New Everton Stadium - Hill Dickinson Stadium

[GoldenToffee]

Well, the new stadium won't be having too many "moments" now we're out of the cups. Unless we win a derby or beat United, there's not a whole lot of scope for great moments this season - especially as we are about to drop out of the race we were never actually in - to Europe.

What about when we secure a 0-0 draw against Sunderland on the penultimate matchday to secure a famous 13th-place finish this season? Same position as last season under Dyche just with an additional £100-odd million having been spent and perhaps an additional 12 points gained?

GREAT SUCCESS!

 

[Tom Hughes]

There's an attendance bubble at the moment in the Premier League and to an extent the lower leagues. Leeds and Aston Villa had their upper tiers closed off, only a few years ago in The Championship, now they've got waiting lists for season tickets and expanding their grounds. Leeds were still filling the ground in The Championship last couple of seasons, 10 years ago it was half empty.

Every Premier League ground is usually full, at least in terms of tickets sold. That wasn't the case 10 years ago.

I think it's partly the ease of buying online. Previously you had to pretty much go to the ground to get them and it was all paper tickets.

Yes, football attendances are booming and have now been growing across the board for years, with the whole sky/TV/premier-league marketing/financial bubble generally showing little sign of bursting just yet. As a consequence of that surge in demand, several clubs have been steadily increasing their ticket prices and/or have increased, or are looking to increase their capacities (with several expansion projects either underway or being considered). We have done both.

Recently, there appears to have been quite a lot more empty seats at some of our matches, with many more seats failing to sell on the resale market than initially. Has the oft-mentioned season ticket waiting list been exaggerated (to artificially boost demand for those expensive lounge seats perhaps)? If not, why aren't those fans taking up any slack? Or, has the club been a bit too greedy in pushing their pricing envelope for resale and walk-up tickets? Home form has been a bit middling, but hardly as bad as during most recent seasons, so I'm not sure that that's affected turnouts too much. Is it just a case of the quality of the opposition being less attractive in recent matches, or the usual post Christmas spending-slump? Has the initial novelty-factor already gone, or perhaps the reduced accessibility has begun to take its toll for many? Or is it just the rescheduling issue? It could well just be a combination of those and other factors, but it's now coming up to season ticket renewal time, with a few tentative fan polls indicating quite a few considering not renewing. If so, it may well test those waiting list numbers (which were largely accrued during a period of cheaper tickets, squeezed demand and heightened new-stadium effect).

Our fanbase is not a bottomless pit of latent demand, and that might have already reached the limit of its ticket price-elasticity. Hopefully the club will consider all of this when setting their prices. Maybe they should try to increase ST numbers slightly, to ensure those (nominal) full-house attendances for a second season..... plus adopt flexible ticket pricing for walk-ups and resales (to actually fill all the seats for each match). Empty seats in a brand new stadium is not a "good look," and can also be very counter productive in many other respects.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Yes, football attendances are booming and have now been growing across the board for years, with the whole sky/TV/premier-league marketing/financial bubble generally showing little sign of bursting just yet. As a consequence of that surge in demand, several clubs have been steadily increasing their ticket prices and/or have increased, or are looking to increase their capacities (with several expansion projects either underway or being considered). We have done both.

Recently, there appears to have been quite a lot more empty seats at some of our matches, with many more seats failing to sell on the resale market than initially. Has the oft-mentioned season ticket waiting list been exaggerated (to artificially boost demand for those expensive lounge seats perhaps)? If not, why aren't those fans taking up any slack? Or, has the club been a bit too greedy in pushing their pricing envelope for resale and walk-up tickets? Home form has been a bit middling, but hardly as bad as during most recent seasons, so I'm not sure that that's affected turnouts too much. Is it just a case of the quality of the opposition being less attractive in recent matches, or the usual post Christmas spending-slump? Has the initial novelty-factor already gone, or perhaps the reduced accessibility has begun to take its toll for many? Or is it just the rescheduling issue? It could well just be a combination of those and other factors, but it's now coming up to season ticket renewal time, with a few tentative fan polls indicating quite a few considering not renewing. If so, it may well test those waiting list numbers (which were largely accrued during a period of cheaper tickets, squeezed demand and heightened new-stadium effect).

Our fanbase is not a bottomless pit of latent demand, and that might have already reached the limit of its ticket price-elasticity. Hopefully the club will consider all of this when setting their prices. Maybe they should try to increase ST numbers slightly, to ensure those (nominal) full-house attendances for a second season..... plus adopt flexible ticket pricing for walk-ups and resales (to actually fill all the seats for each match). Empty seats in a brand new stadium is not a "good look," and can also be very counter productive in many other respects.

There comes a point where £70 to watch Everton get battered by Brentford no longer becomes value for money.

Especially with the membership also. I’ve been pushing my Dad and brother to get one so they could join me at a game but the membership plus ticket price in one go is £130. Combine that with knowing full well you could pay that and it’s another Spurs Newcastle Brentford then it’s no wonder some might hesitate.

We’ve consistently been close to the lowest scorers in the league. We hardly win any big games, we hardly win any derbies, we hardly ever have a cup run. The Everton board have seemingly worked a miracle over recent years of pedalling a proposition that is decreasing in quality every year but going up in price and yet has seen demand for it boom. That simply will not continue, something has to give. Either the team significantly improves, ticket prices go down, or attendances will. The middle one is only to happen so they need to get improving the team.

 

[Tipp blue]

Surely our Toyota overlords could put up a car as a prize if someone hits the crossbar three times in a row or something at half time

At the moment the prize is just a signed shirt if you hit it

Instead of hitting the crossbar 3 times in a row, they should give a car to anyone who can hit the back of the net 3 times in a row at half time then we can sign them up bring them on for the second half.

 

[Davideeyore]

Exactly. It used to drive me mad on here a couple of years ago with people constantly saying we needed to build a 60k+ stadium and we’d fill it ‘easily’. You can’t just double your attendance overnight without getting any better on the pitch or dramatically lowering your prices. The reality is we don’t currently have the sort of fan base that can absolutely guarantee sellouts every week. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it is what it is, I just don’t know why some people want to find a million and one other reasons rather than the one that’s staring them in the face (not that none of the other things are a factor of course, they definitely are, just not the biggest one).

I disagree and agree to a point.

You talk down our fan base but if it was 62000 we'd fill it.

It's not a valid argument about doubling the attendances. Goodison had a low, restricted capacity. For this modern era, and I've always said it, if Goodison had 52k we'd fill it.

We move, it brings new fans. Tourists. More corporate. More day trippers.

Other clubs that have moved find ways to fill the stadium. Right now what's on the pitch is rubbish it would need pro active ticket sales.

The club and partners seem to be making it difficult selling/buying tickets. High prices are not justified.

The fans are there. The club screwed up big time.

 

[Lapeno77]

Nothing more than a gut feeling but I imagine the waiting list will be enough to cover any churn for the next couple of seasons, even with a lack of success and price increases so wouldn't expect any drastic actions to address any of the fan concerns.

 

[Double Negative]

Probably not, okay then everyone else sing except the posh seats.

They can just rattle their jewellery…

 

[Double Negative]

My lads 27 now mate!

Yeah but he’s the headmaster…

 

[Jacko93]

What about when we secure a 0-0 draw against Sunderland on the penultimate matchday to secure a famous 13th-place finish this season? Same position as last season under Dyche just with an additional £100-odd million having been spent and perhaps an additional 12 points gained?

GREAT SUCCESS!

To be fair, given historical results and positions lost to other teams that relocate, it'd be only us and Arsenal that wouldn't have finished lower than the previous season.

 

[Harryflashman]

I disagree and agree to a point.

You talk down our fan base but if it was 62000 we'd fill it.

It's not a valid argument about doubling the attendances. Goodison had a low, restricted capacity. For this modern era, and I've always said it, if Goodison had 52k we'd fill it.

We move, it brings new fans. Tourists. More corporate. More day trippers.

Other clubs that have moved find ways to fill the stadium. Right now what's on the pitch is rubbish it would need pro active ticket sales.

The club and partners seem to be making it difficult selling/buying tickets. High prices are not justified.

The fans are there. The club screwed up big time.

Would we though ? I was all for going big on the capacity but it honestly feels , certainly from Perfectly justifiable moaning , that some people Fancied the idea of a season ticket without all that that entails .

I’ll tell you when we wouldn’t fill it when we played wolves because we didn’t fill II last week . We might get more travelling fans treating it as a day out , which again is something sound , because there has definitely been a big increase in that number but are they enough to sustain an increase of 10k ?

I wanted a bigger capacity but it feels like we probably got it right

 

[Drico]

Would we though ? I was all for going big on the capacity but it honestly feels , certainly from Perfectly justifiable moaning , that some people Fancied the idea of a season ticket without all that that entails .

I’ll tell you when we wouldn’t fill it when we played wolves because we didn’t fill II last week . We might get more travelling fans treating it as a day out , which again is something sound , because there has definitely been a big increase in that number but are they enough to sustain an increase of 10k ?

I wanted a bigger capacity but it feels like we probably got it right

We got it right if we intend to serve up the same crap we have been serving up since Kenwright took over.

We got it badly wrong if we develop a team to be proud of that strives to win cups rather than finding ways to embarrassingly crash out at the first hurdle.

 

[Harryflashman]

We got it right if we intend to serve up the same crap we have been serving up since Kenwright took over.

We got it badly wrong if we develop a team to be proud of that strives to win cups rather than finding ways to embarrassingly crash out at the first hurdle.

Having watched this club for a long time I unfortunately feel we’re more likely to remain in the former category rather than move to the latter .

I appreciate it’s probably an unpopular but I’m just not convinced our core dedicated support is at the levels others do . Could we get there with success probably but if we raise fans by success by their very nature they’re not core support are they ?

 

[Davideeyore]

Kenwright turned us in to a club with mediocre ambitions. Mid table aspirations.

Resized from a big club with big ambitions to a medium-sized club with mid table ambitions.

The stadium was a mid-sized capacity, followed that trend.

 

[Daytripper]

Kenwright turned us in to a club with mediocre ambitions. Mid table aspirations.

Resized from a big club with big ambitions to a medium-sized club with mid table ambitions.

The stadium was a mid-sized capacity, followed that trend.

He was defended for it tho. “Hes a blue” “just get behind the team” “be careful what you wish for “ and so on. For years. Fans, ex players, media .

 

[Harryflashman]

Kenwright turned us in to a club with mediocre ambitions. Mid table aspirations.

Resized from a big club with big ambitions to a medium-sized club with mid table ambitions.

The stadium was a mid-sized capacity, followed that trend.

I’ve zero desire to defend Kenwright , I opposed him and did so for a long time not just on here but from the first KEIOC at the Casa.

However are we filling this mid sized stadium? Same as much of of the last season at Goodison you couldn’t give wolves tickets away the other night . I’m sure there will be huge demand come the Derby but most games if you want a ticket you can get one . If we’d gone 65k how many would be empty the other night ?

I’ve said this before I wanted a bigger capacity but disappointingly it looks like they probably got it right