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Best Seats at Jack Trice Stadium
Jack Trice Stadium is one of the great environments in the Big 12 — a 61,500-seat open-air bowl in Ames that gets legitimately loud on a sold-out night under the lights. It’s also the only FBS stadium named for an African American athlete, a piece of history worth knowing before you walk in (more on that below). What you get on a Saturday is 61,500 people in an open bowl in a town of 66,000, which means almost everyone in Ames is either at the game or listening to it. The Cyclones draw a homegrown crowd that arrives absurdly early and stays loud, and the lower bowl repays that in a way the seating chart can’t show you.
Keep in mind: Most of the building is bench seating with no cover, the wind comes off open Iowa farmland in November, and Ames is a two-hour drive from a real airport. You come for the tailgate and the noise, not the amenities. Here’s how to pick a seat that gets you both.
Seating Overview at Jack Trice Stadium
Learn the numbering before you look at a map, because Jack Trice does something almost no other stadium does: the lower bowl is numbered 1 through 41, and the entire upper deck is lettered A through ZZ. There is no 100 level, no 200 level, and no Section I — the letters jump from H straight to J.
The field runs north–south with double-decked grandstands down both sidelines. The west side is the institutional side — the three-level press tower sits on top of it and 45 suites run its length. The east side is where most single-game buyers end up, and it’s also where the Jack Trice Club and the student section live. The south end is bowled in and holds the Sukup End Zone Club. The north end is the main entrance now, opening onto Albaugh Family Plaza, with grass hillside seating in the two north corners.
Two things separate a good seat here from a bad one: how high you sit, and whether anything is above you. The lower bowl is tight and genuinely loud. The upper deck is thirty rows of open bench with a great diagramming angle and nothing overhead. Everything else is detail.
Best Non-Premium Seats
East sideline lower bowl, sections 23–36. The best combination of price and proximity in the building. These sections sit opposite the press tower with the field close and the concourse behind you, and the back rows have something almost nothing else here has — cover. The tradeoff is that this side has no structure overhead until you’re deep in the section, so rows 1 through 39 are fully exposed.
East sideline lower, rows 40 and above. Same sections, better call for weather. The upper deck overhangs the back of the east lower bowl from roughly row 40 up, which is the only general-admission-priced cover at Jack Trice. You give up the front-row feel for a roof, which is a trade most people make happily by the second half of a September afternoon.
West sideline lower bowl, sections 1–14. The side with the press tower and suite infrastructure above it, and the newer concourse to go with it. Availability is the catch — this is the donor-weighted sideline, so single-game inventory here is thinner and pricier than the east.
Best Value Seats
Upper deck sideline letters, the C through G and R through V ranges. Thirty rows apiece, bench seating, and the whole field laid out in front of you. Nobody sits up here for the atmosphere — you sit up here because you can see a run fit develop, and because it’s a fraction of a lower-bowl sideline seat.
Upper deck near the north end, the letters approaching X. You’re stacked beside the student general-admission block, which is the loudest part of the building, without paying for a sideline. The end-zone-ish angle is worse than you’d like on goal-line plays and better than you’d expect on everything else.
Budget Seats and the Cheapest Way In
The grass hillsides in the northeast and northwest corners. Open lawn, general admission, first-come, and the cheapest ticket Iowa State sells — these corner berms are what push the official capacity to 61,500. They’re also the Jr. Cyclone Club areas, which means no alcohol is permitted on them at all, a detail worth knowing before you buy a hillside ticket expecting a beer. Fine on a bright October afternoon, miserable for a November night game, and unbeatable if you have kids who won’t sit still for four hours.
Our Pick
The east sideline lower bowl between the 30-yard lines, rows 40 and up. You get the lower-bowl noise, the only cover in the general seating bowl, and you don’t need to chase a specific section number — anywhere in the 27 to 34 range works.
Heat, Shade and Cover at Jack Trice
Cover at Jack Trice is structural, not directional, so ignore anyone telling you one sideline is the shade side. Two places catch shade and both are about rows, not compass points: the back of the east lower bowl from about row 40 up, where the upper deck overhangs, and the top of the west upper deck from around row 20, where the press tower throws a shadow as the afternoon runs out. In late October that press-tower shadow stops being a favor and starts being a cold pocket.
Everywhere else is open sky. September and early-October kicks in Ames get genuinely hot with no relief, so bring sunscreen and an empty plastic bottle — there are fillers on both the east and west concourses, and metal bottles are refused at the gate. For night games and late-November football, heat stops mattering and layers become the whole conversation.
What to Avoid, and What’s Worth Trying Once
Sections 15 and 16, and upper H and J. This is the designated visiting-team block in the southwest corner. Nothing wrong with the sightline, but if you’re a Cyclone fan who bought here by accident you’ll spend the day surrounded by the other team, and if you’re a visiting fan looking for a better angle you’ll be sitting alone in cardinal.
The first several rows anywhere in the lower bowl. The field sits slightly below the surrounding grade, which sounds like it should help and doesn’t — from row 5 you’re watching the near sideline’s back and guessing at everything past the far hash.
Worth it once — the Sukup End Zone Club. Three thousand chairback seats behind the south end zone with a two-level climate-controlled lounge above them, private restrooms, a full bar and a-la-carte food stations. As a football seat it’s a straight shot up the field rather than a sideline view. As a place to spend a cold October night, it’s the most comfortable spot in the building by a distance, and the lounge is genuinely good rather than a hallway with a TV in it.
Premium Seating & Clubs at Jack Trice Stadium
Premium at Jack Trice splits by side: an open-air heated club on the east sideline, a large end-zone club with an indoor lounge in the south, and the suites stacked on the west. Every one of them runs through Cyclone Club membership, so none is a walk-up purchase.
The Best Premium Experience
The Jack Trice Club, east sideline. An open-air club section with radiant heating built into the seating area, an air-conditioned and heated indoor lounge behind it, a private bar, a complimentary gameday buffet, HD monitors above the exterior seats and reserved parking close to the stadium. Radiant heat at a November game in Iowa is not a gimmick. The catch is access: club seats carry a per-seat season price on top of a Cyclone Club membership commitment, and seats are sold on a multi-year basis, so genuine single-game availability is rare. If you can get in for a cold late-season game, nothing else here compares.
Best Value Premium
The Sukup End Zone Club patio seats, south end zone. The rest of the Sukup club requires an annual Cyclone Club donation plus a season commitment, but the club also releases patio tabletops for four and bar-rail seats for two on a per-game basis — which is the one realistic way a visiting fan buys into premium at Jack Trice for a single Saturday. You get the lounge, the bars, the food stations and the private restrooms without the multi-year handshake. Contact the Cyclone Club directly; these don’t reliably surface on the public ticket page.
Other Premium Options
Beyond the two clubs, the west sideline carries the stadium’s suites and the press-tower sky boxes, and Iowa State runs a set of hospitality spaces around the building for groups and donors. Availability on all of it is season-based and donor-tiered.
Suites & Group Options
Forty-five suites run the length of the field across two levels of the west side, holding roughly 16 to 32 people depending on size, with theater-style padded seats, four VIP parking passes, six extra suite passes, semi-private bathrooms and Levy catering ordered separately. They’re leased, not sold by the game, so for a one-off visit call the Cyclone Club at 515-294-5022 and ask what’s been released.
Jack Trice Stadium Seating Chart
Jack Trice Stadium seats 61,500, which makes it the second-largest stadium in the Big 12 behind BYU’s LaVell Edwards. The record attendance is 61,500 exactly — set on September 5, 2015, against Northern Iowa, the first season after the Sukup End Zone addition took the capacity there.
The playing surface carries a naming-rights title — MidAmerican Energy Field — but nobody in Ames says it. Iowa State publishes an interactive 3D seating chart that lets you preview the view from a section before you buy, and it’s the fastest way to sanity-check a listing.
Here is the interactive Jack Trice Stadium Seating Chart to compare sections and find the right fit for your Iowa State football gameday.
Getting the Best Iowa State Tickets
Iowa State’s demand is opponent-driven, not schedule-driven, so the useful rule is to sort the home slate into three buckets. Farmageddon against Kansas State and the Cy-Hawk game in the years it falls in Ames price like postseason games — buy those the week the schedule drops and don’t wait for a dip that isn’t coming. Ranked Big 12 visitors sit in the middle. Non-conference and lower-tier league games routinely trade below face by gameday, and the hillside and upper-deck letters are the first inventory to soften, which is how you end up in a lower-bowl seat for upper-deck money if you’re willing to buy the morning of.
One caution: Jack Trice hosts occasional stadium-scale concerts and those run on an entirely different demand curve, so never use a concert’s pricing to read the football market.
Get your Iowa State Tickets Here though our partner Vivid Seats.
Jack Trice Stadium Bag Policy
Clear bags only, and Iowa State applies the policy to every ticketed event on campus, not just football. You can bring a clear plastic, vinyl or PVC tote up to 12″ x 6″ x 12″ with no logo larger than 4.5″ x 3.4″, a one-gallon clear freezer bag, or a small clutch up to 6″ x 9″ — note that’s a more generous clutch than the 4.5″ x 6.5″ most stadiums allow, so a bag that gets refused elsewhere may pass here. Exceptions are made for medical, family and child-care items.
The water rule catches more people than the bag rule. Metal water bottles are not permitted at all. You may bring one sealed plastic bottle of 20 ounces or less, or an empty plastic bottle to fill at the stations on the east and west concourses. Umbrellas, strollers and coolers are also out.
Key Venue Policies
Alcohol is now sold inside the stadium, and re-entry is gone. Iowa State began selling beer, wine and pre-packaged cocktails at Jack Trice for the 2026 season, and the price of that change is that you can no longer leave and come back — plan your tailgate as the thing you finish before you walk in. Sales are limited to two drinks per transaction with ID, stop at the end of the third quarter, and are handled at the north and south expanded gate areas and concourses rather than the permanent stands on the east and west outer concourses. Alcohol is not allowed on the north-corner grass hillsides at all, and students may carry only one drink into the student section.
The stadium is fully cashless. Concessions, merchandise, the ticket office and parking all take cards or mobile pay only, and there is no cash-to-card workaround on site.
Tickets are digital and screenshots are rejected at the pedestal. Load tickets and parking passes into your phone’s wallet before you leave the hotel — every gate scans directly from the device, and the queue is not the place to discover your barcode is an image file.
Accessibility information is published in Iowa State’s current Jack Trice Accessibility Guide, covering accessible parking, elevators, shuttles and courtesy carts.
Full policy details: Cyclone Gameday
Getting to Jack Trice Stadium
Ames has no rail, no subway and no stadium shuttle, and the stadium sits on the south edge of campus about 30 miles north of Des Moines. Nearly everyone drives, and the real decision is which lot rather than which mode.
Jack Trice Stadium Parking
Donor and public lots ring the stadium and open six hours before kickoff for most start times — 6:00 a.m. for late-morning kicks, 10:00 a.m. for anything after 4:00 p.m. Single-game passes are sold online only and sales close at noon the Friday before the game or when they sell out, with leftovers sometimes available on site. Public pass holders pick their lot on arrival, first-come. Vehicles over 24 feet long or 8’6″ wide don’t fit a standard stall, and pull-behind trailers and smokers are prohibited outright.
The hack most visitors miss: Iowa State runs free parking at the ISU Research Park and on central campus, both roughly a mile from the stadium. No pass, no charge, and a walk that’s shorter than the crawl out of the paid lots afterward. The tradeoff is that tailgating is prohibited at both, so it’s the move for people who are coming for the game rather than the lot. If you’re tempted by the residential streets north of Lincoln Way instead, check the City of Ames gameday parking restrictions first — the signage is enforced.
CyRide, the Ames City Bus
CyRide runs its regular Ames network on gamedays rather than a dedicated stadium shuttle, and the closest stop to Jack Trice is Lincoln Way and Beach. It’s cheap, it’s free for ISU students, and routes shift with kickoff time, so check cyride.com for your specific game rather than assuming a route number. If you’re already pregaming in Campustown, the walk from Welch Avenue is a pleasant 15 to 20 minutes through campus and beats waiting for anything.
Rideshare at Jack Trice
Uber and Lyft work fine getting in from downtown Ames or the campus-edge hotels — it’s a two to three mile trip. Getting out is the part to plan. Iowa State designates a specific rideshare pickup zone: the drive lane southeast of the pedestrian bridge, east of University Boulevard along the RV Village. Drivers are not permitted into the parking lots and can’t stop in traffic to load, so requesting a car from wherever you happen to be standing is how people end up waiting 20 minutes for a driver who can’t reach them. Walk to the bridge first, then request.
Iowa State Gameday Insider Tips & Hacks
Cyclone fans show up three hours early because they want to, not because traffic makes them. The lots fill with a tailgate culture that’s a genuine destination, the north plaza has turned the main entrance into a gathering place rather than a turnstile, and 2026 brought the two biggest gameday changes in years. A first-timer who reads this section will move through the day like someone who’s done it before.
The Jack Trice Story and the Two Statues
Read the Breaking Barriers sculpture in Albaugh Family Plaza before you go in. The 200,000-pound bronze-and-concrete piece on the north side renders Trice as a void in a cracked block of stone — he’s the absence, not the figure. Two minutes there reframes the whole building.
The bronze Jack Trice statue you may have read about isn’t here anymore. It stood outside the north entrance from 1997 until 2019, when the Sports Performance Center build displaced it and the university returned it permanently to central campus near Beardshear Hall. Most guides still send people to the wrong monument.
The name came from students, twice. The playing field was named for Trice when the stadium opened in 1975, but the university called the building Cyclone Stadium. Two more decades of student pressure got the whole facility renamed Jack Trice Stadium in 1997.
Getting Into Jack Trice Stadium: Gates and FastPass
Use Cyclone FastPass and skip the gate line entirely. Scan your ticket at one of three wristband stations — the Hilton Coliseum ticket office at its southwest corner, under the pedestrian bridge east of Lot S7, or east of the Lot A5 entrance — and you get a wristband that lets you walk in through a dedicated entry point at any of the three gates. Stations open four hours before kickoff and close two and a half hours out. Supply is limited and wristbands aren’t replaceable if you lose one.
A FastPass wristband is good until the end of the first quarter, not all game. That’s the actual value of it: scan early, stay at the tailgate, walk in late without queueing. Miss the end of the first and it’s worthless.
All three gates take any non-student ticket. Gate 1 is north at Albaugh Plaza, Gate 2 is east, Gate 3 is south at Reiman Plaza. Gates open 90 minutes before kickoff and there’s no seat-specific gate assignment, so use whichever is closest to your lot.
Load your ticket to your phone’s wallet before you leave. Screenshots are rejected at the scanning pedestals, and cell service degrades as the crowd builds — a fact that only matters if you waited.
What’s New at Jack Trice: Alcohol Sales and CYTown
Finish your tailgate before you walk in, because re-entry is gone. The 2026 alcohol rollout came with a hard no-re-entry rule. Fans who used to duck back to the lot at halftime can’t anymore, and this is the single most common way visitors will get caught out this season.
Know where the beer actually is. Alcohol is sold in the north and south expanded gate areas and concourses, plus a limited number of portable stands on the east and west. The permanent brick-and-mortar concession stands on the east and west outer concourses don’t sell it at all — Iowa State kept them dry on purpose to stop those concourses from jamming up.
CYTown is going up in the tailgate lots, so check your lot before you drive. The $200 million retail and entertainment district between the stadium and Hilton Coliseum is being built in phases on what used to be Tent Row, and lot layouts have shifted through construction. The tents themselves relocated to the Scheman Courtyard, south of the Scheman Building.
Cross the pedestrian bridge over University Boulevard. It links the east lots and the RV Village to the stadium without anyone dodging traffic, and at peak foot traffic — a solid wall of cardinal and gold moving in one direction — it’s the establishing photo of the day.
Iowa State Tailgating
One parking pass buys one space, and it’s strictly enforced. Your tent, grill, chairs and cornhole all have to live inside your own stall. Staff will move equipment that creeps into a neighbor’s space or a drive lane.
Stay off the red-painted emergency lanes. They’re kept clear for police, fire and EMS access all day, and they’re the one rule where enforcement is immediate rather than a warning.
Tents cap at 10′ x 10′, and nothing gets set up on a truck bed, roof or trailer. Charcoal and LP grills are fine when weather allows, with one 20-pound cylinder per device and no spares. Open wood fires and portable fire pits are prohibited outright.
Keep your speaker small and pointed at your own tailgate. Standalone amps and DJ setups need prior written approval; a boom box is fine as long as the sound stays inside your space at conversational volume.
Beer and wine only in the lots. Hard liquor is prohibited on ISU property whether it’s open or sealed, along with glass bottles and kegs.
RV parking has an overflow option most people don’t know about. Cyclone Club permit holders park in the RV Village east of University Boulevard, but additional RV parking is available at the ISU Research Park about a mile south, opening Fridays at 5:00 p.m. — no tailgating permitted there, but it solves the Friday-night arrival problem.
Food, Drink and Concourse Strategy
Bring an empty plastic bottle and refill it. Bottle fillers run along both the east and west concourses. Metal bottles are confiscated at the gate, which is a genuinely common September mistake in a stadium with no shade.
Everything inside is cashless. Concessions, merch, the ticket office and parking take cards or mobile pay only, with no cash-to-card kiosk to bail you out.
Pull up the concourse map before you’re hungry. Iowa State publishes north and south concourse maps each season showing concessions, merchandise and beer garden locations, and the north and south ends are where the newer and faster points of sale sit.
Bringing Kids to a Cyclones Game
The grass hillsides are the family answer. Cheapest tickets in the building, general admission, and room for kids to move instead of sitting in a bench seat for four hours. They’re the designated Jr. Cyclone Club areas, which also means no alcohol is served or permitted there — a feature if you’re bringing a six-year-old.
Strollers are prohibited inside, so bring a carrier. This one strands people at the gate every season.
Children under two don’t need a ticket at all. Anyone in 12th grade or below can join the Jr. Cyclone Club, which covers admission to all home football games plus 80-plus other Cyclone events across the year.
Program the gameday hotline into your phone: (515) 296-7849. It’s the number for lost children, seat-area problems and anything else that goes sideways, and it’s staffed all game.
Player Access and the Warmup Window
The gates-open window is only 90 minutes, so warmups are the whole opportunity. Get in at the first scan and go straight down to the lower rows near the tunnel end — there’s no formal autograph program at Jack Trice, so proximity and timing do all the work. Once the crowd fills the lower bowl the angle disappears, and it fills fast.
Photo Spots and Venue Quirks
Signs and banners aren’t allowed inside the stadium. Not restricted by size — prohibited entirely, along with placards and leaflets. Leave the painted bedsheet in the car.
Drones are banned within three miles of the stadium on gamedays. ISU restricts the airspace and enforces it; working access requires an approved request through the university’s risk management office.
Guest Services sits below Section B on the west concourse and Section T on the east. Worth locating on arrival — it’s lost and found, fan services and your first stop for any accessibility need.
No golf carts. Only university-managed carts with an approved gameday function are allowed in the lots; anything else gets ticketed and removed.
Jack Trice Stadium Concerts
Jack Trice went 25 years without a concert, and now it’s on the circuit. George Strait, with Chris Stapleton and Little Big Town, played the first show here since 1999, and Luke Combs followed. If you’re looking at concert tickets rather than football, note that the entry rules change — gates, plazas and parking all run on a different plan than a Saturday game.
If You’ve Got Extra Time in Ames
Reiman Gardens sits directly across from the stadium and has a year-round indoor butterfly wing, which is the one non-football stop that reliably earns a family’s time. The campus core — the Campanile and the Memorial Union — is a short, genuinely pretty walk from the north lots if you build in half an hour before tailgating. Beyond that, save your legs for the lot.
Hotels Near Jack Trice Stadium
Ames is a mid-sized college town with a solid hotel infrastructure for Big 12 football weekends. For marquee games — the Iowa rivalry game in particular — book at least 6–8 weeks out, as inventory disappears and prices spike. The good news: Ames isn’t a massive city, so most hotels are reasonably close to campus. Des Moines (30 miles south) is a viable overflow option with more hotel inventory, but you’re adding a commute to an already traffic-challenged postgame exit.
Best Areas to Stay
Near Campus / South Ames: The closest cluster to Jack Trice. Hotels here are within walking distance or a short rideshare to the stadium. This is where most visiting fans prefer to stay for the full gameday experience. South Ames along University Boulevard and near the Iowa State Center has several mid-range options.
North Ames / Highway 30 Corridor: A bit more removed from campus but still convenient. Better availability on sold-out weekends when nearby hotels fill. Slightly cheaper and easier to navigate post-game exit to I-35.
Downtown Des Moines (overflow option): If Ames is sold out, Des Moines has a robust hotel scene. You’re looking at a 35–45 minute drive each way, which is manageable if you account for postgame traffic.
Hotel Recommendations
Gateway Hotel & Conference Center (Ames, near campus): The closest full-service hotel to the stadium. Mid-range pricing, well-located for walking to campus. Books fast for big games.
Hilton Garden Inn Ames: Reliable mid-range option near Iowa State Center. Clean, consistent, close enough to walk or take a short rideshare.
Comfort Inn & Suites Ames: Mid-range, solid value, easy interstate access for post-game exit north or south.
Holiday Inn Express Ames University: Consistent budget-mid tier, near North Grand Mall area. Good value for shoulder games.
Budget Options
Sleep Inn & Suites Near ISU Campus (Ames – South Side): Sitting about two miles from the stadium, this hotel offers a free breakfast, free parking, and an indoor pool. It is a very consistent budget pick for fans and avoids some of the deeper campus congestion by being located slightly west of the main university drag.
Red Roof Inn Ames (Ames – East Side): If your priority is saving money for the tailgate and tickets, the Red Roof Inn is located off I-35 on the east side of Ames. You will need to drive or use rideshare to get to the stadium, but it frequently offers some of the lowest rates in the city while still keeping you within city limits.
Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham (Ames – East Side)
Also located near the I-35 corridor, this hotel offers bare-bones but reliable accommodations at a very low price point. It is not walkable to Jack Trice, but jumping onto the highway and taking the 13th Street exit puts you right into the stadium traffic flow.
Gameday Scene in Ames
The Ames gameday scene splits between two zones: the tailgate lots wrapped around Jack Trice, and Welch Avenue in Campustown, where the bar-and-restaurant crowd packs in from mid-morning. Downtown Ames, a couple miles north, runs quieter and works better for a Friday-night arrival dinner than a rowdy pregame. For alumni it’s nostalgia; for first-timers, Campustown is where you plug into the energy fastest.
Best Pregame & Postgame Bars
Welch Ave Station is the anchor — wall-to-wall cardinal and gold on gamedays and the loudest pregame in Campustown. Es Tas brings tacos, burgers, and a lively student-alumni mix (check for a 21+ policy on some games). Wallaby’s leans more sports-bar-restaurant than dive and is a solid viewing spot, while Boulder Taphouse is the pick if you care more about the beer list than the crowd.
Best Restaurants in the Area
Jethro’s BBQ is the pregame fuel play — big portions, family-friendly, worth the short rideshare. Downtown, Café Diem is an easy coffee-and-light-fare spot for a low-key Friday arrival, and 4th Bogart’s does casual American with a bar for winding down postgame. None of these are walking distance from the stadium, so plan the ride.
Why You Should Go
Jack Trice earns its reputation on atmosphere and meaning, not luxury. This is a genuine Big 12 environment with a loyal, homegrown crowd, a tailgate culture that’s a destination on its own, and a stadium name that carries a story most visitors don’t know until they’re standing at the memorial. If you’re working through a Big 12 stadium checklist, Ames is an honest, high-quality stop — come for the football, stay for how welcoming the place turns out to be. And when they’re good, its a heck of an atmosphere.
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Written by Brad Richards, Founder of Gameday Guides. This guide includes insights from personal visits as well as updated info from team sources, fan forums, and stadium policies. We aim to help you plan with confidence — enjoy your gameday.