RLWC Attendance-O-Meter

[The Masked Poster]

12 minutes ago, Dave T said:

£98. Plus a ticket at £34, £130 for a day trip isn't terrible. 

If I'd have been prepared to travel to Crewe there were trains for £46

Last time I looked for a non advance train ticket to London (from various W Yorks) I was looking at ridiculous prices like £182. I might possibly go but if I do it will be a drive there and back affair. 

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Depends if you are looking at tickets vs revenues and what your preference is.

It's an attendance thread and they have had targets of 1,000,000, 750,000, 'better than the women's Euros' and 'better than 2013'.

And there's a good chance they're going to miss all of them.

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I do wonder who they have had doing this stuff, because so much of it makes no logical sense together.

I think the million was at bidding stage, the 750k was the revised target once grounds were locked in. 

[Chrispmartha]

Just now, The Masked Poster said:

Last time I looked for a non advance train ticket to London (from various W Yorks) I was looking at ridiculous prices like £182. I might possibly go but if I do it will be a drive there and back affair. 

Ive just looked and it was £94 return from Brighouse to Kings x

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, The Masked Poster said:

Last time I looked for a non advance train ticket to London (from various W Yorks) I was looking at ridiculous prices like £182. I might possibly go but if I do it will be a drive there and back affair. 

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. If I'd have done a train to Crewe and then onto London it would have been £60. Paying the extra for direct, but the prices are decent. 

[Guest]

Venue	Location	Capacity	Fixtures	Games	TOTAL
Bramall Lane	Sheffield	32,702	Group Stage	1	32,702
Coventry Building Society Arena	Coventry	32,753	Group Stage	1	32,753
DW Stadium	Wigan	25,138	Quarter-Final	1	25,138
Eco-Power Stadium	Doncaster	15,231	Group Stage	3	45,693
Elland Road	Leeds	37,890	Semi-Final	1	37,890
Emirates Stadium	London	60,260	Semi-Final	1	60,260
Halliwell Jones Stadium	Warrington	15,200	Group Stage/Quarter-Final	3	45,600
Headingley Stadium	Leeds	21,062	Group Stage	4	84,248
John Smith's Stadium	Huddersfield	24,121	Quarter-Final	1	24,121
Kingston Park	Newcastle	10,200	Group Stage	3	30,600
Leigh Sports Village	Leigh	12,000	Group Stage	3	36,000
MKM Stadium	Hull	25,400	Group Stage/Quarter-Final	2	50,800
Old Trafford	Manchester	74,994	Final	1	74,994
Riverside Stadium	Middlesbrough	34,742	Group Stage	1	34,742
St James' Park	Newcastle	52,405	Group Stage	1	52,405
Totally Wicked Stadium	St Helens	18,000	Group Stage	3	54,000
University of Bolton Stadium	Bolton	28,723	Group Stage	1	28,723
TOTAL				31	750,669

That is my calculation of total potential attendance.

Unless I have messed up - possible - talk of 1m or 750k is bonkers from both RLWC and posters.

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Leonard

[Tommygilf]

On the QFs, they are traditionally quite difficult sells compared to Group stage games and the final.

That does mean however that you need to learn from what has gone before and seen what worked. For example, Leeds got over 16k for Scotland vs NZ in 2013. A large part of that was because there was an encouragement (and a deal) for fans to buy tickets for that game in conjunction with the NZ vs PNG group stage game at Headingley. So the harder sell QF was boosted by the interest in the Group Stage game. As far as I can tell, nothing similar has happened in this world cup.

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. If I'd have done a train to Crewe and then onto London it would have been £60. Paying the extra for direct, but the prices are decent. 

You can usually find decent prices on the coaches but, obviously, may not work around kick off times.

[Exiled Wiganer]

28 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Given this is an attendance thread, it would seem that it's not actually fine and dandy and we're going to be about 300,000 down against target and not beat the 2013 total.

If it seems fine and dandy to me, then I can write that it seems fine and dandy. Oh and the fine and dandy comment was my ability to watch games at the Etihad and the Copper Box. All of which will be brilliant. 

As to what the 750k “target” was, as noted elsewhere, this was always impossible - I have no idea what they meant but they couldn’t ever have got to 750k. 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Exiled Wiganer

[nadera78]

3 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I know it can never be worked out but I'd love to know what we look like in comparison to some of those competitions that get mentioned a lot in this thread in terms of the number of different people who attend.

For example, 752,000 people apparently attended the 2019 Cricket World Cup in England. I went to one game. The highest number of games that I know of anyone else attending was three. There were 48 matches. It was similar for the women's Euros: I went to two. I met one person, an outlier, who was going to six games. Everyone else I know, who attended at all, went to a maximum of three, but, more usually one or two.

That's not the case with the RLWC, is it? Everyone who is going seems to be going to multiple games. (I know this board distorts the view). But from 'the socials' it does look like it's the same people going (or not going) to each match.

Like I say, can't ever be broken down but I think it does speak to the issue being greater than pricing and more to do with just how small our audience is. Even with free rugby league every day, eventually some folk would go, "You know what? I think I might give it a miss today and go to the game next week instead."

We just don't have enough people.

The next time someone states on here with absolute certainty that we should stop wasting time on London, Newcastle and France, and instead focus on the "14million people in the heartlands" I'm going to use this tournament to point out how few of those 14m actually watch RL and just what an enormous job it would be to persuade them to. A massive tournament, on their doorstep, with lots of free publicity from the BBC, and they haven't gone to watch the games. Prices are far from the only issue here.

[Exiled Wiganer]

4 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Venue	Location	Capacity	Fixtures	Games	TOTAL
Bramall Lane	Sheffield	32,702	Group Stage	1	32,702
Coventry Building Society Arena	Coventry	32,753	Group Stage	1	32,753
DW Stadium	Wigan	25,138	Quarter-Final	1	25,138
Eco-Power Stadium	Doncaster	15,231	Group Stage	3	45,693
Elland Road	Leeds	37,890	Semi-Final	1	37,890
Emirates Stadium	London	60,260	Semi-Final	1	60,260
Halliwell Jones Stadium	Warrington	15,200	Group Stage/Quarter-Final	3	45,600
Headingley Stadium	Leeds	21,062	Group Stage	4	84,248
John Smith's Stadium	Huddersfield	24,121	Quarter-Final	1	24,121
Kingston Park	Newcastle	10,200	Group Stage	3	30,600
Leigh Sports Village	Leigh	12,000	Group Stage	3	36,000
MKM Stadium	Hull	25,400	Group Stage/Quarter-Final	2	50,800
Old Trafford	Manchester	74,994	Final	1	74,994
Riverside Stadium	Middlesbrough	34,742	Group Stage	1	34,742
St James' Park	Newcastle	52,405	Group Stage	1	52,405
Totally Wicked Stadium	St Helens	18,000	Group Stage	3	54,000
University of Bolton Stadium	Bolton	28,723	Group Stage	1	28,723
TOTAL				31	750,669

That is my calculation of total potential attendance.

Unless I have messed up - possible - talk of 1m or 750k is bonkers from both RLWC and posters.

Thanks for going to the trouble of doing that. I agree that I have found the 750k “target” very confusing. It was clearly always impossible. It has become another stick to beat the organisers with on here, but I do wonder how that came about. 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Exiled Wiganer

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

If it seems fine and dandy to me, then I can write that it seems fine and dandy. 

A target based upon 100% of tickets being sold.

Let's ponder taking a target seriously where Boro sells 30k for Cook Islands v Tonga or Coventry does 30k for Australia vs Scotland

[Guest]

Just now, Exiled Wiganer said:

Thanks for going to teh trouble of doing that. I agree that I have found the 750k “target” very confusing. It was clearly always impossible. It has become another stick to beat the organisers with on here, but I do wonder how that came about. 

I wasn't about at the time - so who knows the context and the actual words compared to what they meant at the time said. Things tend to take on legs once repeated for months.

Sure - an aspiration is to sell every seat, but even if that was said - I would not take it seriously.

Of course I assume the 2021 version had more seats - Anfield for example. So might have had an impact.

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Thanks for going to the trouble of doing that. I agree that I have found the 750k “target” very confusing. It was clearly always impossible. It has become another stick to beat the organisers with on here, but I do wonder how that came about. 

I'm starting to think it may just be incompetence 

[Guest]

571k - the women's Euros - would equate to 76.1% attendances.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

I'm starting to think it may just be incompetence 

Anyone got the quote at the time?

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

4 hours ago, Leonard said:

https://hullkr.co.uk/match-ticketing-prices/

£25 and £30 for a single ticket at Hull KR.

So I don't think the pricing was outrageous in comparison.

Its a world cup QF, not a Hull Side vs Wakey.

I'm confused which QF was at KR?

Also the WC tag is meaningless when market forces are enacted 

The market has been tested through this tournament and shows that the WC tickets have mostly been overpriced for a lot of views and games ....saying anything else makes as much sense as someone saying their house is worth say £300,000 but if no one pays that they have to accept it isn't worth it 

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

You can usually find decent prices on the coaches but, obviously, may not work around kick off times.

We once used MegaBus from Manchester to Edinburgh. We got off at Preston and paid a fortune to get home on the train. Never again

[Guest]

Just now, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I'm confused which QF was at KR?

Also the WC tag is meaningless when market forces are enacted 

The market has been tested through this tournament and shows that the WC tickets have mostly been overpriced for a lot of views and games ....saying anything else makes as much sense as someone saying their house is worth say £300,000 but if no one pays that they have to accept it isn't worth it 

Strawman.

But I agree - the market has shown nobody in Hull is bothered, maybe outside of an England game.

But they love a derby.

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

We once used MegaBus from Manchester to Edinburgh. We got off at Preston and paid a fortune to get home on the train. Never again

Love it.

My parents used to live near Cardiff when we lived in leafy Mortlake.

They got the Megabus from Cardiff to London and spent the entire time they were with us saying how great it was.

They got the return and *have never spoken about what happened that meant that they will never use the Megabus again*.

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Anyone got the quote at the time?

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

References the target.

I believe Anfield and Bolton were still in for Quarter Finals at this stage. Both their capacities were effectively halved by their replacements - knocking c.40k of the potential.

[Dave T]

14 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Thanks for going to the trouble of doing that. I agree that I have found the 750k “target” very confusing. It was clearly always impossible. It has become another stick to beat the organisers with on here, but I do wonder how that came about. 

You've quoted a post which shows the capacity is 750k, so it is possible. 

And when the 750k target was set, it included Anfield instead of Wigan, and Bolton instead of Wire, so have an extra 43k capacity. 

It would have meant 95% to capacities. 

Tbh, they have been slippery around targets, so throwing in the 50k or so that we will get across women and wheelchair tournaments would have been fine. 

But all of that becomes irrelevant when you actually deliver lower crowds than 2013 when your stated aim is to grow attendances massively. 

[Black Country Wire]

On 01/11/2022 at 11:38, Dave T said:

 

Ignore this! Won't let me delete it.

[Exiled Wiganer]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

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

References the target.

I believe Anfield and Bolton were still in for Quarter Finals at this stage. Both their capacities were effectively halved by their replacements - knocking c.40k of the potential.

OK - thanks for that - in that case people can carry on kicking the organisers for failing to sell that number of tickets. It’s their own fault. 

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

OK - thanks for that - in that case people can carry on kicking the organisers for failing to sell that number of tickets. It’s their own fault. 

To be fair to them, whilst I think they were misguided, we shouldn't knock ambition. Unfortunately the delivery hasn't matched their ambition. 

I think had we delivered, say 550k to 600k, it would have been a very different atmosphere around the tournament. Whilst it is a missed target, it would be real growth, and I think that's what people want to see.