New Everton Stadium - Hill Dickinson Stadium


I think there are several reasons why the atmosphere is/was not as good as expected by some.

In terms of general acoustics, the atmosphere is largely split into two main factors..... the "whole stadium" acoustics and "home-end" acoustics. The traditional home-end of British football grounds is where the bulk of the chants start, grow, project out onto the pitch and are then largely taken up by the rest of the stadium. It is essentially the engine room of the stadium's atmosphere in terms of chants/songs, and some stadiums have 2 home ends, with the away fans tucked away on the sides to minimise their effect. The South stand was sold to us as our "Blue Wall", and is supposed to be reminiscent of Dortmund's South tribune (or yellow wall). They have obvious similarities, but the main differences are that the whole of the Yellow wall is standing, it also has something like double the capacity of our south stand (if you include corners) which although large in appearance, is just 63 rows. The other thing is that their roof is less elevated and slightly pitched downwards..... meaning it has greater acoustic catchment across a greater depth of rows. So when chants start the reverberation is much stronger and take-up is greater too. I sit in the SW corner and regularly see lots of the lower tier trying to get chants going, but having little or no acoustic leverage (being so distant from the roof) means much of their efforts are largely wasted, as they often don't reach that threshold where the chants are taken-up by the whole lower tier, nevermind the upper tier. Of course, when everyone is up for it, or the game prompts, there is a good resonance in the stadium..... and this is because the "whole stadium acoustics" of the large barrel roof and wrap around bowl gives great containment as a whole..... if the roof was extended another 10-15 metres that effect would've been greatly increased (and offered better weather protection too). At Goodison we also had in effect 2 home-ends that contributed probably more evenly than the current set up.... where the North stand is even more distant from its roof.

The away fans at any ground are generally more vociferous and unified. Giving them a corner section can accentuate that, as they can see their fellow supporters and naturally sing across each other and up into the large expanse of roof area above both the North and east stands. Corner sections can be good in that way, as you see at Celtic.... hopefully that will develop for the home corner sections too.

We're also in that settling-in period where people are still getting used to their new surroundings and new neighbouring fans etc. Hopefully as the season progresses and bigger games come along, some with greater jeopardy.... that atmosphere will grow. When it gets going it can, and will be very loud.
 
Not sure if someone has already mentioned, whilst I liked the 'light show' last night.... I didn't really get / understand the music choice for it. Surely there is something better and fitting. Don't think that did anything to help get the fans going.
Yeah, absolutely. “Right Here, Right Now,” is such a trite choice.

Literally no effort went in there. Could’ve been any League 2 ground with that soundtrack.
 
Atmosphere is poor when the team plays poor. Their keeper had one save to make 2nd half from Garner, we were disjointed, poor pass choice, devoid of any quality final 3rd, wide open to the West Ham counter, and this was against a side who I feel are not very good and were absolutely there for the taking, had we decided to go for the jugular. One of them evenings where it was just a flat performance all round, resulting in a flat atmosphere. Atmosphere will definitely improve, but it’s also heavily reliant on what’s happening on the pitch.
 
This.
We’ve lost our Matchday routines, people we sat with, and it’s going to take time for the atmosphere to sort itself out.
For me there’s too many day-trippers at the moment while everyone gets their first experience. Different people have sat next to and in front of us each game yet the seats went early in the season ticket sale process.

As much as I hate it, the club should have looked to sort out a singing section in the lower South.
That always looks a bit desperate to me.

You see it in Scotland with The Green Brigade at Celtic and Union Bears at rangers.

It's so contrived that there's no way Everton supporters would go that direction. Palace fans make a good racket, but again, we're not that type of 'ultra' support. We just dont do that.
 

Some people in th South Stand need to realise where they are. Old fellas telling people to sit down in the upper, no wonder the atmosphere wasn't there last night.
I’m the back row of the lower. I noticed yesterday that the upper doesn’t even stand for a corner at our end. Are people scared to stand up because how steep the stand is or something?

I know loads of people who used to be in the lower Gwladys who have moved to the upper south and absolutely hate it in comparison.
 

I’m the back row of the lower. I noticed yesterday that the upper doesn’t even stand for a corner at our end. Are people scared to stand up because how steep the stand is or something?

I know loads of people who used to be in the lower Gwladys who have moved to the upper south and absolutely hate it in comparison.

Loads of cry arses by me.
 
The Upper South is sat all game, and probably will do every game. Will they stand for a derby or a big game though?

With the stands being so steep, this encourages fans to sit. When fans are sat they don't help create the atmosphere they only join in with an atmosphere that's already created elsewhere.

Unfortunately it was designed as two tiers, to simply give the illusion of a single tier stand. It's probably too steep for sustained standing in the upper. It's only a few degrees less than the Top Balcony, would anyone want to stand permanently up there? I haven't been to the very back rows behind the goal, but if it's a minimum C-value when seated up there, it may be quite a poor view of the near goal when everyone is stood. If not, and the sightlines are ok... then maybe at some point in the future it can be converted to safe-standing with rail-seating (if the guidelines allow at that rake angle). That said, the take-up for rail seating was surprisingly slow. Even several phases into the sale process, it was fairly empty. So who knows what the real demand for "standing" is these days. Looking around me, I think it would require a lot of older fans to be moved. Where would they go?
 
What’s happened to the siren before Z Cars? I noticed this against Villa too
When I was there. We used to get a good few seconds of the siren before z cars kicked in, now the siren starts and z cars almost immediately jumps in! Either use the siren or bin it.
 

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