Poll: Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium Capacity

[Lanolin]

Tottenham seem to be filling Wembley OK, West Ham are around 56,000 for league games. I know Spurs are playing good footy but where did all the West Ham fans come from. We don't seem to have a problem filling Goodison at approx. 40k so more tickets for the away fans and extra home fans for the novelty. A 50k stadium I believe would be filled for league games and would leave us short. 55k minimum but ideally 60k. With the right promotions and hopefully better footy we will easily get 50k. What I am saying is if West Ham can get 50k odd then so can we. Overseas fans and fans from the other end of the country (non regulars) would not have the struggle to get a ticket or entry as they have now. 50k stadium would be foolish IMO

London is a totally different kettle of fish though. About 10 million people live there, and virtually every foreign visitor to the UK is going there, so adding 20k to a crowd isn't that difficult. Finding an extra 20k when you've already got about 20% of the city's population going to watch either us or Liverpool at the moment is a very different thing.

 

[Papa Shango]

You know what?

If we want to be a big club then we have to accept that more and more of our fans will come from abroad

Part of being big is that you have mass appeal to everyone, not just people from your own part of the country

If we want to fill a 60000+ ground, then we'll need out of towners as well. It's a harsh reality that people need to get on board with

We already have out of towners.

60K should really be our absolute limit. Anything above that would be madness.

 

[APN_EFC]

I disagree mate, say four years time we move into a 60k plus stadium, and we are still in the same boat performance wise.

Every new stadium struggles initially for a few years to get the atmosphere back or to rebuild a lost one, a 60k crowd will bring in a bit more money, but I'd almost guarantee the atmosphere will be worse at 60 than it'd be at 50 say, unless they do something groundbreaking with the pricing to attract local lads who have been priced out.

I think us building off the bat a 60-65k stadium would be another example of us trying to run before we can walk, same as we've seen with trying to rush a dof model, manager changes and 250m spend on the team has been done.

Juve built a 42k with plans sorted prior to building for a 10k expansion. And what it gave them was packed out crowds, a nasty arse atmosphere and made it fast feel like home due to that, now when they expand they will be doing so whilst keeping those things.

For us, a 50k stadium with locked in plans for a future 10k expansion pre designed into the build would leave me happy, so long as that ensures we build to make the place a proper intimidating ground.

We move into a 60k straight off the bat, I'd worry seriously that a lot of games we'd be 75% capacity after that first season. And whilst monetarily that wouldn't matter, it'd kill the positivity about the move and we'd have a west ham thing about we should never have moved going round quick.

It's a good idea to do plan for expansion from 50K to 60k if we ever get to that potential, but also in the first 2 seasons, why not make 5000 tickets available at £15
I think the design of the stadium can help a lot in building atmosphere, not just the capacity. 60k can be a brilliant atmosphere if we make it a 'close to the pitch' style of stadium

 

[bluestevon]

We already have out of towners.

60K should really be our absolute limit. Anything above that would be madness.

Anything above 60k is vanity

Yeah would be used occasionally for massive events, concerts etc, but for actual football, it'd be far too big for where we are at as a club

 

[bluestevon]

It's a good idea to do plan for expansion from 50K to 60k if we ever get to that potential, but also in the first 2 seasons, why not make 5000 tickets available at £15
I think the design of the stadium can help a lot in building atmosphere, not just the capacity. 60k can be a brilliant atmosphere if we make it a 'close to the pitch' style of stadium

As a club in November we panicked and brought in BFS as manager, we will not take a massive gamble on both design and capacity.

the bigger the capacity then the harder it will become to hit that sweet spot in terms of atmosphere, the more empty seats you have in a stadium - the harder it is to have that atmosphere.

The pricing model is the thing I'd wish more put effort into pressuring the club to address, the sheer amount of positive PR and the accompanying benefits from us instituting pricing similar to say the Bundesliga would be unmeasurable. and long term worth more than 10k extra seats that sit empty for 15 games a season


By a million miles the location and design in terms of creating a true football stadium for me outweigh every other factor combined, we have more chance of eventually becoming something again as a club with a 50k stadium sat prominent and hailed for the atmosphere right on the docks, than sat in a flat pack built 100k capacity stadium in the middle of nowhere.

Put the budget into first the design and ensuring it will be an iconic stadium for years to come, and include the ability to increase the capacity significantly in the future in that design. the initial capacity is by a mile a secondary factor

 

[banno]

London is a totally different kettle of fish though. About 10 million people live there, and virtually every foreign visitor to the UK is going there, so adding 20k to a crowd isn't that difficult. Finding an extra 20k when you've already got about 20% of the city's population going to watch either us or Liverpool at the moment is a very different thing.

But how come West Ham struggled to fill Upton Park? Yes I believe the tourism part probably has some say with West Hams ground being the Olympic stadium and Spurs at Wembley.
I just think that currently Goodison is full. We have around 32000 season ticket holders (is there a waiting list now?) so that leaves 7-8k for available tickets and away fans and they get sold. There are lots of supporters unable to get a ticket at the moment so this would not be a problem in the future and the away allocation can be extended. The novelty and hopefully better footy would bring many many more so I believe a 50k stadium would be filled and leave us with a similar scramble to get tickets. I would rather see a few thousand empty seats (like St Domingo pointed out) managed properly (upper tier maybe) than fans left outside or stay at home because they couldn't get a ticket. 5k-10k above Goodisons capacity does not make sense to me.

 

[Brisan123]

If you price entrance 'cheap enough to fill it' you might not make enough money (in simple terms) to pay for it...or be able to justify the low entrance cost to the lender(s)...you want HOW MUCH off me, but you're going to let the punters in for less than the amount required to pay me (again in simple terms) back
On your bike sunshine
#balancing act

As I said you price it to fill it
You don’t give the tickets away but you use the laws of supply and demand to try and fill it every week
You will obviously get more per ticket and sell out for a game against the top six than you will for a midweek game against Bournemouth but you price each game accordingly

 

[Lanolin]

But how come West Ham struggled to fill Upton Park? Yes I believe the tourism part probably has some say with West Hams ground being the Olympic stadium and Spurs at Wembley.
I just think that currently Goodison is full. We have around 32000 season ticket holders (is there a waiting list now?) so that leaves 7-8k for available tickets and away fans and they get sold. There are lots of supporters unable to get a ticket at the moment so this would not be a problem in the future and the away allocation can be extended. The novelty and hopefully better footy would bring many many more so I believe a 50k stadium would be filled and leave us with a similar scramble to get tickets. I would rather see a few thousand empty seats (like St Domingo pointed out) managed properly (upper tier maybe) than fans left outside or stay at home because they couldn't get a ticket. 5k-10k above Goodisons capacity does not make sense to me.

They didn't struggle to fill Upton Park. The capacity was 35,000 and their lowest average attendances in the last 10 seasons they've been in the top flight was 33,500, in a season they came bottom of the league.

They have been able to support an increase in attendances because they sold 10,000 junior season tickets at £99 and 8,000 senior season tickets at £289. They were able to do this because the stadium cost them just £15m. If you think we're going to be offering that sort of pricing structure when we're shelling out £500m to build a stadium i'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed.

 

[blueblue]

I think it may be pitched around 55k. We are currently selling out on 40k with restricted views. A shiny new stadium together with perfect views all around the ground and better catering facilities means that almost immediately we could get a crowd increase which will bring us close to capacity again almost immediately.
I imagine the plan will be to allow some room in terms of capacity if the club continues to grow rather than have an immediate problem with sold out signs.
I think 55k would give that and it is also imperative that the plan to expand further down the line is in place if necessary.

We all would love a stadium of 60k but could you be left with 5,000-10,000 empty seats on a Saturday?

 

[radiostar]

50-55k with room for expansion if necessary in future is sensible and where we are at the moment.

 

[banno]

They didn't struggle to fill Upton Park. The capacity was 35,000 and their lowest average attendances in the last 10 seasons they've been in the top flight was 33,500, in a season they came bottom of the league.

They have been able to support an increase in attendances because they sold 10,000 junior season tickets at £99 and 8,000 senior season tickets at £289. They were able to do this because the stadium cost them just £15m. If you think we're going to be offering that sort of pricing structure when we're shelling out £500m to build a stadium i'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed.

We don't struggle to fill Goodison either but we do have many disappointed fans that cannot get in. When you think we have at most 7-8k tickets available on sale to the general public minus the away allocation it's more than inadequate. Out of curiosity what is your ideal capacity without locking fans out.? I also don't expect a price structure like you mentioned I didn't even mention a price structure.

 

[Lanolin]

We don't struggle to fill Goodison either but we do have many disappointed fans that cannot get in. When you think we have at most 7-8k tickets available on sale to the general public minus the away allocation it's more than inadequate. Out of curiosity what is your ideal capacity without locking fans out.? I also don't expect a price structure like you mentioned I didn't even mention a price structure.

I didn't say you mentioned a price structure, nor did I suggest we struggle to fill Goodison. You're suggesting we can find an extra 20k fans because West Ham did, I'm telling you that it won't be as easy for us because we won't be able to entice people with the cheapest season tickets in the league like they did.

I honestly don't have an ideal capacity. It needs to be a minimum of 50k in my opinion, but why people get so hung up on whether it's 57k or 60k I just don't know. I've just said elsewhere that i'm not saying we shouldn't get 60k, simply that I find the idea that it's 'small time', and 'embarrassing' to be, well, small time and embarrassing. I also think that people are massively overestimating how easy we would find it to attract an extra 20k fans, even just once or twice a season. It's a huge increase, 50% more than we currently get, and people are saying it's 'no problem' and 'easy'. I don't agree, that's all.

 

[orly]

50-55k with room for expansion if necessary in future is sensible and where we are at the moment.

lol

Six years, it's incredible.

 

[Seathestars]

Nothing worse than empty seats all over the place. I changed my vote from 60 to 55.
I think we could do 55 most weeks.
Didn’t Barca dig down to extend the Nou Camp, or I think they can if they want.
Would be good to be able to extend it in the future by digging down. Thick glass walls so we can see fish and turds floating past.

 

[charlie atkins]

First couple of years people from all over the place will visit. By then north liverpool will be like canary wharf. Popular and busy. With bramley moore in the middle . Id go for 55.000.