Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:29 am  

MattyB wrote: A small allocation of tickets were released on promotion, here’s an update looking at our official site: East stand sold out last night (full price). South stand (less than 200 left) - prices at £27 adult West stand (less than 800 left) - prices at £30-33 adult North stand (less than 1500 left) - prices at £23 adult. https://www.eticketing.co.uk/wiganwarri ... Index/1934 So looking at that we are around 22k+ with four full selling days left. An attendance that 95% of clubs in our sport would find impossible to achieve in their home ground or neutral stadium. Where was everyone last week??

MattyB wrote: A small allocation of tickets were released on promotion, here’s an update looking at our official site: East stand sold out last night (full price). South stand (less than 200 left) - prices at £27 adult West stand (less than 800 left) - prices at £30-33 adult North stand (less than 1500 left) - prices at £23 adult. https://www.eticketing.co.uk/wiganwarri ... Index/1934 So looking at that we are around 22k+ with four full selling days left. An attendance that 95% of clubs in our sport would find impossible to achieve in their home ground or neutral stadium. Where was everyone last week??

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:55 am  

bramleyrhino wrote:

I've been more than happy to call out Leeds when I see fit and you're right, there are general trends that I don't believe that the clubs and the sport are doing enough to adapt to. I include Wigan and Leeds in that as much as anyone else.

However, what I will say is that Leeds' approach in recent years has quite clearly been to focus on lower volume and higher margin, rather than a "stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap" model that we see deployed by other clubs and the RFL. You only have to look at how Headingley is being reconfigured to see that - cheap standing capacity has been replaced with seats that will be selling for a matchday rate of around £35-£40 a seat. I highly doubt that there are many cheap or free tickets floating around LS postcodes, perhaps the only exception to that recently being last season's games at Elland Road - although I suspect that their hand was forced by the health and safety implications of playing an SL fixture in a building site.

I get that not all clubs can do that, but we literally have clubs going to the other extreme entirely because 'cheap tickets' is the only trick in their playbook. One of the things that helped the stack of cards collapse at Bradford was giving discounts to people who would have happily paid full price and at some point, Huddersfield are going to start asking those fans who've been enjoying 10+ years of £9 a game season tickets to start paying full price - Davy is, after all, on the same mortal coil as the rest of us.

My original comment was a glib remark in reaction to what I would argue is the 'cheapening' of what should be one of our major events. I don't think it's unfair or unjustified to call that into question. Tactical offers are fine in the right circumstances, but for what for what should be a major event?

Yes it was a glib remark, hence I could at that point only respond to a glib remark.

More informed comments like the one above are far more constructive

Not disagreeing with a lot of what you say
I had numerous reasons to be in co fact with Simon Collison who was the marketing manager then chief exec at Wigan from around 2006 to around 2016.
I think he was very successful and a bit of an unsung hero in Wigans rise over that period.
He told me that they had been to America to research marketing and o e thing that was clear was that giving tickets away NEVER works and heavily discounting is similar.
Wigan used to give tickets away in schools early years at JJB, crowds averaged around 10/11k
They stopped doing it around 2006 and crowds rised to an average over the next 10yeara of around 14k.

Last couple of years crowds have gone down, Wigan have tried promotional stuff but nowhere near to the level of "The Big One" or the Heinz stand day out.
Some of that has imcluded cheaper tickets but not sure that alone is the reason to the drop to around 11.5/12k.
State of the game and other social issues have played a part.

Top line is I want all our club's to get bigger attendances.
I believe that some of the changes made over the last 6 months or so we're the right ones but it will take time to undo a lot of the issues over the last 5 plus years.
A lot of fans seem to want Elston etc to fail (and sorry to say Leeds fams seem to be quite vocal about this) but in truth the game couldn't carry on going the way it was.
They seem to want to point to Wigans falling attendances of the last 2 years in isolation and use it as an argument that the changes to the game were wrong and Gary and Nigel were right all along, they weren't imo.
Let's see where we are in 3/5 years, they may or may not succeed, but a lot of club allegiances have to be put to one side here for the good of the game.

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:56 am  

RagingBull wrote:

Where was everyone last week??

Biggest crowd of the weekend?
Where was everyone else at the other games?

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 12:16 pm  

Jukesays wrote:

Top line is I want all our club's to get bigger attendances.
I believe that some of the changes made over the last 6 months or so we're the right ones but it will take time to undo a lot of the issues over the last 5 plus years.
A lot of fans seem to want Elston etc to fail (and sorry to say Leeds fams seem to be quite vocal about this) but in truth the game couldn't carry on going the way it was.
They seem to want to point to Wigans falling attendances of the last 2 years in isolation and use it as an argument that the changes to the game were wrong and Gary and Nigel were right all along, they weren't imo.
Let's see where we are in 3/5 years, they may or may not succeed, but a lot of club allegiances have to be put to one side here for the good of the game.

I obviously can't speak for all Leeds fans, and I obviously do want Elstone to succeed because if he does, we all succeed. But I do agree with Gary Hetherington's position that clubs were using the S8 structure and Red Hall as an excuse for their own failings.

When you have high profile club chairmen and CEOs using some of the excuses that they've used to explain poor crowds, I can't feel that Hetherington has/had a point:

"Fans don't know when they're on holiday." - How many people really base their holidays or ticket purchasing decisions around this? And even if it does affect season ticket sales to a greater degree than I suspect it does, does that really affect the 'walk up' market?

"We don't have enough notice of when we're playing" - despite anywhere between 10 and 20 days between the S8 fixtures being publically announced and a club's first home game.

"It's hard to sell corporate hospitality" - from a club that doesn't even have a page about their corporate hospitality on their website.

"Something something away fans" - the less said about this, the better.

"It's hard to sell sponsorships" - from clubs that seem to have an almost revolving door of sponsors and others that have to raffle-off sponsorship deals like a bag of meat at the local WMC.

Stuff like this, for me, really doesn't uphold the argument that the Super Eights and Wood / Rimmer were the things running the sport into the ground. The real reasons are far, far closer to home.

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 12:47 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

I obviously can't speak for all Leeds fans, and I obviously do want Elstone to succeed because if he does, we all succeed. But I do agree with Gary Hetherington's position that clubs were using the S8 structure and Red Hall as an excuse for their own failings.

When you have high profile club chairmen and CEOs using some of the excuses that they've used to explain poor crowds, I can't feel that he has a point:

"Fans don't know when they're on holiday. How many people really base their holidays or ticket purchasing decisions around this? And even if it does affect season ticket sales to a greater degree than I suspect it does, does that really affect the 'walk up' market?

"We don't have enough notice of when we're playing", despite anywhere between 10 and 20 days between the S8 fixtures being publically announced and a club's first home game.

"It's hard to sell corporate hospitality" from a club that doesn't even have a page about their corporate hospitality on their website.

"Something something away fans" - the less said about this, the better.

"It's hard to sell sponsorships" from clubs that seem to have an almost revolving door of sponsors and others that have to raffle-off sponsorship deals like a bag of meat at the local WMC.

Stuff like this, for me, really doesn't uphold the argument that the Super Eights and Wood / Rimmer were the things running the sport into the ground. The real reasons are far, far closer to home.

Whilst agreeing with the sentiment about looking closer to home the club's are all part of a wider picture (and I get the irony about the SL club's breaking away).
However
A lot of the issues surrounding attendances don't necessarily just come from marketing and or lack or quality of it.

The structure of the game, the rules, the refs, stagnant salary cap, reserves structure and I could go o n all impact on a club's ability to market themselves (and in some instances their desire to do so).
I feel like some clubs are just happy taking the sky money and working at that level, but the fascination to make competition Even has gone too far imo. I want it to better, not stagnate.

I admire Leeds for their commercial success, not withstanding that a bit like Man Utd it was always a matter of time before someone got it right so I don't think Gary is the miracle worker some portray, right place right time etc.
They also benefit from their location (big city), and other such factors that others don't.

I wrote a post a number of years ago about why shouldn't they benefit from.their own success, what would happen if they got a lot of injuries and then got relegated.
How would that benefit Leeds and rugby league.
A club with 10m plus operation turnover being relegated due to a some bad luck?
Why shouldn't they be allowed to spend that money to help themselves?
I didn't think a couple of years later it could have happened.

I know its moving into different areas of discussion but I do believe our top club's of which Leeds and Wigan are possibly the top 2 (awaits Saints fans) should be allowed to push their business and playing quality and in turn other club's such as Warrington/Saints/Hull/Catalans aren't a million miles away from. We need all club's to want to aspire to those levels and Cas/Hull is seem to be on board with that, we need all club's to want to push themselves whilst recognising that we need to be careful.
My feeling is that we have become too over officious on and off the field.
Changing the game to speed it up imo is working
Off the field we need to do the same, and last of that for me is incentivise club's to nakenthwir businesses bigger and more profitable.
I always liked the idea of the 50% rule I.e salary cap the club's so they can spend up to 50% of their income )or whatever % the club's agree on maybe up to an agreed higher limit (say 5million).
Push the club's to Increase their income, attract bigger sponsors, investors etc.

Anyway, let's hope more of us get behind the game and as best we can put club allegiances to one side not on the pitch, but for the growth of the game.

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:06 pm  

Jukesays wrote:

Biggest crowd of the weekend?
Where was everyone else at the other games?

Nope
The biggest crowd of the week was at Hull the night before, nice try though.

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:14 pm  

RagingBull wrote:

Where was everyone last week??

The game was free on Sky Sports Mix, that would have had an impact. Leeds brought less than usual. Some would be saving up for the WCC, evening kick-off, Storm Eric.

Choose your pick

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:52 pm  

RagingBull wrote:

Nope
The biggest crowd of the week was at Hull the night before, nice try though.

I don't class thursday as a weekend.
Anyway carry on trying to put a negative spin on a 20k plus crowd and Wigan.
I'm sure people like you are part of the answer not the problem.

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:11 pm  

Jukesays wrote:

Whilst agreeing with the sentiment about looking closer to home the club's are all part of a wider picture (and I get the irony about the SL club's breaking away).
However
A lot of the issues surrounding attendances don't necessarily just come from marketing and or lack or quality of it.

The structure of the game, the rules, the refs, stagnant salary cap, reserves structure and I could go o n all impact on a club's ability to market themselves (and in some instances their desire to do so).
I feel like some clubs are just happy taking the sky money and working at that level, but the fascination to make competition Even has gone too far imo. I want it to better, not stagnate.

I admire Leeds for their commercial success, not withstanding that a bit like Man Utd it was always a matter of time before someone got it right so I don't think Gary is the miracle worker some portray, right place right time etc.
They also benefit from their location (big city), and other such factors that others don't.

I wrote a post a number of years ago about why shouldn't they benefit from.their own success, what would happen if they got a lot of injuries and then got relegated.
How would that benefit Leeds and rugby league.
A club with 10m plus operation turnover being relegated due to a some bad luck?
Why shouldn't they be allowed to spend that money to help themselves?
I didn't think a couple of years later it could have happened.

I know its moving into different areas of discussion but I do believe our top club's of which Leeds and Wigan are possibly the top 2 (awaits Saints fans) should be allowed to push their business and playing quality and in turn other club's such as Warrington/Saints/Hull/Catalans aren't a million miles away from. We need all club's to want to aspire to those levels and Cas/Hull is seem to be on board with that, we need all club's to want to push themselves whilst recognising that we need to be careful.
My feeling is that we have become too over officious on and off the field.
Changing the game to speed it up imo is working
Off the field we need to do the same, and last of that for me is incentivise club's to nakenthwir businesses bigger and more profitable.
I always liked the idea of the 50% rule I.e salary cap the club's so they can spend up to 50% of their income )or whatever % the club's agree on maybe up to an agreed higher limit (say 5million).
Push the club's to Increase their income, attract bigger sponsors, investors etc.

Anyway, let's hope more of us get behind the game and as best we can put club allegiances to one side not on the pitch, but for the growth of the game.

Good post.
I've criticised the quality of play in recent years but I think the recent change in rules albeit early days is having a positive impact plus most teams seem to trying to play a more expansive style of play.
Elstone has only just really started so Im quite hopeful that we will start to see other changes that will benefit the game.

Re: Cheap Tickets:World ClubChallenge : Sat Feb 16, 2019 1:00 pm  

Good to see that Wigan appear on course to achieve a better crowd that the WCC in 2017 against Cronulla.

Wigan's decline in crowds over recent years has been a cause from concern, dropping from around an average of 16-17,000 in 2010 and 2011 to around 11,000 by 2018. Personally, I suspect the tedious nature of Wane's tactics contributed heavily to this as Wigan have been successful on the field in this period.

But I've never understood why some fans seem to take pleasure in their rivals getting lower crowds. As a Saints fans, I didn't enjoy seeing only 11,000 at the DW last week for the Leeds match, but I guess that many fans will have decided to go to this game instead .

Maybe moving the WCC back to the curtain raiser for the season is a better idea? Here's hoping for at least 22,000 in anyway.