Home Park attendance after Phase 1

[Biggs]

The attendances will be higher once the grandstand is redeveloped, no matter what league we’re in. 1) curiosity to see what it’s like, and 2) the attraction of being in a modern, attractive, all seater football stadium with 10x more amenities than previously.

It staggers me how many people seem to think a modern, pleasant environment doesn’t matter to people deciding whether to come. Especially families.

 

[shortbred]

We can argue over the grandstand development all we like, but this isn't the be all and end all. The horse shoe was built to be able to build on top of as well so if demand and investment are there it is still very doable.

 

[Guiri Green]

If we were to be financed by someone with the wherewithall to be be able to get us to the point of a sustained presence in the Championship with a good chance of entry into the Premier League, then I'd like to feel confident they'd revamp HP to something worthy or maybe a relocation to our version of the AMEX, Liberty etc.

Until then, well, we are where we are with what we got. The sums of money changing hands in the Championship now, show that a decent Stadium alone is not going to do it. Our 'needs' to get beyond a Championship flirtation go a bit beyond hoping to get 20K or more on a regular basis.

 

[ChepstowGreen]

It beggars belief that people aren't happy with 17.9k capacity now, with a design literally in place and good to go for 20k+ when demand requires it.

If we got to the upper reaches of the Championship and heaven forbid the Premier League, it would take an extremely moronic board to have sell-out after sell-out, week in week out without going ahead with expansion.

Do people really think that will happen? :facepalm:

At least the myth that the capacity is going to be 16.5k has been laid to rest, I don't know where that came from.

Obviously we do need to take the lead of Man United / the Old Firm matches when it comes to segregation mind, let's have no more closed blocks of seats please when we've a big gate expected.

 

[Biggs]

It beggars belief that people aren't happy with 17.9k capacity now, with a design literally in place and good to go for 20k+ when demand requires it.

But... but... I’ve read on numerous places that Stage 2 definitely will never happen

Seriously though, there’s a huge difference between ‘no current timescale or funds’ and ‘this is never happening’.

Everything about Stage 1 is planned with Stage 2 in mind and as you say, if demand requires it then it will happen. There’s no current urgency because demand doesn’t require it. Simple.

 

[Dalton Is God]

Towards the end of last season in April Home Park was filled to 52% of capacity, which was ranked 11th in League One.

Link

Our capacity was over 20,000 last season?

Capacity was 16,388 last season (although can probably take a fair chunk off that for segregation)

Average attendance was 10,413 which makes around 63.5% (without segregation).

 

[Johndelve]

Still don’t see an issue with the proposed capacity after stage 1.
Last time we were in the championship I believe we averaged around 16,000 -17,000 ( happy to be told otherwise ). And from memory, despite a half decent first season in that league the crowds the following season dipped to around 13,000 .
When we start averaging 16,000 every week may be the board will think about increasing capacity , which I’m sure they will .
Other than that there is little point at this stage. Appreciate there are bigger crowds around festive fixtures, but in reality a lot of those extra bums on seats have no intention of coming back , win lose or draw , simply a one of visit to get out of the house. Don’t see cinemas or theatres putting in extra seats when a big film comes to town. As I see it, we need to attract another 6,000 supporters every home game before this becomes an issue and I don’t see that happening any time soon.

 

[SWTT]

To average 17,000 if crowds dipped to 13,000 for some games do you think crowds peaked at 17,000? Think about it.

 

[up the line]

http://greensonscreen.co.uk/gosdb-seaso ... =2004-2005

Of the crowds in our first season back in the championship, under our new, reduced capacity, 9 of them would have meant locking fans out. Including a few where we would have been locking nearly 3000 spectators out.
To think that we wouldnt generate the same or greater levels of interest if we were to go up next season is ludicrous and the figures suggest that the fan base has grown since our last stint in the championship.
It. Beggars. Belief. that anyone would be happy with a situation where the club were turning away 3/4/5000 potential new customers 9 or 10 times in a season.
Please also remember that at championship level we'd have to accommodate 2000 away specrators on a regular basis with another 1000 for segregation leaving room for say 14,900 Argyle fans.
Our average last season was around 10,000 and would have been higher if we'd had an open mayflower terrace for the final few home games.. for a season in which we struggled for a large part and had a brief tilt at the play offs. Generally away attendces were mediocre.

 

[slingsbypobble]

Could someone list the number of games where we've had crowds of more than 16,000 over the last 10 seasons.

I think it’s more important to focus on the future than the past. This club is year on year progressing, at this rate we will be in the championship within 2 seasons. I believe our attendance averaged around 16,500 last time, I imagine it will be higher now. The concern is surely the lack of capacity going forward in the higher leagues, rather than what we’ve done for the last ten years.

We had six seasons in the championship , our average attendances during those seasons and finishing positions according to GoS , were 2004/05 16,419 , 17th ;2005/06 13,776 , 14th ; 2006/07 13,011 , 11th ; 2007/08 13,000 , 10th ; 2008/09 , 11,533 , 21st ; 2009/10 10314 , 23rd . So we had 1 season of over 16,000 average attendance , our first in the division , then despite 3 years of improved positions our average dropped by 3,419 . It would appear that our ground at the time had a bigger capacity than was needed for most of our 138 home games during that period , and to be fair if our capacity after phase 1 is completed stands at 17,500 , that too would have been enough for most of those games .

Just out of interest, what was the gate price/season ticket price during those seasons? I'm trying to imagine if 'greedy Argyle' took advantage of Championship status by inching the prices up, which put punters off.

As an aside - was it really 6 seasons! I'm off to check GoS to see how many seasons we've spent as a Tier 2 club...

 

[oldage]

Why this obsession with the capacity at Home Park? There are no guarantees that we will make it to the Championship and Bournemouth have managed in the Premiership with smaller crowds. Why cater for the so called "supporters " who only bother to attend when we play a top team in the cup?

 

[Army green]

Didn’t think it would be long until someone mentioned Bournemouth, Bournemouth have a owner that is prepared to put large amounts of money into the club, because he has large amounts of money that allows him to do that. We are the opposite, our owner doesn’t have money so we are using the self sustainable model to progress, basically the more fans through the gate the better. Bournemouth don’t have the fan base we do, Bournemouth as a club before they reached the prem are no bigger than Exeter City. Hence why the built a stadium of around 10k. We are averaging 10k in league one, they averaged about 3-4K in league one. It’s all about our realistic ambition, at the moment 17k stadium is ok as no way will we become anything more than a struggling championship team with the current board (that’s not a dig). If we was lucky enough to get bank rolled by a Billionaire like Bournemouth then we would need a much larger capacity as our ambition would be greater than what it is now.

 

[Andy Holland]

I wish you were right, but I can't for the life of me see how you would be.

There's a precedent here - there's no reason to think it'd be any different.

The people of Plymouth, by and large, don't give a sh*t about their team and, sadly, probably never will. For me it's linked to a general lack of civic/local pride, but that's probably a debate for another thread.

 

[Knarf Reprah]

My late father took me to my first match in 1961, and said ....sleeping giant.
What am I saying to the grandkids 57 years later? Sleeping giant!
The boys support looserpool because of Sky, although Chris is coming to Walsall with me.
Would it be "good old Argo" if they were in the Prem with players earning £100k a week? I think not

 

[Lundan Cabbie]

If we got to the upper reaches of the Championship and heaven forbid the Premier League, it would take an extremely moronic board to have sell-out after sell-out, week in week out without going ahead with expansion.

That is where Crystal Palace have been, hitting capacity attendances in the Premier League every game and it has taken FIVE seasons to get to a point where they can replace the 95 year old main stand and even then it will only add 9,000 seats to the Selhurst Park capacity. The thing is, if they get relegated, they’ll probably won’t be needed.

If you think that expansion can happen as soon as you reach that new level you might find you’ll need more patience.