Hows ticket sales going for CCF

[Damien]

46 minutes ago, JohnM said:

The game is on free to air. the BBC is heavily promoting it's coverage. Many people across the country will choose to watch this. 

It would have to be one hell of an "event" to get people to attend in person when it is so easy (and cheap) to watch at home, or in the pub etc...

But the people who you would be looking to target probably don't even know about it yet or that it is on TV. Indeed they may have absolutely no desire to watch it on TV anyway. People go to events precisely because they are events.

[JohnM]

Reads like a relegation of the  Cup Final to B movie or support act status. Perhaps  a BBC Promenae Concert, or a World Heavyweight boxing match, or a Kylie concert would pull the punters in. Would they stay for the game though?

[Scubby]

9 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Reads like a relegation of the  Cup Final to B movie or support act status. Perhaps  a BBC Promenae Concert, or a World Heavyweight boxing match, or a Kylie concert would pull the punters in. Would they stay for the game though?

Yes because those people are here for the day. The fact coach loads of Leigh and Fev fans will be ###### off back up north at 2.30pm is one of the saddest things about this weekend. Not blaming those people - it is what it is - but sad for the sport nonetheless. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Scubby

[shaun mc]

4 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I did a check earlier to see what's what and ... well, £209 is one of the cheapest options within a realistic distance of Wembley.

Absolutely staggering.

I had heard of a lot of football fans that had booked up Travelodge's and Premier Inn for the play-offs, but would have thought that, when I was  looking, 2/3 weeks before the final, most fans would have cancelled their rooms as the teams with a chance of going to Wembley would be more or less known, and also be close enough to London to do a day trip

[meast]

8 hours ago, daz39 said:

Maybe we should promote all these working class northerners coming down as a kind of roadshow version of beamish to them, a living moving reminder of how it is to live north of Watford. 

We could even dress up as coalminers, Mill workers, foundrymen etc for added effect for them, get the players to take the field still covered in coal dust and all smoke pipe tobacco, if that isn't a selling point well ###### them

Sounds like Featherstone fans  

[David Shepherd]

Deeply unscientific:

Just been to Rovers club shop and ask about ticket sales.

Couldnt give a figure but she said “loads” more than last year.

Last year was restricted to 2500 iirc 

[GUBRATS]

5 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Absolutely, and that is true more broadly. My mates from uni have become Rhinos fans by osmosis, but they will also freely admit that a lot of their (initial) enjoyment of going to matches was seeing the meltdown I'd go through...

Having a group of people there who do really love it definitely is a plus point for Neutrals and creating an atmosphere.

Correct , that is where you get your Union ' nothing games ' at a new venue crowds from , somebody at the office , the gym , the pub , who is already a fan , we don't really have that in the south , just getting a family or group of people to turn up at an ' event ' full of the great unwashed from the north on their own , nope , as has been highlighted , International matches are different 

[GUBRATS]

5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I did a check earlier to see what's what and ... well, £209 is one of the cheapest options within a realistic distance of Wembley.

Absolutely staggering.

Some from Leigh ( including the wife and daughter ) are heading off tomorrow morning for our overnight trip , the coach plus hotel and breakfast comes to £ 105 all in , now £ 115 due to having to rebook a different coach , , but that was with a professional travel agent sorting out a quote 2 months ago , I myself will be looking to get nearly 400 Leythers on their ' charra's ' early on Saturday morning , still with no idea where we are going to drop off and pick up , as all the WHL parking is long gone 

[Jughead]

7 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Correct , that is where you get your Union ' nothing games ' at a new venue crowds from , somebody at the office , the gym , the pub , who is already a fan , we don't really have that in the south , just getting a family or group of people to turn up at an ' event ' full of the great unwashed from the north on their own , nope , as has been highlighted , International matches are different 

So apart from all of the games where we’ve managed to get people from the south to attend, they don’t attend. Understood. 

[GUBRATS]

5 hours ago, Damien said:

But the people who you would be looking to target probably don't even know about it yet or that it is on TV. Indeed they may have absolutely no desire to watch it on TV anyway. People go to events precisely because they are events.

There are 2 sorts of ' sports fan ' , real ones and lazy bstds , you cannot beat being there for me , and converting the latter into the former is very very difficult 

[GUBRATS]

4 hours ago, Scubby said:

Yes because those people are here for the day. The fact coach loads of Leigh and Fev fans will be ###### off back up north at 2.30pm is one of the saddest things about this weekend. Not blaming those people - it is what it is - but sad for the sport nonetheless. 

No Leigh coaches are leaving until after the CC final , some however might end up watching it in a pub , if off course they have it on the TV in London

[sentoffagain2]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Some from Leigh ( including the wife and daughter ) are heading off tomorrow morning for our overnight trip , the coach plus hotel and breakfast comes to £ 105 all in , now £ 115 due to having to rebook a different coach , , but that was with a professional travel agent sorting out a quote 2 months ago , I myself will be looking to get nearly 400 Leythers on their ' charra's ' early on Saturday morning , still with no idea where we are going to drop off and pick up , as all the WHL parking is long gone 

   You don't fancy running Rugby League do you.Perhaps not you will be overqualified.

[GUBRATS]

Just now, sentoffagain2 said:

   You don't fancy running Rugby League do you.Perhaps not you will be overqualified.

I'd happily have ' run ' the lower tiers 15 years ago 

[GUBRATS]

4 minutes ago, Jughead said:

So apart from all of the games where we’ve managed to get people from the south to attend, they don’t attend. Understood. 

It's a numbers game , as I said Internationals are easier than northern club games 

[Jughead]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

It's a numbers game , as I said Internationals are easier than northern club games 

They are if you don’t bother. The Rugby League way. 

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, Jughead said:

They are if you don’t bother. The Rugby League way. 

If you say so 

[graveyard johnny]

12 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

There are 2 sorts of ' sports fan ' , real ones and lazy bstds 

there are also other sorts - wealthy ones and ones who have to prioritise what they can lavish hundreds of pounds on 

[GUBRATS]

Just now, graveyard johnny said:

there are also other sorts - wealthy ones and ones who have to prioritise what they can lavish hundreds of pounds on 

Fair enough , but I know a lot more who have more than enough spare cash to go to the game , but are only armchair supporters 

[Llangennech]

9 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Fair enough , but I know a lot more who have more than enough spare cash to go to the game , but are only armchair supporters 

would you give them my bank account number please, i'll go instead of them then.

[huddiepuddies]

6 hours ago, shaun mc said:

£209 for a Travelodge is getting into silly money territory. And that wasn't a one-off either. I was looking at hotel prices consistently over 2ish weeks for the Sat night

Southwark travelodge £169 standard room still available, super rooms sold out. 3minute walk to tube, Jubilee Line 27 minutes to Wembley Park.

[wiganermike]

6 minutes ago, huddiepuddies said:

Southwark travelodge £169 standard room still available, super rooms sold out. 3minute walk to tube, Jubilee Line 27 minutes to Wembley Park.

I'm guessing that station isn't close to Tottenham's stadium though.

[gingerjon]

46 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Some from Leigh ( including the wife and daughter ) are heading off tomorrow morning for our overnight trip , the coach plus hotel and breakfast comes to £ 105 all in , now £ 115 due to having to rebook a different coach , ,

Each?

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

10 hours ago, Dave T said:

There is plenty in this, but I do have to wonder how realistic all this talk of attracting the London events crowd is. There aren't people just sitting browsing online looking for things to spend their money on, there are people who are being presented stuff who are then persuaded to go because it looks amazing. 

What is it about the Challenge Cup that is going to make somebody go that they are not going to get at many other events? I'm not sure we have a USP for a London events crowd. 

If people want to attend a large scale Rugby event in London, they are well catered for, with events that are presented far better than ours. An event crowd is not bothered that it is Union over RL. 

If you want to move wider than Rugby, you have athletics, football, NFL, women's football, music festivals plus all the normal London attractions. 

Whilst convinced we can do much better than we are, I'm not sure this market is going to deliver tens of thousand of fans, I think we could be taping into another couple of k maybe. 

When we regularly sold out with 78k and above the events market was nowhere near as saturated as it is now. 

Why would they attend? 

To be honest I was talking much more widely than one event. And I wouldn't even characterize it as about "events"... if anything, that risks being old-world thinking. The key message for me is that we need a radical shift in marketing strategy: We do have tent-pole 'experiences' we can sell. We just don't. They don't have to even be big annual, prestige 'events'.... these experiences exist in the club game too, it's merely a question of packaging... cf Quins vs Gloucester play-off match with 50,000 attendees.

 

As a sports entertainment product we have experiences we can promise people, and deliver. But we need to get the wrapper right. We need to understand what the Value Proposition is, what the story is. And then we need to communicate it.  If we do that, the larger versions of those (the 'events', like the Cup Final), sell themselves. We need to get our ambition back. Entrepreneurs are creating micro-festivals up and down the country, of a breadth we've never seen before, and they're using sophisticated social media marketing strategies to build an audience - with none of the heritage assets we already have. 

 

If I was running the RFLs marketing organisation (and I almost was once), but could not sell out a 62,000 stadium in London for something as exciting as the Challenge Cup Final (or an England international), then I should be shot.

 

Well, ok, maybe just fired. The 10,000 empty seats on Saturday are at least £300k of lost revenue. There's your marketing budget. It's time for the sport to grow some cajones and take action for once. 

[GUBRATS]

18 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Each?

Yes 

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

To be honest I was talking much more widely than one event. And I wouldn't even characterize it as about "events"... if anything, that risks being old-world thinking. The key message for me is that we need a radical shift in marketing strategy: We do have tent-pole 'experiences' we can sell. We just don't. They don't have to even be big annual, prestige 'events'.... these experiences exist in the club game too, it's merely a question of packaging... cf Quins vs Gloucester play-off match with 50,000 attendees.

 

As a sports entertainment product we have experiences we can promise people, and deliver. But we need to get the wrapper right. We need to understand what the Value Proposition is, what the story is. And then we need to communicate it.  If we do that, the larger versions of those (the 'events', like the Cup Final), sell themselves. We need to get our ambition back. Entrepreneurs are creating micro-festivals up and down the country, of a breadth we've never seen before, and they're using sophisticated social media marketing strategies to build an audience - with none of the heritage assets we already have. 

 

If I was running the RFLs marketing organisation (and I almost was once), but could not sell out a 62,000 stadium in London for something as exciting as the Challenge Cup Final (or an England international), then I should be shot.

 

Well, ok, maybe just fired. The 10,000 empty seats on Saturday are at least £300k of lost revenue. There's your marketing budget. It's time for the sport to grow some cajones and take action for once. 

With respect (and I genuinely mean that, because I know you are qualified in the area you talk about) but there is a lot of marketing speak there that means very little to most people. For disclosure, I'm a Commercial Manager who works closely with marketing specialists and agencies so I do tend to have this debate on an almost daily basis. 

I understand the points you are making, and I'd argue that the RFL do and so do the agencies they work with, but I think sometimes it's all a bit idealistic. 

If it was as simple as we are sometimes guilty of portraying, there would just be a set price list I. E. £500k cost gets you a full 62k stadium. 

But sometimes the experts don't get it right and campaigns fall short of expectations.