RLWC2017 Crowd Watch

[Perth Red]

Bit concerned about the lack of promotion in Perth for the double header. With three home nations teams I'd have expected to see targeting of uk ex pats. I even gave them a major britfest event on next week that would have been ideal to promote at but they didn't have the decency to get back and acknowledge my email. Unless they get their ar5e in gear nib will be lucky to be half full.

Quick look at tickets shows the middle section of east stadium is still available suggesting few sales in the main stand, then again at $63 plus fees a ticket im not surprised!

 

[Burns]

The double header isn’t played for a month yet, and $63 for two International Pool matches in a World Cup is completely reasonable. We do need to make some money from all of this.

 

[yakstorm]

The main concern has to be the opening weekend. If these games at least look full, it sets the tone for the rest of the tournament. If there is lots of empty seats, well, it will be a bit like RLWC2000 all over again, where all the talk is about the seats and not what's on the field.

So based upon what we can see on Ticketek, what we know with PAX numbers, etc... we are looking at:

• Australia v England
  Currently around 17K allocated.
  Tracking 22-25K
  
  
• New Zealand v Samoa
  Currently around 8.5K allocated with 7.6K sales and then corporates (conservative corporate estimate) - Tracking 15-20K
  
  
• PNG v Wales
  Currently 12.6K allocated.
  Tracking 15K Sell Out
  
  
• Fiji v USA
  Guessing around 3K now.... was around 2K over a week ago, and Western Grandstand is almost full. 10K is definitely still possible here.
  
  
• Cairns Double Header
  Haven't seen a PAX, but we know the 1.7K Grandstand is sold out, and the first 10 rows in both the temporary stands are, which equates to around 1.4K more... so it's looking better than Townsville currently... Reluctant to say its tracking for more than 10K though at this stage.
  
• France v Lebanon
  So currently around 2.1K... plus corporates... would feel more confident with this game if it was in Sydney... not sure if the Lebanese community of Sydney would travel down to Canberra, especially with two 'bigger' games coming up. France v Scotland in 08 did somehow get 11K, so you would hope we could at least get the same, but it's not tracking that way.

 

[Burns]

I think the double header will be fine. Have concerns on Canberra and Townsville.

Surely, in the first week we avoid any sub 10,000 crowd.

The Opener must sell out. Completely and utterly non-negoitable.

 

[Jim from Oz]

marketing and promotion of all these games would be a good idea!!!

 

[Coparugby]

[*]France v Lebanon
So currently around 2.1K... plus corporates... would feel more confident with this game if it was in Sydney... not sure if the Lebanese community of Sydney would travel down to Canberra, especially with two 'bigger' games coming up. France v Scotland in 08 did somehow get 11K, so you would hope we could at least get the same, but it's not tracking that way.
[/LIST]

They seem to travel down for Bulldogs games. Is any work being done within the Lebanese community in Sydney to market the games?

 

[kiwileaguefan]

http://www.nrl.com/unprecedented-era-for-league-rlwc-boss/tabid/10874/newsid/113817/default.aspx

"We are seeing a major spike in ticket sales for all Tonga games. There's lots of Tongans that are voting to come out and support what's happening by the players that play for Tonga. I think now is the opportunity for the Australian supporters to come out and support the green and gold."

RLWC 2017 CEO Andrew Hill.

Interesting....sounds like tickets sales are struggling in Australia? Like people have said, the first weekend is extremely important....not just for crowd numbers but how much importance is their on the England vs Australia game being competitive?

 

[adamkungl]

Reminder
To reach 450,000 attendees over 25 events (3 double headers) we need to average 18,000 per event.

On a side note, I wonder what kind of crowds the womens games will pull at Cronulla - hopefully a few thousand show up but midweek daytime games are basically begging people to avoid.

 

[lockyno1]

Who decided on the schedule?

It's horrible. How isn't there a big game in Townsville? It's a rugby league mad town and you out 4 minnows on? Silly.

 

[adamkungl]

Who decided on the schedule?

It's horrible. How isn't there a big game in Townsville? It's a rugby league mad town and you out 4 minnows on? Silly.

lol this is the worst criticism of the draw i've seen, and there have been a lot

 

[Ari Gold]

http://www.nrl.com/unprecedented-era-for-league-rlwc-boss/tabid/10874/newsid/113817/default.aspx




RLWC 2017 CEO Andrew Hill.

Interesting....sounds like tickets sales are struggling in Australia? Like people have said, the first weekend is extremely important....not just for crowd numbers but how much importance is their on the England vs Australia game being competitive?

..... where does it say they are struggling?

 

[Hoofhearted]

Bit concerned about the lack of promotion in Perth for the double header. With three home nations teams I'd have expected to see targeting of uk ex pats. I even gave them a major britfest event on next week that would have been ideal to promote at but they didn't have the decency to get back and acknowledge my email. Unless they get their ar5e in gear nib will be lucky to be half full.

Quick look at tickets shows the middle section of east stadium is still available suggesting few sales in the main stand, then again at $63 plus fees a ticket im not surprised!

England arrive in Perth Friday, are playing a warm up game next week so I would assume a bit of promotion will start once they arrive. You would imagine the reason that the Poms are spending a week in Perth before it all starts would be for promotional purposes, I would think that it will be the case everywhere next week when all teams arrive in the country and the media actually have people to interview.

Fingers crossed!!!

 

[adamkungl]

Imo the last week before each game will see more ticket sales than the past 6 months total.
People only buy tickets early when they're a) fanatics or b) worried about a sellout.

The fanatics have bought their tickets.

The event just doesn't have the profile to worry about sellouts yet. That kind of profile doesn't spring up overnight.

 

[yakstorm]

Agree that the tournament doesn't have the profile to necessarily drive huge numbers of pre-sales, and there is history of large numbers of fans buying on the day for some Tests (Australia v Samoa at Wollongong had around 6.5K pre-sales and got a crowd of over 18K), so there is definitely a chance (a lot less for some than others) each of the games in the opening round could sell out or get crowds well above anyone's expectations.

The risk is, the less pre-sales, the bigger the risk that something can happen which can kill the crowd (ie. Weather, crash on the Hume Hwy, etc). Naturally we're all just wanting this tournament to succeed, and of course will feel better the more Bays we see marked 'Sold Out' on the Ticketek websites.

Anyway, here's hoping that some of the warm up games this weekend spark positive talk about the players and the teams and continue to push sales so we're in a healthier position prior to the 7 days before the game.

 

[adamkungl]

The risk is, the less pre-sales, the bigger the risk that something can happen which can kill the crowd (ie. Weather, crash on the Hume Hwy, etc). Naturally we're all just wanting this tournament to succeed, and of course will feel better the more Bays we see marked 'Sold Out' on the Ticketek websites.

Of course, we all want that. But it's not realistic to say that ticket sales are doing poorly at this stage when really they're just kind of as we'd expect for an event of this profile.

France v Lebanon 2k is pretty low but what's the expectation for this game? 15k would be a great result but I'd expect closer to 10 if I was a betting man. Sad because it's an absolutely crucial one.

 

[Burns]

Very well reasoned comments, hard to argue with.

If we're in this position next Wednesday night with not much movement for the Opening Weekend, I'll begin the hyperventilating.

 

[Jim from Oz]

http://www.nrl.com/unprecedented-era-for-league-rlwc-boss/tabid/10874/newsid/113817/default.aspx

SAYS ANDREW HILL: "There's no doubt this will be the most competitive World Cup in its history. What we now wanting to see is that it's the most attended and most watched.

"If you're an Australian and you feel a little dudded by Andrew Fifita the best way to show that is to come out and support them. Show it in Sydney when they take on Lebanon here [in Sydney] and for New Zealand the same.


And as I keep saying: some PROPER (not just the odd billboard) marketing and promotion of all these games would help!!!

 

[adamkungl]

My predictions for week 1


Fri Oct 27
Aus v Eng @ Melbourne =29k

Sat Oct 28
PNG v Wal @ Port Moresby =15k
NZ v Sam @ Auckland =18k
Fij v USA @ Townsville =14k

Sun Oct 29
Sco v Ton + Ire v Ita @ Cairns =15k
Fra v Leba @ Canberra =13k

Average =17.3k

 

[Burns]

That would be 10/10 for the first week. Really wish that PNG capacity could have been a litttttttle bit more.

 

[yakstorm]

Agree. When Populus designed and built the National Football Stadium in Port Moresby, it was always built so it could easily be expanded to 25K, shame that expansion didn't happen.

That target of 450K would have become a lot easier with PNG contributing closer to 75K versus 45K.