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you do realise only 16,000 turned up to a "sold out" 20K seat stadium.
no club can have a seat for every member,
Packed mentality: Wanderers aim for sellout season at home
Soccer
DateOctober 31, 2013
Standing room only: Wanderers fans dance and chant the night away. Photo: Cameron Spencer
Western Sydney believe they are on track to become the first team in the history of Australian sport to sell out all their home games in a season.
On the eve of their second home game of the campaign against Adelaide United - for which a few tickets remain - the Wanderers are confident there won't be a spare seat by kick-off for every match at Pirtek Stadium. The main reason for the scarcity of tickets is because the Wanderers sold 16,100 memberships, leaving about 4000 tickets for the general public each week.
''It's entirely feasible that, yes, every game we play this year could be sold out,'' executive chairman Lyall Gorman said. ''We're certainly tracking that way and while we don't want anybody to miss out, the vast take-up of memberships means we're limited in what we can offer the general public.''
As of Wednesday night, the only tickets available for the match against the Reds on Friday were single seats in the east stand and in the unreserved area at the stadium's southern end. All are expected to be snapped up by the day of the game and Gorman said the rush of tickets would become familiar.
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''We've got a waiting list of 1000 members, which is a great testament to where this team is at and how they're resonating with the community,'' he said. ''We're still looking at ways to free up more tickets and to get as many people as we can to the games.''
As part of the plan, the Wanderers are trialling a buy-back scheme, where members can alert the club if they will not be attending the match, allowing the club to sell their seats. Similar schemes already exist at major leagues across Europe and the US, including the English Premier League.
''This buy-back scheme should at least enable us to get quite a few extra tickets out there every week,'' Gorman said. ''We're trialling how it might work this week across a few bays and we're hopeful it will be fully operational by the time we host Melbourne Victory [on November 16].''
Gorman said it was difficult for crowd figures to reach capacity because of member no-shows.
''We certainly want our members to fill the stadium with red and black each week,'' he said. ''But the buy-back scheme will certainly help with that in the future, as will the expansion of the stadium next year [by 3300 seats], when we'll hopefully be able to accommodate everyone who wants a membership.''
The sight of sold-out crowds and on-field success will boost the sale value of the club, leading many to query whether Football Federation Australia should hold onto the Wanderers. Gorman said it was out of the club's hands. ''You'd have to speak to the FFA about where the sale is at - we're not in control of that decision,'' he said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/...son-at-home-20131030-2whh8.html#ixzz2jH4pmqWY
