RLWC Attendance-O-Meter

[JonM]

25 minutes ago, Eddie said:

RL is a small regional sport covering an area of around 4-5m people. 

15 million people in the North of England. 

[Eddie]

2 minutes ago, meast said:

I posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago but how many people who are talking about empty grounds and poor crowds have actually been to or are planning on going to games?

It seemed the majority of people commenting the most are making no attempt to even try and get to games.

Again, it says a lot I feel.

It’s the same as football fans who jeer other clubs for not bringing many fans, when they never go to away games themselves. As a former regular away traveller I’ve nothing but respect for the handful of people who travel 300 odd miles midweek for a lower league away game, as I have people who are going to the group stages of this WC. If I lived up north I’d have gone to a fair few probably but admittedly haven’t and am saving it for the QF, semi and final. 

[thirteenthman]

8 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

Has anyone else received two sets of tickets - for different seats - for the same matches in the post? There must be a ticketing system balls up.

Oddly enough, yes. I got two tickets in totally different stands for the final.

On another topic, at last nights game we ended up on the front row near the middle which meant every time play went down to the east stand side of the ground we couldn't see anything for the players and coaching staff, and we had Jenna Brooks standing in the way of our view of the big screen. To top it off, we then got a load of security blocking the view because they'd heard that a load of PNG supporters were planning on invading the pitch at half time (which they clearly didn't). 

[Eddie]

Just now, JonM said:

15 million people in the North of England. 

Yes but RL doesn’t have a presence in much of it. My (admittedly quick) guess at where the game does have a presence was 4-5m. 

[Northern Eel]

2 minutes ago, meast said:

I posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago but how many people who are talking about empty grounds and poor crowds have actually been to or are planning on going to games?

It seemed the majority of people commenting the most are making no attempt to even try and get to games.

Again, it says a lot I feel.

I will have spent £380 on tickets by the time the semi-finals come round. Every one of them in the lowest 2 price categories.
 

On top of that are all the other costs associated with getting to and from the events. I think there’s a good proportion of people on here who have done the same by the sounds of it

If we make the final, I will need to buy more tickets.

I only have so much disposable income. 

[gingerjon]

14 minutes ago, Northern Eel said:

England’s T20 World Cup game against Ireland is currently being played in front of a very sparse crowd.

Adult tickets are $40 and only 2/3 of the lower bowl is open. I’d say 4,000 maximum rattling around in a 100,000 capacity MCG.

It’s not just our game…

 

Goodness knows why games like this are being played at the MCG.

[JonM]

10 hours ago, The Ghost of 99 said:

The first women's game will be interesting to keep an eye on as an example of how misleading and/or annoying the ticketing website is.

As of now there are no seats remaining on sale apart from singles. Will that translate into full seating areas on gameday? 

Was thinking some more about this. For other games, we've had plenty of press releases saying that it had nearly sold out and so on. This double header seems to have moved directly from 'sales are going well' to 'you can only buy one seat'.

We were planning to go, but haven't bought tickets. I don't think my wife will find standing on the Western Terrace getting rained on for five hours a particularly appealing prospect. We can't buy two seats, so won't be going. If that's because they genuinely have sold out all the seating, that's great and I'll watch on tv. If it turns out that the stands aren't in fact completely packed for this, they need some urgent action on the website.

[gingerjon]

9 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Yes but RL doesn’t have a presence in much of it. My (admittedly quick) guess at where the game does have a presence was 4-5m. 

Newcastle and Coventry (10,000 on a Friday night for *Scotland*) show how much missed potential there is in this tournament - caused entirely it seems by believing that we have to sell and resell to the same core areas of the game.

[tim2]

20 minutes ago, JonM said:

Was thinking some more about this. For other games, we've had plenty of press releases saying that it had nearly sold out and so on. This double header seems to have moved directly from 'sales are going well' to 'you can only buy one seat'.

We were planning to go, but haven't bought tickets. I don't think my wife will find standing on the Western Terrace getting rained on for five hours a particularly appealing prospect. We can't buy two seats, so won't be going. If that's because they genuinely have sold out all the seating, that's great and I'll watch on tv. If it turns out that the stands aren't in fact completely packed for this, they need some urgent action on the website.

Same for us. Based on what we saw when I booked our tickets for Donny, it's lying big style. Our seats were in a section that they didn't even bother to open and we ended up in Cat B seats when we bought Cat C.

[JonM]

1 minute ago, tim2 said:

Same for us. Based on what we saw when I booked our tickets for Donny, it's lying big style. Our seats were in a section that they didn't even bother to open and we ended up in Cat B seats when we bought Cat C.

The Headingley double header has no seat categories - it's £20/£2 for all seats and for the terrace. You can only buy one seat though.

[tiffers]

Increasingly this is sounding like a technical balls-up where the website isnt working correctly.

If so, and that is a very big if at the mo, that is one of the biggest *ock ups in world RL. Why on earth would you not test and test and test all of this... Its absolute basics, literally marketing 101.

Reduce the barriers to purchase as much as possible. Test the systems with a friendly/non-WC game to make sure the systems are working correctly.

The fact they are saying they are nearly sold out and heavily reduced turn-out rates points to the fact they may not actually know how many tickets are sold and therefore are having to act like they have sold out...

I doubt we will ever truly know what has happened.

[tim2]

7 minutes ago, JonM said:

The Headingley double header has no seat categories - it's £20/£2 for all seats and for the terrace. You can only buy one seat though.

About as believable as Johnson having 102 nominations. Ooh, little bit of politics.

[lemmy xaan]

41 minutes ago, thirteenthman said:

Oddly enough, yes. I got two tickets in totally different stands for the final.

On another topic, at last nights game we ended up on the front row near the middle which meant every time play went down to the east stand side of the ground we couldn't see anything for the players and coaching staff, and we had Jenna Brooks standing in the way of our view of the big screen. To top it off, we then got a load of security blocking the view because they'd heard that a load of PNG supporters were planning on invading the pitch at half time (which they clearly didn't). 

I did too. I bought multiple seats for different games when the sale started 2 years ago - very expensive ones too. They all got duplicated - oddly at slightly different prices. I checked my credit card and it had not been double-charged. I thought it might just be on the web-site, but they sent me hard copies of them in the post. In the interests of honesty, I have not tried to sell on the duplicates. 

Is this some kind of computing error and/or accounting scam, I wonder.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

If it was just prices putting people off then category D would be full at most of the games, which it clearly isn’t. 
 

The Hull QF for example has plenty of category D tickets left, £25 to see NZ v Fiji and some of the best players in the world doesn’t sound like much to me, in a RL mad city but there’ll probably be about 10-12k there.  
 

Firstly, not a single person has claimed it is just prices, so it sort of invalidates the rest of your post. 

But the obvious answer is that even the cheap tickets are too expensive (on top of all the other issues that have been articulated well in the last few pages). 

The price for an England major test match is usually £20-£50, and iirc we got around 17k at Hull the last time England played NZ at Hull. So why do we think £25-70 is the right price for NZ v Fiji? I mean that tells you everything you need to know about this strategy. 

But it isn't about whether you feel £25 is OK, so do I and if happily pay it. But when you've also paid it for a couple of England games, the previous NZ game, maybe a sneaky midweek Greece game, and you're also planning your England semi final trip, and maybe a final trio at Old Trafford, then somethings got to give, and the major hands take priority. 

When people say £25 is fine, they completely ignore the fact that this mens tournament has 31 games - it's a hell of a lot of seats to fill. 

We know that on early bird they were quite happy to take a lot less money for these games. Sure, people will point out that people should have bought early, and that's fine, but getting one over your customers is hardly a great thing, and ultimately leaves us with huge gaps in grounds. 

[Dave T]

55 minutes ago, meast said:

I posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago but how many people who are talking about empty grounds and poor crowds have actually been to or are planning on going to games?

It seemed the majority of people commenting the most are making no attempt to even try and get to games.

Again, it says a lot I feel.

What's your evidence for that meast? 

Because I suggest you have literally made that up. 

[Man of Kent]

53 minutes ago, thirteenthman said:

Oddly enough, yes. I got two tickets in totally different stands for the final.

Did you order them prior to tournament postponement? I can only think of that as the reason.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Man of Kent

[Chrispmartha]

 

[Man of Kent]

8 minutes ago, lemmy xaan said:

I did too. I bought multiple seats for different games when the sale started 2 years ago - very expensive ones too. They all got duplicated - oddly at slightly different prices. I checked my credit card and it had not been double-charged. I thought it might just be on the web-site, but they sent me hard copies of them in the post. In the interests of honesty, I have not tried to sell on the duplicates. 

Same as me. Worrying people who bought two years ago are getting duplicates.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, Man of Kent said:

Same as me. Worrying people who bought two years ago are getting duplicates.

I really do hope this doesn't mean that the semi and final haven't sold half of what they think they have....

[sweaty craiq]

1 hour ago, JonM said:

15 million people in the North of England. 

They seem to forget the “heartlands” is similar to Queensland and NSW combined when talking expansion and sponsorship, the low hanging fruit is there to harvest

[GeordieSaint]

15 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I really do hope this doesn't mean that the semi and final haven't sold half of what they think they have....

Stop complaining Dave - it’s a buy one get one free offer… discounts you’ve been wanting since July!

[meast]

29 minutes ago, Dave T said:

What's your evidence for that meast? 

Because I suggest you have literally made that up. 

Based on the responses I got.

[hw88]

Looking at the attendance figures it would appear the people of St Helens are turning out in greater numbers than those at other venues - England and Australia matches excepted.

[Damien]

5 minutes ago, hw88 said:

Looking at the attendance figures it would appear the people of St Helens are turning out in greater numbers than those at other venues - England and Australia matches excepted.

They've also had two of the more appealing matches, including one in Tonga v PNG that was the most appealing of the lot in the group stages.

[nadera78]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

Newcastle and Coventry (10,000 on a Friday night for *Scotland*) show how much missed potential there is in this tournament - caused entirely it seems by believing that we have to sell and resell to the same core areas of the game.

You could say the exact same thing about English RLs entire approach over the past 10 years.