bustamente
Fraud Supporter
A few empty seats even in the lower bowl and pockets of empty seats in the upper bowl but still a pretty good crowd
Ticket/Attendance Discussion: The Sequel
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It's not just us. I'm watching the Ottawa game and plenty of empty seats in the lower bowl.
We are trending in the right direction attendance wise and that is what matters.
bustamente
Fraud Supporter
Yup watching too, @surixon your right I think the first 3 games have had good attendance and better than that the crowd seemed to be getting back into the game and not sitting on their hands, winning does that I guess
I noticed for the first three games this year our crowd has been more rambunctious than it had been in recent times (for regular season), which is good. Yes, winning helps that, but the crowd seems more into it right from the start of the games too. It’s a good thing!
voyageur
Hockey fanatic
- Jul 10, 2011
- 10,270
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I notice a difference from 2019 to now, in the number of younger fans attending. I would say seniors were a fixture at games before then. And Covid made life harder for them. But you have a generation now that have grown up with the Jets, and you need some youthful energy in the building. If I cheer too loud, I'll start coughing, old dusty lungs, so I just appreciate the spectacle., where once upon a time me and my friends would turn the decible meter up.
Arthur Fonzarelli
"aaaaay"
Since 2021 the Jets are supposed to be offering real time audio for those in attendance. Has anyone else tried using it? True North marketed this as a real time experience being able to hear the live broadcas feed, but I've yet to have it work. It's simply been nothing more than the CJOB/Power 97 broadcast running 30+seconds late.
Section 325
Registered User
The Flames had 3000 empty seats for the game against the Jets on Saturday. It definitely isn't only Winnipeg.
Yup, I'm seeing lots of empty seats in most games I turn on the TV. Winnipeg just seems to get focused on for whatever.
AtomicJets
Registered User
- Dec 20, 2014
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Yeah I randomly stumbled onto a Capitals game recently and it was in Washington, and tons of empty seats
@surixon comment alludes to the general forum thread saying the Jets should be moved because of our attendance problems.
Also to note, most of the empty seats you're seeing on TV are sold and empty. The difference with us right now, is they're empty and not sold.
You have anything to back that claim up? The same to some degree could be said about us, especially in the lower bowl where 99% of seats there are regularly sold.
Edit: Just went and looked at some teams ticket master. There is a tonne of blue for Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Columbus, about the same as us for Ottawa and Islanders. So no in a number of other smaller markets facing an economic alow down there are attendance issues.
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AtomicJets
Registered User
- Dec 20, 2014
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That's not totally accurate. There are 7 teams selling a lower percentage of their capacity than Winnipeg right now.
By my count there are only 62 premium seats and about 400 upper bowl seat that haven't been paid for. How many show up is another matter as I'm sure a good many seat holders are trying to sell to Leaf fans at a premium.
MelikeJets
Registered User
I was one of many people ticked off that we weren't building a 17000+ arena. At the time we only had the Moose and the NHL was a future non guaranteed dream. At the time I thought a bigger arena would have been better for concerts etc and MAYBE NHL if there was a chance to get a team back. IMO looking back 15,000 seats was ok because think how ugly it would look with 4000 empty seats? Having said all this I am truly worried about the future. We have a team that makes the playoffs regularly, imagine going on a 5 year slump? Getting 10,000 in the building during a bad stretch of years will be extremely difficult. We may be a hockey town but we need to have hope each year of at least getting to the dance. So far Chevy and co. are doing a great job of giving us hope...I fear the dark days that every franchise goes through though....will there be enough fans buying into a team they know won't make the playoffs?
One thing that might factor in the skewed attention towards Winnipeg vs other markets is maybe that for us not selling a couple thousand seats equates to 13,000 fans, whereas in Calgary (and many other places) it still amounts to ~16,000-or-so. Just playing devil’s advocate. I know that the economics behind attendances aren’t 1:1 ratio with crowd size (for instance, in Winnipeg this year it appears as though the bulk of the empty seats are mostly amongst the cheapest price categories, which means it has a lesser impact - and there are other factors as well, of course).
That is also my fear/concern. I think that’s why TNSE is very focused on building the ticket base predominantly via the corporate/business sector for the remaining ~3k to bring it up from 10k to 13k, which hopefully is more resilient to “bad years on the ice”.
I understand that argument and am not saying it isn't an issue. But we get the finger pointed at us all time for it and other markets with issues aren't focused on.
But yes in terms of what seats aren't sold Winnipeg still sells out or very close to sells out all its premium seats. In other markets like Pittsburgh and Buffalo that isn't the case with with thousands of unsold premium seats.
So like you said it's hard to really make direct comparisons due to the different value of seats but I'd rather be in our position waiting on the economy to rebound so that the middle class can start scooping up the cheap seats again then having to try to sell a significant portion of the super expensive seats.
One thing that is interesting about both the leafs & habs games in Winnipeg: I think a lot of Winnipeg Jets fans deliberately stay away from those two games due to the cost, but also due to the fact that there are so many opposing team fans that it’s not the same as a typical home game. So yes, there is a lot of demand for the leafs & habs games, but I think that large demand comes from leafs & habs fans that reside in Winnipeg - not so much from Jets fans. That being said, I really hope we can reach a sellout tonight. Toronto media talking about how this game isn’t a sellout with an 8-0 team and the leafs in town isn’t a “good” look…
Another thing: not sure why, but based on last year it seems that the crowds are larger in the second half of the year for the Jets. We are off to a “better” start attendance-wise than we were last year, and I have a feeling mid/late-december onward we will start seeing a lot of sellouts. This is a good team and hockey fans in the city WILL respond accordingly, I genuinely believe that. No, they won’t go undefeated lol we all know that. But this is a good team and it’s a playoff caliber team and people will buy tickets as the season progresses.
