England v Australia 2025 - coming to the UK!

[Josef K]

On 23/04/2025 at 15:27, Dave T said:

I sat there for the Saints v Wire cup final, not sure if you remember that one?

I loved it, better seat (with a drink holder) and the concourse were better standard, better organised and less cramped. 

I'd choose it every time.

I sat there for the Wire/Saints CCF it was a cracking spec. 

[WN83]

Nostalgia can play tricks and while we did get some good crowds in London when I was a kid, they were not the regular 70-80,000 my mate said we used to get yesterday, when I said in excess of 50-55k would class as acceptable.

I had a look at the 4 big games I can recall, which were the 1990 test, the 1992 World cup final, the 1994 test and the 1995 World Cup final and the crowds were 54k, 73k, 57k and 66k. Now people aren't going to the Wembley final in numbers like they used to and I don't think the numbers have been huge in terms of people from the heartlands travelling to London for tests in recent years, so I certainly wouldn't be getting upset at any crowd in excess of that 50k mark. I'd love to think we can get to 70+ but history seems to be against us. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

38 minutes ago, WN83 said:

Nostalgia can play tricks and while we did get some good crowds in London when I was a kid, they were not the regular 70-80,000 my mate said we used to get yesterday, when I said in excess of 50-55k would class as acceptable.

I had a look at the 4 big games I can recall, which were the 1990 test, the 1992 World cup final, the 1994 test and the 1995 World Cup final and the crowds were 54k, 73k, 57k and 66k. Now people aren't going to the Wembley final in numbers like they used to and I don't think the numbers have been huge in terms of people from the heartlands travelling to London for tests in recent years, so I certainly wouldn't be getting upset at any crowd in excess of that 50k mark. I'd love to think we can get to 70+ but history seems to be against us. 

We got over 67k in 2013 and weren’t playing the Aussies. That’s by far the most relevant comparison.

I have been to pretty much all the internationals down here in the last 35 years and I see no reason at all why we can’t smash the 2013 figure, given the quality of Moran’s team.

Pretty much all of the relatively poorly attended ones had subterranean marketing. This one is clearly being done by professionals. 

I would be astonished if it comes in less than 60k. 70k would be par and a new record for any Ashes series anywhere would be a very good result. 
 

There is a market and there is a team which knows how to reach it. All will be well. 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

40 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

We got over 67k in 2013 and weren’t playing the Aussies. That’s by far the most relevant comparison.

I have been to pretty much all the internationals down here in the last 35 years and I see no reason at all why we can’t smash the 2013 figure, given the quality of Moran’s team.

Pretty much all of the relatively poorly attended ones had subterranean marketing. This one is clearly being done by professionals. 

I would be astonished if it comes in less than 60k. 70k would be par and a new record for any Ashes series anywhere would be a very good result. 
 

There is a market and there is a team which knows how to reach it. All will be well. 

Let's not forget as well that 8 out of the top 10 England attendances were all in London. Whenever we play in London we get a decent crowd. 

[Anita Bath]

2 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Let's not forget as well that 8 out of the top 10 England attendances were all in London. Whenever we play in London we get a decent crowd. 

1973 tour 1st test at 100,000 capacity Wembley. Attendance 9800.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

59 minutes ago, Anita Bath said:

1973 tour 1st test at 100,000 capacity Wembley. Attendance 9800.

Wow... one match... 50 years ago...

Edited April 28 by The Hallucinating Goose

[Exiled Wiganer]

3 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Let's not forget as well that 8 out of the top 10 England attendances were all in London. Whenever we play in London we get a decent crowd. 

Indeed, It isn’t at all a speculative proposition. There is a track record of huge interest. The key questions are whether we will raise awareness generally and then push it as a must see. Everything I have seen and heard thus far suggests we will succeed on both of those fronts. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

1 hour ago, Anita Bath said:

1973 tour 1st test at 100,000 capacity Wembley. Attendance 9800.

When did Sydney last get a 67k crowd for an international? 

[WN83]

I hope we can get up to and past that 67k mark that we saw for the 2013 World Cup Semi for sure but I don't think anything above 50k is a disaster. 

Talking of crowds, I came across the highlights of the 2017 World Cup final before and was surprised with the amount of empty seats at Suncorp. I checked the crowd and it was 40k. We'd be pretty gutted with that and it makes you think we're probably too hard on ourselves sometimes. 

[gingerjon]

9 hours ago, Anita Bath said:

1973 tour 1st test at 100,000 capacity Wembley. Attendance 9800.

Five tests on that tour with an aggregate attendance of under 50,000.

Good times.

[Gomersall]

9 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Wow... one match... 50 years ago...

https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/matchdetails.php?tselect=17626
 

[gingerjon]

34 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/matchdetails.php?tselect=17626
 

30,000 at Swinton for the next game.

So the lesson of 62 years ago is that we should play Tests at Station Road.

This is valuable intel.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

38 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/matchdetails.php?tselect=17626
 

Wow... one test... 62 years ago... 

...somehow I don't think you can use the attendance of a single GB test over 6 decades ago to predict what the attendance of an England test in the first Ashes series in 22 years, in 2025 is gonna be.

You do know most of those 13,000 people from 1963 are dead don't you..?

[Dave T]

Recent history (last 30 years or so) shows that London generally delivers the best crowds of a series, so there is no reason to think this year will be any different.

However,those numbers do vary quite wildly. We've seen 35k for a game versus the Aussies the last time we played them in London so we can't get complacent here at all. 

The signs so far are that this series should do well, we've had a very good start, but there remains a good chance that the crowd could be anything from c50k upwards. That'd be good in the context of internationals, but with the start we've had we really want to be breaking records.

But we can't get complacent, London when arranged poorly is still as likely to get bad results as anywhere else, even though the numbers are higher. That 35k at Olympic St (horrible ground used for 2nd year, played on Sunday), plus the World Cup Semi (poor pricing and events) show that there is still risk here.

[WN83]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Recent history (last 30 years or so) shows that London generally delivers the best crowds of a series, so there is no reason to think this year will be any different.

However,those numbers do vary quite wildly. We've seen 35k for a game versus the Aussies the last time we played them in London so we can't get complacent here at all. 

The signs so far are that this series should do well, we've had a very good start, but there remains a good chance that the crowd could be anything from c50k upwards. That'd be good in the context of internationals, but with the start we've had we really want to be breaking records.

But we can't get complacent, London when arranged poorly is still as likely to get bad results as anywhere else, even though the numbers are higher. That 35k at Olympic St (horrible ground used for 2nd year, played on Sunday), plus the World Cup Semi (poor pricing and events) show that there is still risk here.

Saw some talk that a big budget had been put aside to promote the Everton test in and around Liverpool but with it selling out so quickly, that is available to then put in to the pot for the promotion of Wembley. Let's hope that is the case and we see a push like we've not seen before for that test. 

[thehullram]

On 16/04/2025 at 16:06, thehullram said:

Using some very dodgy maths, I am estimating that there have been 480 tickets sold in the last 24 hours. 

As I have time on my hands I picked 8 blocks at random in different price bands and levels and counted the amount of tickets available in each block at about this time yesterday. I've just repeated and we have sold an average of 5 tickets per section (ranging from zero tickets sold to 12). If you multiply 5 x 96 blocks you get 480 tickets sold. 

I know very much a guestimate, but if we can shift at least a couple of hundred tickets per day on average, then with 192 days left that's another 38400 tickets sold........

will do again when I'm bored. 

Just done another look and 4 more sections sold out in the last week (211, 225, 228 & 240), with others only having a few tickets left (239, 213, 224, 229). Still plenty available in most areas, but they are definitely moving a few each day.....

Edited April 29 by thehullram

[wilsontown]

Has it beat the 9800 we got in 1973 yet? I'm on tenterhooks here.

[WN83]

52 minutes ago, thehullram said:

Just done another look and 4 more sections sold out in the last week (211, 225, 228 & 240), with others only having a few tickets left (239, 213, 224, 229). Still plenty available in most areas, but they are definitely moving a few each day.....

I saw on the 80 minutes podcast them saying sales are at about 25k currently. If that's correct and we want to get up to 70k and we have 25 weeks until the game, it leaves us needing to shift an average of 1800 tickets a week. You're going to get more of a rush in the weeks leading up to the fixture, so it probably doesn't need to be that at the minute but things are looking positive enough if blocks are selling out and in your previous post you mentioned nearly 500 tickets selling in a day. 

Edited April 29 by WN83

[Anita Bath]

14 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Wow... one match... 50 years ago...

1963. 13,000. Thats two matches…

Just wondering what you understanding of the word whenever is.

[Click]

5 minutes ago, Anita Bath said:

1963. 13,000. Thats two matches…

Just wondering what you understanding of the word whenever is.

He should be ashamed of himself.

We're all glad you've come on here with the cold hard facts.

[Just Browny]

3 minutes ago, Click said:

He should be ashamed of himself.

We're all glad you've come on here with the cold hard facts.

The depressing thing is you could imagine this being the debate at the RFL when somebody proposed the Wembley fixturee; someone round the table clicking their tongue at the suggestion and waving an old Rothmans as evidence that 'they don't like rugby league down there'.

[fighting irish]

Do we have any reliable numbers on the actual sales for Wembley today? 

[Damien]

19 minutes ago, WN83 said:

I saw on the 80 minutes podcast them saying sales are at about 25k currently. If that's correct and we want to get up to 70k and we have 25 weeks until the game, it leaves us needing to shift an average of 1800 tickets a week. You're going to get more of a rush in the weeks leading up to the fixture, so it probably doesn't need to be that at the minute but things are looking positive enough if blocks are selling out and in your previous post you mentioned nearly 500 tickets selling in a day. 

I think 25k is pretty great at this stage.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, Anita Bath said:

1963. 13,000. Thats two matches…

Just wondering what you understanding of the word whenever is.

I was using said word as a metaphorical exaggeration to ensure an emphasis on my point. Due to this being a common pattern used in casual speech I expected the majority of the receivers of said speech to understand the meaning of my word choice and so not reply with their own pedantic point.

And the vast majority of receivers did appear to understand why I made the vocabularic choice I did and thus indulged my metaphor.

[Devon Ram]

3 hours ago, fighting irish said:

Do we have any reliable numbers on the actual sales for Wembley today? 

Funny been thinking the same last few days.