is set for 7 p.m. SWX will be televising the first game and a radio broadcast on KSPT 1400 is available for people who are not able to attend in person.

“There remains a possibility that occupant load can be increased for upcoming games,” Albertson wrote. “It is recommended that we be conservative this first game and wait for school to open. Over the next few weeks, we may be able to reassess occupancy based on the stats as presented by Panhandle Health.”