A Sneak Peek at What’s New at Target Field

[Matthew Taylor]

Target Field continues to evolve, bringing upgrades that aim to make your time at the ballpark smoother, faster, and more enjoyable. Let's review what's new for the 2025 season:

Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

Each offseason, the Twins continue to invest in Target Field, ensuring that the ballpark remains one of the premier stadiums in Major League Baseball. Whether it was the expansion of the scoreboard, the reduced-price concession area, or the revolving baseball medallion in right field, each year brings something new to excite fans and improve the overall experience. The goal is clear: Target Field should never feel like an aging ballpark but rather one that evolves with the times.

This year, the Minnesota Twins announced four new enhancements aimed at "improving convenience, efficiency, and the overall fan experience." Here’s what’s new for 2025:

1. New Market-Style Concessions at Sections 105 and 109
Gone are the days of waiting in long, cramped lines at traditional food stands. Target Field has introduced an open-air, self-serve market spanning 4,400 square feet of renovated space.

The new setup increases the number of registers from 29 to 41, hopefully making it easier and faster to grab your favorite food and drinks. Fans will find a variety of hot foods, grab-and-go snacks, ice cream, soda, and self-serve beer coolers in these market-style concessions.

Nobody likes missing an inning while stuck in line, and this new system should dramatically improve efficiency. Expect this area to be a big hit with fans looking for a quick bite without the hassle.

2. MLB Go-Ahead Entry
The only thing worse than waiting in line for food is waiting in line to enter the ballpark while someone ahead of you fumbles with multiple bags and struggles to pull up their digital ticket.

That hassle is now a thing of the past. Target Field is introducing MLB Go-Ahead Entry, allowing ticketed fans to register through the MLB Ballpark app and then simply walk into the stadium via designated lanes at Gates 3, 6, 29, and 34 using facial-recognition technology. The goal is that this will significantly speed up the entry process and eliminate those frustrating bottlenecks at the gates.

3. MyVenue Point-of-Sale System
Alongside the improved concession experience, Target Field has upgraded its point-of-sale system to MyVenue. This new system is designed to be faster and more user-friendly, allowing fans to see real-time pricing as they build their concession order.

As someone who appreciates transparency in pricing, I love that MyVenue makes it easier to track what you’re spending while streamlining the purchasing process so you can avoid the surprise $60 concession bill.

4. 5G Upgrades
If you’ve ever tried to check Baseball Savant mid-game and found yourself staring at a never-ending loading screen, you’ll appreciate this one.

Target Field is expanding its 5G network coverage by 82%, dramatically improving upload and download speeds for all three major mobile carriers. Whether you’re checking advanced stats, sharing videos on social media, or streaming highlights, the improved network should keep you connected without frustrating lag.

While these upgrades might not be as flashy as a new scoreboard or a redesigned batter’s eye (bring back the spruce trees!), they show a continued commitment to making Target Field one of the best fan experiences in baseball. The Twins are clearly focused on keeping the ballpark modern, efficient, and enjoyable.

The first chance for fans to experience these enhancements will be at the home opener against the Houston Astros on Thursday, April 3, at 3:10 PM.

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Which of these upgrades are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments!

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[dberthia]

Is "real time pricing" the same thing as "dynamic pricing" where the vendor can instantaneously increase prices on a whim? Seems like this has potential for evil.

[Schmoeman5]

I hope the hotdog water is new. The rest I can deal with.

[DJL44]

Self-serve concessions means they don't need as many employees. I understand that one.

Dislike using facial recognition tech at the gate. Seems like a solution in search of a problem with lots of downside potential.

I don't understand the MyVenue feature at all. Is this used when ordering with an app? I've never used an app to order at Target Field.

[NYCTK]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Dislike using facial recognition tech at the gate. Seems like a solution in search of a problem with lots of downside potential.

 

Finally, the Pohalds can ban people that criticize them. Knicks owner has done exactly that. 

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Schmoeman5 said:

I hope the hotdog water is new. The rest I can deal with.

Rest easy.

I believe i read they change the hot dog water every opening day without fail. And they only reuse last year's buns if the package wasn't opened.

[bean5302]

The Twins have messed with their point of sale systems the last 3 straight years, and they've had issues rolling each change out because staff doesn't get trained until immediately before opening day and many workers are "volunteers." The self-service market checkouts were miserable last year. They were slow, buggy and required staff to assist people on a regular basis. The bonus is I don't tip if I have to get my stuff and check myself out no matter how many staff are there to "help." So it does make things cheaper, and the staff less likely to sign up.

I HATE self checkout. The last thing I want to do at a ball game is spend time figuring out how to navigate several different POS systems with different and often buggy scanning technologies and I really hate the audacity to place a default "tip" on self checkout markets. While it might track the total cost, I'm assuming you'll need it to track the total cost because of additional fees and hidden charges.

[sweetmusicviola16]

Some major updates to the team on the field would have been what could have created the most excitement.

[PuckettProtector]

8 hours ago, dberthia said:

Is "real time pricing" the same thing as "dynamic pricing" where the vendor can instantaneously increase prices on a whim? Seems like this has potential for evil.

You must be a blast at parties. 

[PuckettProtector]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

The Twins have messed with their point of sale systems the last 3 straight years, and they've had issues rolling each change out because staff doesn't get trained until immediately before opening day and many workers are "volunteers." The self-service market checkouts were miserable last year. They were slow, buggy and required staff to assist people on a regular basis. The bonus is I don't tip if I have to get my stuff and check myself out no matter how many staff are there to "help." So it does make things cheaper, and the staff less likely to sign up.

I HATE self checkout. The last thing I want to do at a ball game is spend time figuring out how to navigate several different POS systems with different and often buggy scanning technologies and I really hate the audacity to place a default "tip" on self checkout markets. While it might track the total cost, I'm assuming you'll need it to track the total cost because of additional fees and hidden charges.

Honest question - are you over 40? At 43 an RSS feed makes me feel like my parents did when I got a CD player. But checking yourself out isn't that hard at all and it is relatively quicker. 

[dberthia]

2 minutes ago, PuckettProtector said:

You must be a blast at parties. 

Thankfully we'll never be at the same party to test your proposition.

[PuckettProtector]

13 minutes ago, dberthia said:

Thankfully we'll never be at the same party to test your proposition.

Still could identify you at the bar friend-o. 

[Blyleven2011]

Won't matter to me , I won't be spending any of my money at target field until they decide to be contenders and not pretenders ...

Won't miss the games though , radio and streaming will cover it for me  ...

[bean5302]

17 hours ago, PuckettProtector said:

Honest question - are you over 40? At 43 an RSS feed makes me feel like my parents did when I got a CD player. But checking yourself out isn't that hard at all and it is relatively quicker. 

Have you checked out at one of those kiosks before? I choose the self-checkout all the time at stores from the moment the lanes were added. At Target Field, though... it's been miserable.

1) You don't just scan items. Every item is a manual look up where you're tapping through multiple screens to find and select the items as if you were a trained employee. Except in the case of the Club Level's cantina where you place your food on a station and it uses lasers to and a scale to determine what you've chosen automatically.

2) When checking out, the POS isn't intuitive, I frequently encountered lag of 2-5 seconds, and the actual system is different for different stands.

3) If you have Sweet Spot, the order of operations isn't intuitive, the lag makes it seem like the system isn't responding and there are at least 3 different versions of bar code scanners in use each needing your phone to be held at different angles and positions. With the lag, sometimes they scan, sometimes they simply won't scan, and even with the staff taking over. I've given up on Sweet Spot discounts more than a couple times because I was sick of it after 30 seconds of trying.

So yeah, normal self check out kiosks, great. I'm all for them. I'm the fast person in the lane who starts and finishes while the other 3 lanes are staring at the screen like zombies. 4627 = green kale, 4013 = braeburn apples, 4011 = banana (maybe I make green smoothies sometimes?)