RLWC Attendance-O-Meter

[Archie Gordon]

2 minutes ago, Leyther_Matt said:

Would like to see a picture from elsewhere but upper tier behind the sticks ‘feels’ full

In terms of late arrivals, don’t underestimate the impact of a half 7 kick off. Albeit we were here about 45 mins before kick off having left Leigh at half 5

The upper tier behind the goal can be seen behind Cleary when he kicks from in front of the sticks. There are pockets of fans. You might be in a pocket.

Sorry - not trying to say your experience is 'wrong'. I'm pleased it feels busy.

[Dave T]

55 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Of course the answer is they should have priced it at £2.50.

The consumer is always right. 

Add in all the others group games they have already had and the lack of a singer. 

I mean according to you pricing is fine. The event is fine. You've mocked when people say we should make more effort. 

The crowds are terrible and you are being proved wrong time and time again, yet you still have this sarcy tone. 

It's quite impressive for somebody so wrong. 

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

They also didn't make the field long enough despite having enough room to do so.  As you say, an absolute disgrace for the game.

 

When crowds there were worse than further afield?  What do you base that on?

I was joking.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

If this Huddersfield crowd doesn't kill off the "heartlands first" dinosaurs then not much will. Hull at the weekend might be just as bad.

Shame we couldn't have done an Aussie quarter final in London. Even without being too ambitious on venue, we could have got double this gate at either Loftus Road or The Stoop in West London and a miles better atmosphere and "look".

As I've said all along, the team have done a great job at building awareness versus prior tournaments, through local authority and media partnerships, but an absolutely terrible job at local market customer activation. It's a different marketing skill set. Social media alone is just not enough, certainly not the way we've done it. 

Thank God we got IMG on board, hopefully we'll let the experts be the experts for once. 

(Oh, and @IM2, yes I am attending a Quarter Final this weekend - and doing probably over 7 hours round trip and £120 of diesel to do it - so hopefully I'm allowed to express this opinion!!)

 

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Hull Kingston Bronco

[Dave T]

I think ultimately, there has been an element of acting like a big established major tournament, and in many ways that has been great - media coverage and branding etc are like that of a big tournament. But ultimately it is style over substance. It's OK people saying that 2013 was no good because we gave tickets away.

Firstly, that ain't strictly true, people paid and actually turned up, with a good number of full houses creating great events. Secondly - you don't just move to the next level by deciding you will do that. We haven't had any of these teams playing here in the 9 years since, we haven't done anything new since 2013.

Internationally, we are broadly in the same place, but decided that we are worth more. Well, we aren't. You don't just become more premium by upping the price. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Dave T

[Chrispmartha]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

I think ultimately, there has been an element of acting like a big established major tournament, and in many ways that has been great - media coverage and branding etc are like that of a big tournament. But ultimately it is style over substance. It's OK people saying that 2013 was no good because we gave tickets away.

Firstly, that ain't strictly true, people paid and actually turned up, with a good number of full houses creating great events. Secondly - you don't just move to the next level by deciding you will do that. We haven't had any of these teams playing here in the 9 years since, we haven't done anything new since 2013.

Internationally, we are broadly in the same place, but decided that we are worth more. We'll, we aren't. You don't just become more premium by upping the price. 

It’s not just the price, if it was all the cheap tickets would have sold.

throw in, cost of living issue, rubbish website and the fact they are all on the BBC.

I still don’t think its as big of a disaster as is probably been made out on here.

It just isn’t what Dutton sold us and his targets he gave the  public were unrealistic 

[FearTheVee]

13 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I mean according to you pricing is fine. The event is fine. You've mocked when people say we should make more effort. 

The crowds are terrible and you are being proved wrong time and time again, yet you still have this sarcy tone. 

It's quite impressive for somebody so wrong. 

I just looked on the Samoa game ticket site and there are £40 tickets available. That isn’t too expensive for the game.

if it’s not a good crowd the pricing argument falls apart as we’re back to expecting box office world cup knockout games to be cheap.

RL fans either want a proper World Cup or they don’t.

I think there is a bias to an overly simplistic view of the demand is there but the people organising are just idiots. If we don’t get a good crowd for the England and Samoa QFs we can start to say that the fans don’t back the sport enough. 

[Guest]

"RL fans either want a proper World Cup or they don’t.

I think there is a bias to an overly simplistic view of the demand is there but the people organising are just idiots. If we don’t get a good crowd for the England and Samoa QFs we can start to say that the fans don’t back the sport enough."

Quite.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, Chrispmartha said:

It’s not just the price, if it was all the cheap tickets would have sold.

throw in, cost of living issue, rubbish website and the fact they are all on the BBC.

I still don’t think its as big of a disaster as is probably been made out on here.

It just isn’t what Dutton sold us and his targets he gave the  public were unrealistic 

Two things. Nobody has ever, ever claimed it is just the price, so I'm not gonna debate that point.

But the market value of this game is not the lowest price. We've zero evidence that these games should be priced £25-£70 in the UK. We now have loads of evidence that they shouldn't be. 

[Skinnywinger]

I'm at hudds now the crowd is woeful. Could have closed 2 stands. But 70 pound to sit in the middle is an absolute joke. Corners are full. I paid 25 and walked straight to the middle lol. 

South stand literally has a bus full in it. 

[Chrispmartha]

Just now, Dave T said:

Two things. Nobody has ever, ever claimed it is just the price, so I'm not gonna debate that point.

But the market value of this game is not the lowest price. We've zero evidence that these games should be priced £25-£70 in the UK. We now have loads of evidence that they shouldn't be. 

I think the pricing structure has been off and also the complicated way the stadiums/blocks are priced was wrong.

But Im not convinced tonights crowd would be much different if it had been £15-£50.

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, FearTheVee said:

I just looked on the Samoa game ticket site and there are £40 tickets available. That isn’t too expensive for the game.

if it’s not a good crowd the pricing argument falls apart as we’re back to expecting box office world cup knockout games to be cheap.

RL fans either want a proper World Cup or they don’t.

I think there is a bias to an overly simplistic view of the demand is there but the people organising are just idiots. If we don’t get a good crowd for the England and Samoa QFs we can start to say that the fans don’t back the sport enough. 

Customers are not to blame. 

And whilst you claim £40 isn't too expensive for Tonga v Samoa, the crowd will prove otherwise. 

[Chrispmartha]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Customers are not to blame. 

And whilst you claim £40 isn't too expensive for Tonga v Samoa, the crowd will prove otherwise. 

If Warrington hadn’t had so many games already this game would be sold out.

£40 really isn’t too expensive for this fixture

[FearTheVee]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Customers are not to blame. 

And whilst you claim £40 isn't too expensive for Tonga v Samoa, the crowd will prove otherwise. 

The crowd will not prove otherwise. I don’t care what the crowd is - if £40 tickets don’t sell the problem is people are pretending this os a proper sport with a fan base who wants to watch world class players.

a bad crowd won’t tell me pricing was wrong if £40 tickets are left unsold. £40 is not too much.  It will tell me we don’t have a fan base worthy of a proper World Cup. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by FearTheVee

[Chrispmartha]

Although even though I mention too many games at certain stadiums, I think either this game or Sundays being played at Headingley would have double tonights crowd  and 5k more than Sunday’s

Huddersfield will only get decent crowds if its England/GB

[GeordieSaint]

8200ish.

[Spidey]

Meh

[Dave T]

11 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

I think the pricing structure has been off and also the complicated way the stadiums/blocks are priced was wrong.

But Im not convinced tonights crowd would be much different if it had been £15-£50.

It's clear there is a lot more wrong than just pricing. RLWC is not established or big enough to overcome poor pricing, scheduling, marketing, websites etc. 

If all of that was perfect, then, and only then would we start to think maybe fans aren't interested. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

8200ish.

I don't think that is the worst for the weakest of the semi finals.

In fact - Sunday looks like it might as some perspective to it.

[Man of Kent]

Toppy ticket prices (in some areas of grounds) for foregone conclusions in a deeply heartland-saturated comp isn’t conducive to big crowds. Think we can all agree on that. 

We just don’t have enough fans willing to pay to fill all these games. 

Yet the big picture is this tournament - and more to the point the coverage of it - will help us grow that fanbase.

[Dave T]

7 minutes ago, FearTheVee said:

The crowd will not prove otherwise. I don’t care what the crowd is - if £40 tickets don’t sell the problem is people are pretending this os a proper sport with a fan base who wants to watch world class players.

a bad crowd won’t tell me pricing was wrong if £40 tickets are left unsold. £40 is not too much.  It will tell me we don’t have a fan base worthy of a proper World Cup. 

If enough people are not prepared to pay the price you are charging, then the price is too high. That isn't a controversial point at all. 

Most RL fans will never have paid anything like £40 for an RL international in their life - it isn't the going rate. 

[Damien]

8206 at Huddersfield

[saintspete83]

Personally I have no issue with £40 for a knockout game featuring huge rivals and a star studded Tonga v Samoa.

This game is something that we cannot guarantee to happen live in the UK for years. If that's not enough to attract 10k+ to a ground close to Wigan, st Helens, Leigh, Widnes then this sport will never go anywhere with its current "supporter" base. 

IMG certainly have their work cut out. 

Higher category tickets are way out but there are plenty of affordable tickets for what's on offer. I'm struggling to genuinely understand fans mentality towards this world cup. After drifting away from the sport in recent years this WC got me excited again but I feel that I might be in the minority.

[Chrispmartha]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

It's clear there is a lot more wrong than just pricing. RLWC is not established or big enough to overcome poor pricing, scheduling, marketing, websites etc. 

If all of that was perfect, then, and only then would we start to think maybe fans aren't interested. 

I don’t think there’s as much ‘wrong’ as being made out though, the ticket website is the biggest for me, but despite all the noise the crowds haven’t been THAT bad, they just haven’t been what dutton said they would be.

 

Having said that I do think if its only 10k on Sunday, that one IS bad and the only one Id be bitterly disappointed with

[Chrispmartha]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

If enough people are not prepared to pay the price you are charging, then the price is too high. That isn't a controversial point at all. 

Most RL fans will never have paid anything like £40 for an RL international in their life - it isn't the going rate. 

But you keep saying it isn’t just the pricing?

£40 is not too high for Sundays game, it’s only £8 more than some SL games.