Weak attendence in this years WCH?

[Whiskey In the Jar]

Wayyyyyy too long tournament. 4 team groups and 2 advancing to playoffs would be better idea. It is a slight miracle any player want to attend these kind of 'regular season' spring tournaments tbh

 

[Big McLargehuge]

It's the center of a bigger region. Why else would they build a +10k capacity indoor arena there?

Viborg is the capital of Midtjylland, while Aarhus is the largest city in the region and second largest in the country (I met one hockey fan in my six months living in Aarhus). Herning is the epicenter of hockey in Denmark, but we're still talking about a metropolitan area the size of Pocatello, Idaho or Pori.

 

[welshrangersfan]

I was in Herning last weekend for 3 games and can assure you the place is loving hosting the tournament. Every single shop in the town has hockey related flags, signs and gear on display, and the locals are very eager to welcome fans and talk hockey.

At the end of the day, world championships are often attended like this, strong attendance for the host team's games, and weekend games, with poor crowds for other games, lets face it, a lot of these games take place at 4.15 on a weekday afternoon, when the locals are working. Its no surprise that attendance is weaker.

Herning is doing a tremendous job as host in my opinion considering the limited accommodation it has to offer (they've set up a camp site to combat this), and the far from ideal scheduling and sheer length of the tournament.

It's not been any worse attendance wise than my experiences of Stockholm in the past.

 

[Bagge]

I agree that selling the tickets in packages has been a bad idea, if you look at it in retrospective. The stories here about Danish people buying tickets with the purpose of reselling them later fits pretty good with the impression I have so far. I mean, first game Denmark plays against Germany and I see at least 1000 empty seats.....I know a lot of people would have given their right arm to be able to watch that game live, myself included, but tickets were sold out in a matter of minutes. Many has asked for tickets on Facebook and other places. At the same time I also see a lot of tickets being sold for skyhigh prices on the usual sites such as viagogo. That really pisses me off...

Im sorry if people have stayed away from the tournament because of this. Cant say I blame you, I would have done the same. But it is a shame, cause the party here has been phenomenal so far, at least in Copenhagen. I suspect it is the same in Herning and that is what I love about hockey vs football. There is no hooligans in this sport. We can sit next to each other in a game and shake hands afterwards, no matter who wins and party together in the fanzones prior to the games and after.

 

[ForumNamePending]

Tournament attendance is currently at 8,000+/game and is on pace to draw 500,000+ in total. Historically those are very solid numbers. Especially so when you consider up until ~15 years ago Denmark had pretty much zero "hockey pedigree".

 

[Sian]

and the sport pretty much a non-factor in Denmark.

You could probably still make that argument ... at the very least it's behind Men's Football and Handball (both genders), in terms of attendance ... and I wouldn't be overly surprised if Women's Football was giving it a fair fight, given it's climb over the last couple of years

 

[Albatros]

Tournament attendance is currently at 8,000+/game and is on pace to draw 500,000+ in total. Historically those are very solid numbers. Especially so when you consider up until ~15 years ago Denmark had pretty much zero "hockey pedigree".

Is that attendance or sold tickets though?

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Also it's important to note that the Danish Superliga playoffs are running concurrently with this tournament.

Well this is interesting since that is often the excuse on why this event cannot be hosted in the United States...

 

[Retroglyphs]

Are the Worlds a big deal in Danish media?

Not at all.

 

[Boonk]

Well this is interesting since that is often the excuse on why this event cannot be hosted in the United States...

The popularity of soccer is no where close to the popularity of it in Europe. The reason they wouldn't hold it in the US or Canada is because of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It did pretty well in Canada in 2008 but they only held it in Canada because it marked 100 years of the IIHF's founding and because "muh Canada homeland of hockey".

 

[Rcknrollkillnmachine]

Also it's important to note that the Danish Superliga playoffs are running concurrently with this tournament.

Well, that's just daft.

Thought about coming over for the Finland group games but seemed a lot of hassle with purchasing tickets and accommodation.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

Wayyyyyy too long tournament. 4 team groups and 2 advancing to playoffs would be better idea. It is a slight miracle any player want to attend these kind of 'regular season' spring tournaments tbh

Too long?...hmm, these tournaments are shorter nowadays, used to last longer.

These day's they always play more than 1 game each time slot, back in the day you could watch every single
game live, now you have to choose. Also, games in every single day.

Same goes for Athletics, World's, Euro's, over before you even know it

 

[admire]

Herning is doing a great job...package tickets was stupid but has been a really great host city...

 

[Kookel]

It´s always been a problem to fill the arenas for the early day matches in the world championships.
Remember when I was living in Stockholm back in 2013.
It was possible to buy tickets for 1 euro in Globen for all group games except Sweden games.

 

[Gsus]

Viborg is the capital of Midtjylland, while Aarhus is the largest city in the region and second largest in the country (I met one hockey fan in my six months living in Aarhus). Herning is the epicenter of hockey in Denmark, but we're still talking about a metropolitan area the size of Pocatello, Idaho or Pori.

You mean Pori Finland or?

 

[Big McLargehuge]

You mean Pori Finland or?

Yes.

 

[Lepardi]

locals scooped up lots of the tickets and thought they would make a mint reselling them.

Heh, even the few Danes I have as friends bought lots of tickets for reselling and are getting desperate with them.

How exactly does one come to the conclusion that resale of preliminary round tickets at IIHF Worlds might be a good business? Don't they have any idea of the popularity of this tournament?

 

[Pouchkine]

The group stage and the 16 teams are a joke. The tournament starts in the 1/4's.

 

[Lepardi]

Also it's important to note that the Danish Superliga playoffs are running concurrently with this tournament.

Well this is interesting since that is often the excuse on why this event cannot be hosted in the United States...

It's not called "playoffs" because it's not an elimination tournament. It's the championship round. It's nice that they've got a football match in Copenhagen against Midtjylland on Friday next week when there are no hockey games. I got a ticket and I hope the atmosphere is good.

may ask how often you have been to Denmark?

I've been to Denmark about four times. It's certainly not a hockey country but the locals often say something like "ice hockey is really big there, right?" when I tell them I'm from Finland. Some of them can tell that's where I'm from before I even mention it, because they know the monotonous accent of Finns so well.

 

[Lepardi]

Too long?...hmm, these tournaments are shorter nowadays, used to last longer.

This year's tournament lasts 17 days. When did the IIHF Worlds last longer than that?

This is the first WC I wont have attended in nearly 8 years--I thought Paris was poorly organized but getting any info from the Danish Organizers was like getting blood from stone. I know a lot of people who go every year and did not go this year because they could not get tickets

Did you even consider traveling there without tickets and getting them while you're in Denmark?

 

[Jumptheshark]

How exactly does one come to the conclusion that resale of preliminary round tickets at IIHF Worlds might be a good business? Don't they have any idea of the popularity of this tournament?

because they thought idiots like me would book hotels and flights with the hope of getting tickets when we arrived. Can not speak about Copenhagen as I did no research for games there--but it looks like Herning viewed the games as a huge cash grab more then I have previously seen

 

[Lepardi]

because they thought idiots like me would book hotels and flights with the hope of getting tickets when we arrived.

Even if you did exactly that, how hard would it be to just get some tickets in front of the arena 5 minutes before the game for ~10 dollars?

 

[Jamin]

Even if you did exactly that, how hard would it be to just get some tickets in front of the arena 5 minutes before the game for ~10 dollars?

Easy to say. You gonna risk taking time off work, paying for hotel and air fare.

Then you get there and scalpers are charging more then your willing to pay for a hockey game. Or sold out or bad seats etc.

It's a a pretty big financial risk to hope for tickets the day of

 

[Jumptheshark]

Even if you did exactly that, how hard would it be to just get some tickets in front of the arena 5 minutes before the game for ~10 dollars?

In St Pete's, Prague and Minks the police chased away scalpers

 

[Lepardi]

Easy to say. You gonna risk taking time off work, paying for hotel and air fare.

Then you get there and scalpers are charging more then your willing to pay for a hockey game. Or sold out or bad seats etc.

I think it's pretty safe to say that there will be plenty of room in the arena in Herning whenever Denmark's not playing. When you've got 2,000-3,000 people attending a game at an arena with a capacity of 10,000, I just can't see how scalping would be a good business idea.

I also think that the seat printed on your ticket is fairly irrelevant when you can pretty much pick your spot regardless of your ticket cause there are so many empty seats all over the arena.

In St Pete's, Prague and Minks the police chased away scalpers

I hope getting tickets won't be too difficult in Denmark. I'm traveling to Copenhagen next Thursday and I haven't got any tickets yet. Before buying them I'm gonna wait and see which games Finland will be in.