World cup attendances

Stefan

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Opening a thread to discuss this.

Average attendance is not comparable to attendance/capacity %. Anyway, most people understood my point, no need for further discussion (unless knockout stage is at similar levels)

More people attending the games is a more important figure than % as far as capacity goes. More people at the games means more tickets sold which means more money generated for the organisers. Average attendances is the figure that is important imho.
 

brehme1989

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You can't compare stadiums of 90.000 and 70.000 capacity to stadiums of 50.000 capacity.

If the World Cup was in Brazil, I'd expect the Maracana to be full. If there were 75.000 it would look worse than the Friuli or the Marassi being full. Triple or double the numbers, but worse-looking, to the people and bad image for the organisers.

The stadiums must be FULL, or at least have over 90% tickets sold. You can't host a World Cup and the first thing that catches the eye of the tv fans to be EMPTY SEATS.

The organisers were late in acknowledging that, and they dropped the prices a little too late. I'm not going to travel all over the world to watch 2 games and pay over 2000 euros for that.
The Greek fans spent around 800-1200 euros each in the 2004 Euro in Portugal from game 1 until the final. It should be around double that for a similar path in the South African World Cup.

I tried to search for tickets and they were too darn expensive. Not many fans will stay there all the way. Most will jump in during the quarters. But that's no excuse for World Cup games to have empty seats.

So Stefan, the issue is not attendances, it's empty seats. That's why % of capacity>avg attendance.

In Serbia, Partizan has avg attendance of around 29.000 in a stadium of 31000 in their European games. It looks better than a team that has a 70.000 stadium and has average of 35.000 fans. (eg Aek of Greece)

Seriously, you're trying to avoid the point here.
 

Stefan

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The point is your saying attendances are poor while I disagree and the official figures back me up on this. Sure empty seats aren't great but I disagree that having empty seats mean its poor attendance.

Also for the record match tickets are cheaper than they were for germany 2006 and has been from the start.

Sure it might look better for some if there is smaller stadiums and all games are sold out but these stadiums weren't build just so it could look good when the smaller nations played. They were build for this tournament's big games and sporting events to come after the wc.
 

brehme1989

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The point is your saying attendances are poor while I disagree and the official figures back me up on this. Sure empty seats aren't great but I disagree that having empty seats mean its poor attendance. .

Did I ever say that? I said that the organisers have failed into managing to have sold out games in most occasions. Don't know how many people attended Greece-Nigeria, but it seemed that 1/3 of the stadium was empty!

Also for the record match tickets are cheaper than they were for germany 2006 and has been from the start. .

Well, again, blame the organisers of South Africa WC for this. In South Africa they built huge stadiums and the pricing was excessive. The larger the stadium, the cheaper the price of course. The bigger the stadium, the higher the possibility is that the view from the stands is worse, hence lower prices. The prices should have been MUCH LOWER, since a large target group was the local/regional population who suffers financially(and not only)
First of all, South Africa is not a great destination but it's something that people would want to visit, you know that first hand. I have relatives in Johanesburg who got burglars while they were upstairs. The organisation didn't consider the fact that people would not want to pay a sh*tload to go to a distanced place were there's danger of being harassed or have money stolen. Even players got stolen so far!
It seems that the organising committee thought it would all run smoothly just because it's a World Cup. I know 15 people(and add another one who is myself) who changed their minds on going to the World Cup because of the high pricing(of everything). We wanted to go to Johanesburg in order to attend two round 16 games, 2 QF and 1 SF(in Cape Town). Match tickets alone would cost slightly more than 1200.

Sure it might look better for some if there is smaller stadiums and all games are sold out but these stadiums weren't build just so it could look good when the smaller nations played. They were build for this tournament's big games and sporting events to come after the wc.

So you can't fill a World Cup game and you'll use the stadiums for something else?
The Greek told us the same thing about their Olympics 2004 stadiums, and now they have a useless baseball ground, and many other stadiums that have no use but just cause expenses. It seems that three stadiums are enough to host concerts and other events.

So you built 10 stadiums to host 8 games, 3 of which going to be played in the same ground, and don't care about the other games? That mentality suits what my eyes are watching.
I haven't seen any big tournament having so many empty seats in "vital" positions ie, middle of the stadium in front of the cameras, where the 2nd most expensive tickets are usually. 2nd best seats.
You can't argue with what you yourself is watching.

Tell me how many big games EACH of these stadiums will host, I'm curious. Big games are attracted by foreigners. The hosts are supposed to fill the stadiums. And so far, the South Africans have been bad hosts. That includes the vuvuzelas and the complaints people and players have.
 
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brehme1989

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Opening Match €300 €180 €115 €65
Group Match €100 €60 €45 €35
Round of 16 €120 €75 €60 €45
Quarter finals €180 €110 €85 €55
Semi finals €400 €240 €150 €90
Third Place €120 €75 €60 €45
Final €600 €360 €220 €120


That's from Germany.

Matches Cat. 1 Cat. 2 Cat. 3 Wheelchair
Opening Match (No 1) 450 300 200 70
Group Matches (No 2 to 48) 160 120 80 20
Round of 16 (No 49 to 56) 200 150 100 50
Quarter-finals (No 57 to 60) 300 200 150 75
Semi-finals (No 61 & 62) 600 400 250 100
3rd/4th Place Match (No 63) 300 200 150 75
The Final (No 64) 900 600 400 150

South Africa (US Dollars)

100 US DOLLAR (USD) = 81.2183 EURO (EUR)
100 EURO (EUR) = 123.125 US DOLLAR (USD)
 

Stefan

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Did I ever say that? I said that the organisers have failed into managing to have sold out games in most occasions. Don't know how many people attended Greece-Nigeria, but it seemed that 1/3 of the stadium was empty!



Well, again, blame the organisers of South Africa WC for this. In South Africa they built huge stadiums and the pricing was excessive. The larger the stadium, the cheaper the price of course. The bigger the stadium, the higher the possibility is that the view from the stands is worse, hence lower prices. The prices should have been MUCH LOWER, since a large target group was the local/regional population who suffers financially(and not only)
First of all, South Africa is not a great destination but it's something that people would want to visit, you know that first hand. I have relatives in Johanesburg who got burglars while they were upstairs. The organisation didn't consider the fact that people would not want to pay a sh*tload to go to a distanced place were there's danger of being harassed or have money stolen. Even players got stolen so far!
It seems that the organising committee thought it would all run smoothly just because it's a World Cup. I know 15 people(and add another one who is myself) who changed their minds on going to the World Cup because of the high pricing(of everything). We wanted to go to Johanesburg in order to attend two round 16 games, 2 QF and 1 SF(in Cape Town). Match tickets alone would cost slightly more than 2000.



So you can't fill a World Cup game and you'll use the stadiums for something else?
The Greek told us the same thing about their Olympics 2004 stadiums, and now they have a useless baseball ground, and many other stadiums that have no use but just cause expenses. It seems that three stadiums are enough to host concerts and other events.




Tell me how many big games EACH of these stadiums will host, I'm curious. Big games are attracted by foreigners. The hosts are supposed to fill the stadiums. And so far, the South Africans have been bad hosts. That includes the vuvuzelas and the complaints people and players have.

I know the crime situation perfectly, I have been a victim twice.

SA fans have bought a lot of tickets. They aren't the problem. The issue has been outside of USA,Holland,England,Germany,Brazil,Argentina and Australia the rest of the countries have not gotten their fans to travel. You can't blame the SA fans for buying tickets to see the big names and not the nations with no big attraction. Why are they going to buy tickets for the smaller games when for the same price they can see the big stars??

As far as other games go. I can pretty much guarantee the moses mbida stadium at durban will be sold out for the t20 cricket match india vs sa later this year.

On pricing again I totally disagree. Fifa and the loc is not in charge of accomodation and travel pricing , their match day pricing has been more then fair. Max category one ticket price on the official fifa website was $ 900.

But I am wasting my breath, we aren't going to agree on this. I see nothing wrong with the attendances while you have a big issue.
 

Choppin Onions

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I was shocked by how many empty seats there was in the Greece-Nigeria game. Looked like a Rubentus home game! That being said, it's not entirely surprising to me. South Africa is pretty geographically isolated and isn't exactly a tourist destination to begin with. I'm sure attendance will be at full capacity once the group stages are done.
 

Stefan

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I was shocked by how many empty seats there was in the Greece-Nigeria game. Looked like a Rubentus home game! That being said, it's not entirely surprising to me. South Africa is pretty geographically isolated and isn't exactly a tourist destination to begin with. I'm sure attendance will be at full capacity once the group stages are done.

SA has a strong tourist industry. Cape town and the kruger national park are well know tourist destinations. Only egypt with the pyramids receives more tourists per year in africa.

The country receives about 10 million tourists a year compared to egypt's 12 million.

Geography and the international financial crisis is probably the biggest factors which has effected the smaller countries fans not traveling. But like I already pointed those countries who's people traveling in big numbers to SA yearly whether there is a world cup or not have still come.

Argentina vs South Korea and Holland vs Denmark had about the same attendance as the opening game. So sure there are some games which have small crowds do to their own fans not making the effort to get here but hardly see that as a major issue.
 

brehme1989

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Paraguay-Japan, ROUND OF 16, 1/4 of the stadium is empty... And it's in Pretoria, a major SA city
 

Stefan

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Paraguay-Japan, ROUND OF 16, 1/4 of the stadium is empty... And it's in Pretoria, a major SA city

I see the normal nitpicking is still going on.:palm: I really didn't see this 1/4 empty, there were a few places with emtpy seats but not as much as you claim.

Facts are the game was considered a sell out. We(residents of pretoria) haven't been able to buy tickets for this and any other game in pretoria since 3 months before the world cup opened.

If people bought tickets and decided to not show for the game that's too bad but the tickets were sold.
 

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Attendance: 36,742
Loftus Versfeld Stadium Capacity: 42,858

Empty Seats: 6,116 = 14% empty

I guess it was close, but not 1/4 empty.
 

brehme1989

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Well, the 3 edges of the stadium that can be viewed from TV were 1/4 empty each.. the edge where the camera stood was probably full.

The only explanation I can give here is that the Italians did not sell their tickets and just went home.
 

vitomins

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Well, the 3 edges of the stadium that can be viewed from TV were 1/4 empty each.. the edge where the camera stood was probably full.

The only explanation I can give here is that the Italians did not sell their tickets and just went home.


Do they base the attendance simply on ticket sales? In the United States, they have counters on their turnstiles that count the people entering the stadium and base their attendance count on that, not by how many tickets were sold...
 

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Do they base the attendance simply on ticket sales? In the United States, they have counters on their turnstiles that count the people entering the stadium and base their attendance count on that, not by how many tickets were sold...

Attendances is based on how many people go through the turnstiles. There is an electronic system where you insert the ticket and it gets counted.
 

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I have a friend who lives down in SA and I also heard a radio interview with some South African officials talking about attendances etc...It was always going to be a difficult trip to make for most of the world as flying to SA is quite expensive, in the first place, for fans of participating nations...Locals apparently get a discounted price for tickets (Whereas foreigners are paying pretty astronomical prices)...But the most interesting attendance issue I heard was that a lot of South Africans pretty much have avoided matches where one of the well known sides were playing, hence the more empty venues.
 

Stefan

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I have a friend who lives down in SA and I also heard a radio interview with some South African officials talking about attendances etc...It was always going to be a difficult trip to make for most of the world as flying to SA is quite expensive, in the first place, for fans of participating nations...Locals apparently get a discounted price for tickets (Whereas foreigners are paying pretty astronomical prices)...But the most interesting attendance issue I heard was that a lot of South Africans pretty much have avoided matches where one of the well known sides were playing, hence the more empty venues.

Define well known sides?? The games with big nations with the top names have been well attended its the games with the smaller sides like japan,greece,paraguay,ect which have had issues with people who bought tickets not showing up.
 

FCBarca

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Define well known sides?? The games with big nations with the top names have been well attended its the games with the smaller sides like japan,greece,paraguay,ect which have had issues with people who bought tickets not showing up.

Asked & answered it seems
 
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