The Minnesota Vikings are offering free tickets to the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Vikings stadium.
The ground-breaking will take place on Tuesday Dec. 3 at 9 a.m.
The ceremony was set as team officials announced an agreement last week on a guaranteed maximum price after Vikings officials agreed to pay $41 million dollars more than originally proposed.
The event begins at 10 a.m. The Pioneer Press reports that Gov. Mark Dayton, team owners Zygi and Mark Wilf, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Minnesota Sports Facilities chair Michele Kelm-Helgen are amongst those expected to speak at the ceremony.
Former Viking players have been invited to the ceremony and so has incoming Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges. She voted against the stadium in her current role as a Minneapolis City Council member.
The ceremony will take part in the east parking lot, near Gate D.
The speaking will take place inside of a tent in the parking lot. Tickets will be required for that portion of the ceremony. That tent can hold up to 600 and team officials have invited around 200 people, so several hundred tickets are expected to be made available to the general public, according to the Pioneer Press report.
Tickets for that portion will be given out from a separate registration tent near Gate D. Those tickets will be given out, one per person from, 9 to 10 a.m.
The actual ground-breaking will take place outside in the east lot of the dome, there are no tickets required for that portion of the ceremony.
Despite ground being broken more than a month later than originally scheduled, the new stadium is expected to be completed and ready for the start of the 2016 season.
MPR News reports that Mortenson Construction has told neighbors that they will begin hauling dirt on Monday.
