RLWC Attendance-O-Meter

[EssexRL]

53 minutes ago, Damien said:

That's really disappointing but I'm not surprised.

There should really have been a joined up approach for this, particularly in the likes of Newcastle and Coventry, where this is all being supplemented by development officers going into schools and kids getting funneled towards local clubs. Then the pro game being involved to entice people to those clubs too.

 

Agree that should happen but I wouldn’t expect too many dividends. When NZ played England in London, Skolars made a real effort to engage with people (the game  was at West Ham’s ground just down the road). Didn’t really see any benefits.  Growing fans requires a ongoing strategy.
 

if anyone should benefit from games it should be Newcastle Thunder. Although gates at their ground have not been amazing they have been well above average Thunder ones. I assume most attendees are locals. .

 

 

[EssexRL]

47 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

Apparently pre-sales for the Emirates Semi are at 35k. If so, that’s an achievement so far.
 

However, instead of now being satisfied with what might be a 45-50k gate (because it hits some target), can the organisers instead please take the potential £400k we could earn from bridging the 10k gap to capacity and throw it at a multi-channel localised London awareness and customer activation campaign to try and make it happen please? It’s too late for best positioned outdoor media, unfortunately, but we can still get some decent ‘distressed space’ both outdoor and in other media and make an impact on the numbers 

I’ll add at least two more to that once I’m sure England will be there! 

[OriginalMrC]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

That's really disappointing but I'm not surprised.

There should really have been a joined up approach for this, particularly in the likes of Newcastle and Coventry, where this is all being supplemented by development officers going into schools and kids getting funneled towards local clubs. Then the pro game being involved to entice people to those clubs too.

 

3 new junior clubs were set up in Coventry off the back of funding from this world cup. Over 200 kids playing RL. Local primary schools were engaged and played a tag tournament ahead of the game. 

Edited October 23, 2022 by OriginalMrC

[Damien]

1 minute ago, OriginalMrC said:

3 new junior clubs were set up in Coventry off the back of funding from this world cup. Over 200 kids playing RL. Local primary schools were engaged and played a tag tournament ahead of the game. 

Excellent.

[Gerrumonside ref]

4 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

3 new junior clubs were set up off the back of funding from this world cup. Over 200 kids playing RL. Local primary schools were engaged and played a tag tournament ahead of the game. 

That’s great news and has been underreported perhaps outside the West Midlands.

What’s your reaction to the Australia vs Scotland game in terms of positives for the Hurricanes?

Are they capitalising on it fully in your opinion?

Edited October 23, 2022 by Gerrumonside ref

[RL Tragic]

1 hour ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

FFS.....It's a joke ....plenty of us on here would have done it for free

I along with many others put myself  forward as a volunteer 2 years ago. Contacted them twice since and nothing 

Did anyone get drafted?

I’ve seen the same , Back to the fact that the organisers have soon a poor job . How hard is it to draft in local junior clubs to hand out fliers for cone and play . For what we have got we may as well have had part time volunteer business people organising this for free . 

[RL Tragic]

3 minutes ago, Damien said:

Excellent.

That is super news 

[The Alchemist]

11 hours ago, EggFace said:

Yes and watching some NRL players who were playing in front of 80000 in Sydney plating ib front of under 4000 was embarrassing.

why? Its not an NRL game and its not in Sydney?

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

4 minutes ago, EssexRL said:

I’ll add at least two more to that once I’m sure England will be there! 

Indeed. I'll be there plus 2 no matter what, but when England are confirmed will easily be 7 more. It's an attractive event for general sports fans. This is a once-every-few-years marketing opportunity to engage new customers. The fact we probably have 10-15k excess capacity at the moment should be seen as a positive not a negative, if we took a proactive mindset to the chance in front of us to put some late-engaged 'casuals' in the building.

That one event, its good feeling and an England win to get to the final has the potential to erase any slight disappointment from group game sales, and could be transformative for the sport right at the outset of some better club-game leadership from IMG. Here's hoping we grasp the nettle!

[Gerrumonside ref]

14 minutes ago, EssexRL said:

Agree that should happen but I wouldn’t expect too many dividends. When NZ played England in London, Skolars made a real effort to engage with people (the game  was at West Ham’s ground just down the road). Didn’t really see any benefits.  Growing fans requires a ongoing strategy.
 

if anyone should benefit from games it should be Newcastle Thunder. Although gates at their ground have not been amazing they have been well above average Thunder ones. I assume most attendees are locals. .

 

 

That’s tough to hear but worth stating about the Skolars experiences in London (which must be the toughest place in the U.K. to sell new ‘entertainment’ given all the options available).

Did you conclude that the approach needed to be different and does the advent of greater social media make things any easier?

Hats off to you for pushing it anyway.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Gerrumonside ref

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

£25, £35 and £55 isn't the going rate for England v Greece RL in Sheffield. 

Those prices normally get you a ticket to an RL Ashes game or a series vs NZ. 

Now, we may say we want to up our prices, but the way to do that isn't to literally just put high prices in place. We just end up with empty seats. 

Exactly this, supply doesn't create its own demand, and price doesn't inherently create premium perception

But its too late to discount without breaking a well-vocalised promise to not do so ever again, unfortunately the die is set and we can only hope the lessons have been learned for next time (not that they should have ever needed learning)

[Black Country Wire]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Indeed they have been far too rigid and stuck their head in the sand. I'm willing to bet that the recategorisation, the only bit of adaptation we have seen from the RLWC team, was Mick Hogan driven. 

As I said the lack of multi game packages is just silly; yet another example of how the RLWC2021 team hasn't understood their target market.

There were multi-game packages but I think they were only available in the original early bird sales phase.

I got all 3 England games for £40 (total not each) as one of these. Fairly sure there was a deal covering both Newcastle games on opening weekend and may have been others.

[Big Picture]

4 hours ago, GeordieSaint said:

I expect saturation is a bigger issue than a perception of walkovers. 3 games at Saints/Doncaster/Newcastle, 4 at Leeds/Warrington, even 2 at Hull are simply too many in areas that even before the cost of living crisis, were not the most affluent of areas (less Leeds). 

Still lots to celebrate as well though; in particular the product on the pitch itself. The only game that’s been poor IMO was at Coventry as Scotland were diabolically bad.

From this one would conclude that when Sean McGuire said the game's traditional clubs (with the possible exception of Leeds) are located in "smallish economically disadvantaged towns" and that's why there's so little money in the game, he was right after all.  Evidently Northern Powerhouse hasn't done much to change that.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, EssexRL said:

Agree that should happen but I wouldn’t expect too many dividends. When NZ played England in London, Skolars made a real effort to engage with people (the game  was at West Ham’s ground just down the road). Didn’t really see any benefits.  Growing fans requires a ongoing strategy.
 

if anyone should benefit from games it should be Newcastle Thunder. Although gates at their ground have not been amazing they have been well above average Thunder ones. I assume most attendees are locals. .

 

 

I would assume there was a pop from the SJP fans, like me, for Italy v Sco. Italy v Fiji, c. 3,750 from memory, should be a more reasonable base North East amount of fans.

[Just Browny]

3 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

 

But its too late to discount without breaking a well-vocalised promise to not do so ever again, unfortunately the die is set 

Surely when the facts change, we should change our minds?

[WN83]

1 hour ago, thehullram said:

I thought the best option would have been the following:-

• Group games - All tickets, across all of the areas.
  • Category A (first / maybe 2nd England match) - All adult tickets £30, junior and seniors - £15
  • Category B Matches (3rd England match, mainly those expecting to be close / featuring Aus / NZ) - All adult tickets £20, junior and seniors - £10
  • Category Matches (blowout matches) - All adult tickets £10, junior and seniors - £5

I've been to 4 matches so far and taken about 20 different people. I think with better prices, this would have been closer to 50 /60. I think we would have had a number of sell outs with the above. 

Multi game tickets, all England group game tickets, senior citizen cheaper prices, would have all made a big difference.  

It still isn't too late, surely, they could go out to all people who have attended one of the England matches so far and say 'Hi, thanks for coming and paying full price, here you go, have a 50% off code for the England Greece game'. Don't think anyone would be annoyed with that. 

As someone else said, we get one chance from here - There is the demand to fill all of the QF, SF and Finals if the approach being taken so far is amended slightly. Take it on a case by case basis for each match, and use the database they now have to their advantage. So far everyone in there has paid full price. 

If every match from QF onwards is sold out, I think the attendance issues would go away, it would generate far more revenue than their current model, look great on TV, build a bigger database for next years test series (which needs to announced ASAP and get tickets on sale now). 

Surely it isn't rocket science......

Too cheap for the England games IMO and no tickets should be £10 for adults for any game. We were too cheap in 2013 and that couldn’t happen again but I do agree with you in terms of categories. I’d have had Cat A, B and C games, with something like C being £15-£30, B being £20-40 and A being £25-£70.
 

They also need more tickets the lesser couple of categories for the bigger games. Our group decided just yesterday that we will make the effort to go the Leeds semi on the Friday, in addition to us going to the London semi. I logged on last night thinking I’d get the £30 tickets but they all look to be gone. It’s now go up to nearly double that at £55 for don’t bother. I’d say the latter is favourite now given the expense of the following day. The jumps between tickets are just too high. I wouldn’t have had an issue with going up to £40/45 but nearly double is too far IMO. 

Edited October 23, 2022 by WN83

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

Exactly this, supply doesn't create its own demand, and price doesn't inherently create premium perception

But its too late to discount without breaking a well-vocalised promise to not do so ever again, unfortunately the die is set and we can only hope the lessons have been learned for next time (not that they should have ever needed learning)

The annoying thing is that this publicised 'we will not discount' has only been a relatively recent thing (last month or two) when it should have been clear we were behind forecasts. They have made such a big thing about it (mentioning it in almost every interview recently) that they really have tied their own hands behind their backs. 

They tried to call customers' bluff, but customers aren't really bluffing, they just aren't prepared to pay that price in large numbers. 

[The Masked Poster]

3 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

I think it is to be honest when you’re asking people to fork out for multiple games in the same town/city.

Premier League football often has the best players in the world in the most exciting league in the world from the world’s most popular sport.

And Leeds United aren’t always in the Premier League.

It’s tough to compare that to the group phase of the Rugby League World Cup tbh.

Gigs too have a rarity value that marks them out as different.

 

The RLWC is a fairly rare event, 9 years since it was last here, Leeds United have been in the PL for about 3 seasons now...so if anything should be losing demand it would be that. And tickets for Leeds United are definitely not cheap mate. I wouldn't say that the cost of living won't affect *some* people but I don't think it's a reasonable thing to pin blame on for low ticket sales. Gigs too are most definitely not rare. 

Not to argue with you too much about it if course

[Tex Evans Thigh]

5 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

NZ should be playing their group games outside the M62. Preferably in London. 

If they played their 3 group games at say Brentford, we'd be far closer to 60k, probably more, than to a likely sub 20k total attendance across 3 games. Firstly because there is a dearth of games in the South of England for fans to attend, second, because "NZ Rugby" carries significant caché to the casual sports ticket buyer, and finally, because Ireland, Jamaica and Lebanon have huge expat and heritage communities in London itself too (London Irish of course playing at Brentford).

I'm not an economist, but from this position of ignorance it seems the organisers have both saturated the RL heartlands and increased prices. In other words they have increased supply and increased prices, without necessarily increasing demand (and its all on the BBC this time too). As such, those heartland fans are able to and are proving to be, far more selective with their purchases.

There has been individually poor efforts on specific matches within that too, which hasn't helped.

Spot on. Even with the northern powerhouse quota they could have had at least a couple of games there.

[Gerrumonside ref]

4 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

The RLWC is a fairly rare event, 9 years since it was last here, Leeds United have been in the PL for about 3 seasons now...so if anything should be losing demand it would be that. And tickets for Leeds United are definitely not cheap mate. I wouldn't say that the cost of living won't affect *some* people but I don't think it's a reasonable thing to pin blame on for low ticket sales. Gigs too are most definitely not rare. 

Not to argue with you too much about it if course

I can imagine Leeds prices are expensive now they’re in the Premier League.

But there’s no doubt to me that the Cost of Living crisis is a real thing having a real impact on people’s choices.

The ticket prices should be reflecting that in my opinion.

 

[theswanmcr]

12 minutes ago, WN83 said:

Too cheap for the England games IMO and no tickets should be £10 for adults for any game. We were too cheap in 2013 and that couldn’t happen again but I do agree with you in terms of categories. I’d have had Cat A, B and C games, with something like C being £15-£30, B being £20-40 and A being £25-£70.
 

They also need more tickets the lesser couple of categories for the bigger games. Our group decided just yesterday that we will make the effort to go the Leeds semi on the Friday, in addition to us going to the London semi. I logged on last night thinking I’d get the £30 tickets but they all look to be gone. It’s now go up to nearly double that at £55 for don’t bother. I’d say the latter is favourite now given the expense of the following day. The jumps between tickets are just too high. I wouldn’t have had an issue with going up to £40/45 but nearly double is too far IMO. 

Yes those price jumps are too big and definitely put people off.

Also, kids should have been £5 at all games (bar the final etc). Easy way to encourage families and not just ‘dad and lad’ which has been the case at many games so far.

[pahars]

1 hour ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

Apparently pre-sales for the Emirates Semi are at 35k. If so, that’s an achievement so far.

Something that just popped in to my head about 2013. Two weeks before both the semi and the final thousands of tickets got returned from sponsors and went on sale. 

The 35k figure could be both currently accurate and eventually inaccurate. 

[Big Picture]

2 hours ago, langpark said:

Organisers stated a target of 750,000 total crowds for RLWC2021.  How close will we get to that?

https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12196/12053442/rugby-league-world-cup-organisers-upbeat-on-2021-ticket-sales-despite-coronavirus-concerns

Unless the England matches continue drawing well and things pick for the other matches, nowhere close.  The current total of 139,661 is less then 65% above where the 2000 tournament was at this point.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Big Picture

[OriginalMrC]

45 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

That’s great news and has been underreported perhaps outside the West Midlands.

What’s your reaction to the Australia vs Scotland game in terms of positives for the Hurricanes?

Are they capitalising on it fully in your opinion?

That's a difficult one as Alan Robinson has now left the Hurricanes. They will be moving into the Commonwealth games stadium next season and will hopefully see a world cup bounce in terms of attendances and sponsors.

Coventry Bears (yes the club is still going) have certainly capitalised on it and it puts the Bears in a great position to be heart of the community game for years to come 

[Exiled Wiganer]

22 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Unless the England matches continue drawing well and things pick for the other matches, nowhere close.  The current total of 139,661 is less then 65% above where the 2000 tournament was at this point.

And there are a lot more costs with the multi team format this time. Hull had one game, and couldn’t get 7k. We are seeing a slow motion car crash unfold before our eyes, one which may well bury the international game for a decade.