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SOL expansion

tunstallhill said:
you don't think our ticketing system is an absolute shambles?

i'm still waiting for a ticket to arrive for the boro game last saturday
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That's not the 'archaic system' though. That's just not employing staff.

Of course its a shambles but it's not costing us thousands on the attendance.
 

TexasMackem said:
Our support is absolutely fantastic, but there's little room for it to grow if we're honest. We have a core of around 25k season ticket holders who'd turn up in the Northern League, another 10k more fairweather supporters and around 5-10k casual supporters who turn up for the big games. Very few top tier clubs can boast those numbers so it's in no way deriding it, but we tried everything when Niall Quinn was chairman; free tickets given to schools, cheap tickets for cup games etc. and it scarcely made a difference.

I'd love to see the South Stand extension simply because it'd be necessitated by a golden era for the club, but expanding to 63k would be George Reynolds level of bampottery.
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And yet ... West Ham with traditionally much less support than us can fill a 60,000 stadium.
The Quinn era was ancient history with regard to comparing football attendances then and now. Depending on capacity, at least ten clubs now are capable of drawing 60,000.
 
Father Larry Duff said:
We missed out on Taylor Swift because we didn’t have enough corporate and hospitality. People can scoff all they like but we are losing money by not building extra hospitality like boxes and if we had a team competing in the top half of prem we’d need a bigger stadium anyway
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Missing out on one concert (allegedly) due to lack of corporate hospitality isn't enough to justify the cost of creating more.

We are more than capable of hosting the biggest artists in the world and an (allegedly) corporate fussy team behind one artist isn't going to change that.
Mowgli said:
That's not the 'archaic system' though. That's just not employing staff.

Of course its a shambles but it's not costing us thousands on the attendance.
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It's digital ticketing. You don't/shouldn't even need staff for that.
 
We don’t currently use the James Herriot suite, Drumaville suite, Legends Lounge or Carling lounge (unless they’re used for something else these days) which looking online we’re advertised back when we we’re in the prem. Boxes seem popular so they could add them as at £30k a season wouldn’t take long to see a return on the investment.
 
AndrewP said:
Missing out on one concert (allegedly) due to lack of corporate hospitality isn't enough to justify the cost of creating more.

We are more than capable of hosting the biggest artists in the world and an (allegedly) corporate fussy team behind one artist isn't going to change that.

It's digital ticketing. You don't/shouldn't even need staff for that.
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We can't be calling digital ticketing 'archaic' though surely?
 
AndrewP said:
We're currently going through the darkest period in the club's history and averaging 40k. Football is definitely getting more popular.
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Certainly looks like it in the championship
9 teams with an average north of 25k
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A bit to go to overtake the Germans though, some of there second division attendences are mental
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Mowgli said:
That's not the 'archaic system' though. That's just not employing staff.

Of course its a shambles but it's not costing us thousands on the attendance.
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it'll be difficult to measure so we'll never know. one thing is for sure though, if we go up this season and demand does sky rocket, the current system won't be able to handle it. it can't handle the current volume of fans.

we'll never know how many casual fans have decided not to take in their first game and subsequently get hooked on safc becuase they couldn't get an answer on the phone at the ticket office. or how many people haven't been able to work out the complexities of the ticketing website where people are constantly blocked from purchasing tickets for bizarre reasons. or someone who on a saturday morning fancied going to the game but sacked it off because they couldn't pay contactless/cash on the turnstile and couldn't be bothered to register online and spend time on their phones and emails f***ing about. or how many tourists have been in sunderland for the weekend and maybe fancied taking in a game but have sacked it off due to how much of a fuck on the whole purchasing system is. we'll never know, but one thing is for sure, it could be very easily and very quickly fixed and attendances would increase. by how much, who knows, but they would increase.

there was the story last season of the bloke at the ticket office pre-match who watched a group of the 13 year old lads try to buy tickets with cash and were unable to, so walked away. we'll never know if any of them young lads would have went on to buy STs and attend games for 40 years
 
tunstallhill said:
it'll be difficult to measure so we'll never know. one thing is for sure though, if we go up this season and demand does sky rocket, the current system won't be able to handle it. it can't handle the current volume of fans.

we'll never know how many casual fans have decided not to take in their first game and subsequently get hooked on safc becuase they couldn't get an answer on the phone at the ticket office. or how many people haven't been able to work out the complexities of the ticketing website where people are constantly blocked from purchasing tickets for bizarre reasons. or someone who on a saturday morning fancied going to the game but sacked it off because they couldn't pay contactless/cash on the turnstile and couldn't be bothered to register online and spend time on their phones and emails f***ing about. or how many tourists have been in sunderland for the weekend and maybe fancied taking in a game but have sacked it off due to how much of a fuck on the whole purchasing system is. we'll never know, but one thing is for sure, it could be very easily and very quickly fixed and attendances would increase. by how much, who knows, but they would increase.

there was the story last season of the bloke at the ticket office pre-match who watched a group of the 13 year old lads try to buy tickets with cash and were unable to, so walked away. we'll never know if any of them young lads would have went on to buy STs and attend games for 40 years
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Agree with all of that. But the poster keeps going on about 'archaic'.

Having a no cash policy isn't archaic and neither is not having people answering the phone. Its modern problems of anything.
 
AndrewP said:
We're currently going through the darkest period in the club's history and averaging 40k. Football is definitely getting more popular.
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For me the biggest example and show of what our potential would be in the Pl is how quickly the play off semi final tickets sold out.

When in PL I could nearly always get friends and family tickets even for big games, but I can’t remember a time like last Pl semi final when they sold out in about 30 mins after going on General sale.

I just think like you say it’s more popular and when we do go up, the big games especially will sell out very quickly and I could see the season ticket total going upto 40k.
 
seaham ftm said:
Sold out 1 game in about 3 years :lol:
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Remind me what the average at Roker Park was before we moved to the SOL?

We have doubled our support in 25 years. Football is only going to get bigger.

Our attendances are good, imho, because we have had good ticketing pricing. Kids have got the bug become older and now have season tickets.

Thanks to Sir Bob the SOL is probably uniquely placed in this country to expand relitively cheaply.

We need to make it as easy as possible for people to attend (cash & card turnstiles) and keep getting kid through the door (don’t turn them away because they haven’t a bank card!!!!)

As football becomes bigger who is to say we couldn’t add another 20,000 onto our support particularly if we had a decent team in the premier league snd all of the marketing and promotion that brings.

Bob’s view was build it and they will come. We need to be bold.
 
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ned_werby said:
People seem to be forgetting that the long-term aim for the SSoL is for it to be used more that 20odd times a year for footie. There's massive amounts of money to be made from concerts, if they get the offering right. Wouldn't be surprised to see the East Stand being redeveloped for corporates, at the loss of a few seats (pointless doing the South if it's behind the stage), and the South itself being extended a la North for an overall marginal increase in capacity.
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Nail on the head with the long term plan. Its been a while since I had any involvement (did with the academy) and back then used to find other bits out and am sure the next plan was to extend to 55,500. The aim was that more concerts and stuff like the NFL would effectively finance the extension costs.
 
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