2012 WDF Attendance

[MacNews]

From the Alouettes website:

Over 42,000 tickets sold for East Final
November 13, 2012

(ahem, look at the top of this page).

If I were an enterprising Marketing Executive with Tim Hortons, and as a league sponsor, I'd be pitting the Western host city against the Eastern host city to see which has the highest attendance on Sunday. Every ticket holder in the 'winning' city can present their ticket stub at a Tim Hortons outlet and receive a FREE Snack Pack of 20 Timbits®.


DH

Margins David, margins. Let's call it at a free small coffee and stop the bleeding.

On another note, 7-Eleven has 2 end zone tix for $40 each. Plus a free hat. And to think I paid $72 for my single seat.

[sj-roc]

From the Alouettes website:

Over 42,000 tickets sold for East Final
November 13, 2012

(ahem, look at the top of this page).

If I were an enterprising Marketing Executive with Tim Hortons, and as a league sponsor, I'd be pitting the Western host city against the Eastern host city to see which has the highest attendance on Sunday. Every ticket holder in the 'winning' city can present their ticket stub at a Tim Hortons outlet and receive a FREE Snack Pack of 20 Timbits®.


DH

Interesting idea if you're TH, but if you're the Lions in a market where some consider TH as just another part of the eastern hegemony, it mightn't pose much of a carrot to your potential ticket buyers.

How about a bet between Gregor and Mtl's mayor? Mtl wins, he gets a case of Happy Planet Juice. Van wins, Gregor gets a case of Vachon cakes. Preferably Flakies.

[David]

Margins David, margins. Let's call it at a free small coffee and stop the bleeding.

Lol, incentive Mac, incentive. Free small coffee's not going to cut it. Besides, it's the type of promo that would likely go viral, get lots of hype (Mtl Vs Van, East vs West - which is the better sports town? etc), but actual redemptions would probably be fairly low (in all honestly, I probably wouldn't use mine....but it's the type of promo that might get a fence sitter from, say, Abbotsford or Langley motivated).

How about a bet between Gregor and Mtl's mayor? Mtl wins, he gets a case of Happy Planet Juice. Van wins, Gregor gets a case of Vachon cakes. Preferably Flakies.

We think alike sj-roc. That's where my mind first went - a mayor's bet. But then I got to thinking. Our mayor is hardly popular with a lot of folks right now (possibly far LESS popular with sports fans than ecologically-minded non-sports fans). A lot of people would want to see him lose out of spite!


DH

[sj-roc]

Margins David, margins. Let's call it at a free small coffee and stop the bleeding.

Lol, incentive Mac, incentive. Free small coffee's not going to cut it. Besides, it's the type of promo that would likely go viral, get lots of hype (Mtl Vs Van, East vs West - who's the better sports town etc), but actual redemptions would probably be fairly low (in all honestly, I probably wouldn't use mine....but it's the type of promo that might get a fence sitter from, say, Abbotsford motivated).


DH

But what if say, we sell out and Mtl sells one extra ticket? Would they win in spite of leaving 13k empty seats? Got to establish some ground rules, base it on % or something (right now it's 37/53 ~ 69.8% BC vs 42/66 ~ 63.6% Mtl).

[sj-roc]

Margins David, margins. Let's call it at a free small coffee and stop the bleeding.

Lol, incentive Mac, incentive. Free small coffee's not going to cut it. Besides, it's the type of promo that would likely go viral, get lots of hype (Mtl Vs Van, East vs West - which is the better sports town? etc), but actual redemptions would probably be fairly low (in all honestly, I probably wouldn't use mine....but it's the type of promo that might get a fence sitter from, say, Abbotsford or Langley motivated).

How about a bet between Gregor and Mtl's mayor? Mtl wins, he gets a case of Happy Planet Juice. Van wins, Gregor gets a case of Vachon cakes. Preferably Flakies.

We think alike sj-roc. That's where my mind first went - a mayor's bet. But then I got to thinking. Our mayor is hardly popular with a lot of folks right now (possibly far LESS popular with sports fans than ecologically-minded non-sports fans). A lot of people would want to see him lose out of spite!


DH

TBH, in all seriousness I was hoping for a bet between Gregor and Cgy's mayor on the WF outcome.

Or between premiers, Christy and Alison. There's still time.

[SammyGreene]

From a time series of screen caps of the ticketmaster seating map, I've been tracking since late Sunday evening in seat-by-seat fashion the sale of tickets specifically in the upper bowl behind the Lions sideline. This is the $98 "coach's sideline" price point area: basically, six sections — half of 438, all of 439-443 and half of 444, roughly between the 20s — comprising 3280 seats or about 6% of capacity. I've also been tracking the status of singles and so far they're a fairly static collection of seats as per my expectation.

If this particular area is anything to go by for a read on the whole stadium, the slow pace of sales in the last 48 hours or so — which so far has shown little to no sign of accelerating — will have to pick up MIGHTILY to have ANY hope of reaching 50k. In fact, it's pretty clear that uptake in the upper bowl to date is greatly overweighted to my tracking area (prob about the same situation on opposite sideline), because if the whole upper bowl were selling uniformly at the same rate, we'd already be around 42.8k instead of merely 37k as per the latest announcement.

Taking into account:

nearly sold out lower bowl,

extrapolation to kickoff Sunday of somewhat slow but steady sales I've seen in my tracking area,

same final percentage of uptake in rest of upper bowl (this is prob the least reasonable assumption at the moment), and

allowance for singles that likely won't sell,

my current attendance projection is 45,200. I'm going to continue my tracking through as close as possible to kickoff and might revise this in the days ahead if I see signs of either plateauing or acceleration, especially compared to announced sales figures. If attendance ends up falling short of this projection, I think it will be down largely to relative lack of uptake outside the 20s in the upper bowl, and THAT would be down to the out-of-whack pricing strategy that has been beaten to death on this board. People who aren't price sensitive are buying premium seats at a relatively brisk clip while the rest of the market has so far been rather gun-shy.

That is some impressive work sj-roc

I will be pleased if your projection hits the target, given how attendance has stayed relatively flat all season. When the Lions announced 36,000 were sold on Monday that didn't reflect how much that number had moved since the Lions had clinched 1st three weeks earlier.
Still an extra 15,000 paying on average of $60 a ticket would be nice additional profit for Braley. Matt Sekeres was saying yesterday he was only expecting 40,000 with the upper bowl ticket prices keeping fans away to the point where the Lions are going to have to review it in the off-season (don't think that's going to happen given they have already released their 2013 season pricing structure).

It will be interesting to see how many of those 7-Eleven seats are occupied come Sunday. They count as sold but have been half full at best for much of the season. I'm guessing a $5 discount on upper bowl end zone seats isn't exactly a great incentive to buy them.

[daryl_dix]

Montreal seems to have it somewhat figured out...

MontrealAlouettes.com

MONTREAL - Over 42,000 tickets have already been sold for the 2012 Eastern Final which will be played at Olympic Stadium on Sunday November 18 at 1:00 p.m. when the first-place Alouettes host the Toronto Argonauts.

Tickets, which begin at $25, taxes and fees included, are still available for sale in every category. Student-priced tickets are also available for just $20. The winner Sunday will book a spot in the 100th Grey Cup the following week in Toronto.

**Thoughts**
Montreal has at least priced their stadium appropriately - Tickets are $25, $37.89, $43.64, $50.54, $72.39, $89.63, $101.13, $112.63. Even having student prices available. Maybe if the Lions did something like this we'd sell out. There is no reason they couldn't make the top 15 rows of the upper deck (or 10) $20. Lions need to get people in to spend money on the concessions, gear, etc... Why not have a UBC, SFU, UVic section...much like Edmonton has sections for U of A students...seems like their missing the boat. Starting to become like the Canucks where they are outpricing the majority of all families. It's an expensive place to live and most people don't have too much extra cash kicking around. Let's get these people out to the game. Time to wake up before we lose another group of fans...

[Buonosjanet69]

and unlike the Canucks, supply and demand drive those prices up for the Canucks. The invontory is pretty much sold out, whereas the Lions have an inventory of almost half their seats to sell during the average game.

Creative pricing can be done to please many, including Braley's pockets. Otherwise you may as well chop the stadium in half or section it out like the Whitecaps have. It's a shame if it comes down to that when the team could attract another 3000-5000 more fans with more creative pricing.. all the benefits of that have been mentioned in this thread already.

But yeah, if this thing doesn't hit the 50K mark with the team they have, with all the other factors mentioned already then a new approach to marketing this team is sorely needed.

Good luck this time next year when the Canucks are back...

[sj-roc]

But yeah, if this thing doesn't hit the 50K mark with the team they have, with all the other factors mentioned already then a new approach to marketing this team is sorely needed.

See my post above re: tracking sales in the upper bowl Lions' coach's sideline area. This appears to be the best selling price point in the upper bowl, and I'm projecting it to sell just under 70% of its available seats. If the entire UB ends up selling at this pace then we'd get around 45k. But that clearly isn't the case right now; otherwise we'd be around 43k sold so far instead of the 37k figure from News1130 yesterday.

I repeat, 45k is the current best-case scenario if current pace (a) holds in my tracking area and (b) lifts itself to that level everywhere else in the UB. Forget about 50k for now; frankly at this rate we'll do well to beat last year's 41,313 figure — when we had the currently absent double handicap of a sold out Grey Cup and the Canucks competing for people's wallets.

[Buonosjanet69]

yup, I read your post, very astute.. and may even be more when we see the final numbers come Sun.

A summary of this thread should be sent to Prez Sucks when the season is over..

[sj-roc]

yup, I read your post, very astute.. and may even be more when we see the final numbers come Sun.

A summary of this thread should be sent to Prez Sucks when the season is over..

I think they're taking an almost Laffer curve approach to their pricing strategy. "What? Pricing tickets to get a sell out? Are you nuts? That would kill our overhead. Think of all the added security we'd have to hire. Then we'd prob have to pay PavCo extra for all those concessionaire hours. Gee, sounds like a LOT of work... let's not bother."

Note to Messrs. Braley & Skulsky: nobody here is Laffing.

[Robbie]

Which moderator changed the my subject title of this thread? The original title indicated Poll #4....

Anyways, you are probably very surprised that I would actually make a change to my routine reminder statement that I would make throughout the years after the division final. With times changing and traditions changing and the changes at the conclusion of last years's WDF when Buono reluctantly accepted the trophy while the players all declined it:


If the Lions win the 2012 West Division Final, you have the option to stay around in your seat and look at the scoreboard or to make your way to the media concourse section to congratulate the Lions and cheer them on as they head to Toronto as Benevides and other players attending politely decline the trophy presentation by the CFL executive.

[SammyGreene]

Which moderator changed the my subject title of this thread? The original title indicated Poll #4....

I did Robbie. It evolved into becoming the official WF attendance thread and I changed the title to accurately reflect that as other threads had been started (which were merged with this).

And the silence is deafening of how well tickets are moving since the announcing 36,000 on Monday. At least they know announcing anything less than 40,000 for the next update would take the steam out of any momentum they have.

[dawg3648]

I think 40K is very close Sammy....Looks like maybe 200 or 300 singles left in lower bowl and basically half of upper bowl is gone. That would project out to 27K (lower) plus 13K (upper). Interestingly the $98 dollar seats are selling better than the $46 and $78 dollar. Which makes for some good conversation on previous posts about affordability being the main reason for slower sales. I predict between 44K and 46K as sales will bump when Stamps get to town, excitement builds and "Hockey-Guy" realizes this could be the last big sporting event he attends for quite some time! Amped for Sunday! Cheers, Dawg

[Upper Bowl]

How about a bet between Gregor and Mtl's mayor? Mtl wins, he gets a case of Happy Planet Juice. Van wins, Gregor gets a case of Vachon cakes. Preferably Flakies.

I think Vancouver still owes Vachon something after the Canucks stole their logo!

On another note, 7-Eleven has 2 end zone tix for $40 each. Plus a free hat. And to think I paid $72 for my single seat.

Tell me about it! I’ve been envious of 7/11 buyers all year because of those hats. They’re actually pretty nice. IMO they’re clearly better than any recent freebies given to season tickets holders. We all got scarves at the end of last season. They’re not bad, but I’ll take a hat over a scarf any day! And seasons holders should always get better stuff than 7/11 buyers damnit!!


As far as the attendance, 45,000 was my realistic target goal, so I’ll be happy if they get that.