do we need 22000 seats ?

[graysblue]

been attending the hall for the past 40 years during this time apart from the liverpool game i cannot remember any attendances that have exceeded 22000.

true the man utd game would have been a sell out(22000) apart from that i personally cannot see any need for such a large stadium.

millwall had 8000 odd in their 22000 capacity and it looked mental with rows upon rows of empty seats.

look at darlington with their 22000 ground yet they only obtain 4000 .

15000 would be ideal with the design allowing for extra capacity if/when the club ever made it to the promised land.

 

[jerseyshrimper]

Agree with you no need at present for 22,000 seater unless of course it is going to be used for concerts like a lot of other clubs do in which case it will be a great revenue to the club

 

[Mr. Benedict]

been attending the hall for the past 40 years during this time apart from the liverpool game i cannot remember any attendances that have exceeded 22000.

true the man utd game would have been a sell out(22000) apart from that i personally cannot see any need for such a large stadium.

millwall had 8000 odd in their 22000 capacity and it looked mental with rows upon rows of empty seats.

look at darlington with their 22000 ground yet they only obtain 4000 .

15000 would be ideal with the design allowing for extra capacity if/when the club ever made it to the promised land.

That's not showing much ambition though is it? 15,000 is only 3,000 bigger than RH, and if we ever did need to expand it we'd be saddled with huge costs and the hassle of getting planning permission again. We all panned Col Ewe for building a ten thousand seater when Layer Road had a 7,000 capacity after all.
I agree that 22k is a bit too big - 18,000 would be more realistic - but at least we're showing a bit of ambition insofaras capacity is concerned.

 

[Reefs]

That's not showing much ambition though is it? 15,000 is only 3,000 bigger than RH, and if we ever did need to expand it we'd be saddled with huge costs and the hassle of getting planning permission again. We all panned Col Ewe for building a ten thousand seater when Layer Road had a 7,000 capacity after all.
I agree that 22k is a bit too big - 18,000 would be more realistic - but at least we're showing a bit of ambition insofaras capacity is concerned.

Most people miss the fundamental point that the bigger the seating bowl, the more space you have beneath for associated development. Bear in mind we have accomodation in each stand.

 

[graysblue]

rewind under wiggers and newman the crowds hovered around 3/4000.

football is a fickle business ,personally i would rather see the new stadium fairly full(ie 15000 capacity)than banks of empty seats.

 

[Rob1920]

Definitely not too big. It shows ambition & if our short term goal of acheiving & maintaining Championship status is reached, we could be averaging crowds of 12k to 14k. Not full I know but Roots Hall looks pretty full with 6 or 7k in it so i'm sure FF will generate a good atmosphere at around 60% capacity.

We usually have have 2 or 3 games a season where we could get close to 20k if we had the capacity, plus we'll be able to attract youth & under 21 internationals.

Then there is the Olympics, what better place to hold some of the footy matches at a brand new state of the art stadium that will have the ideal capacity, right on London's doorstep, with built in training & hotal facilities etc etc..

A smaller stadium might be nice & neat but it will slip under the radar & would confirm us as a club happy to stay small.

 

[graysblue]

attracting internationl games would i feel be rare? maybe the odd game every few seasons ,even then the revenue would be handy yet it would not sustain the club.

the olympics will no doubt allocate grounds ie upton park ect as well as the olympic arena.

even if the club averaged 12000 the stadium would be half full or half empty depending on your outlook

 

[Mr. Benedict]

rewind under wiggers and newman the crowds hovered around 3/4000.

football is a fickle business ,personally i would rather see the new stadium fairly full(ie 15000 capacity)than banks of empty seats.

The club has grown considerably since then though. Like Rob1920 says, if we have any ambition to seriously progress, we need to have a stadium to cope with it and enable us to compete - if we think small, we'll stay small.

Most people miss the fundamental point that the bigger the seating bowl, the more space you have beneath for associated development. Bear in mind we have accomodation in each stand.

Good point, and one I hadn't thought of!

 

[WickfordShrimper]

I reckon we should be looking at clubs like Reading, Wigan, Swansea here.... not the likes of darlington.lol

I honestly reckon we should be looking to bulid a stadium of 25,000 plus gearing up for to our premiership drive...

Watch this space :-)

HAPPY DAYS

 

[steveo]

This subject has been heavily debated o the zone.
For me 15000 would be plenty and it would be a target to fill it.

The doubters are accused of being unambitious but at some stage you have to be realistic. With 22000 we would be playing to astadium a third full with rubbish atmosphere. Compare Doncaster and Darlington.

 

[Mr. Benedict]

This subject has been heavily debated o the zone.
For me 15000 would be plenty and it would be a target to fill it.

The doubters are accused of being unambitious but at some stage you have to be realistic. With 22000 we would be playing to astadium a third full with rubbish atmosphere. Compare Doncaster and Darlington.

I don't think that fifteen thousand would be big enough if we were in the Championship though - we averaged 10k despite being completely toilet last time round so if we had a half decent season along with the uplift a stadium move brings then we'd start to hit capacity.

 

[steveo]

so if we had a half decent season along with the uplift a stadium move brings then we'd start to hit capacity.

There are a number of arguments against though:

With 22000 there would be no demand for seats most of the time. Season ticket sales would fall - why would you need one? If the season was going badly the casual season ticket holdermight not bother to go to everygame.

Aways always sit together making a good noise. Spread 8000 home fans over 18000 seats and you wouldnt hear anything.

The cost of policing, stewarding and manning a 22000 seater would be far greater than 15000, if we were doing badly where does the money come from?

I would rather we build 15000, get promoted, sell out every week. Play in front of a packed stadium with a great atmosphere. Demand for tickets would be high, ensuring the price would stay high. Season tickets sales would increase as people wouldnt want to miss out.
This would only work if the team did well.

 

[Sussex Shrimper]

We've been limited by our capacity a good few times in recent years, and not only in the cups when we've drawn big teams. We had touts out in force when we played Yeovil in League 2 because so many people wanted to see the game!

We're one of the faster growing clubs in the league in terms of fanbase. I think that we could possibly have sold 15,000 tickets for some of our games in our promotion season from League One and in the Championship. Adding 7,000 onto that figure gives us room for further growth, which is a good thing as looking at the designs I can see FF being a real turning point in our ongoing fight to persuade the local public to watch football in a stadium rather than on TV.

At worst, in the short term it gives us a good few spare seats to get the next generation of fans in, be it through the reintroduction of kids for a quid, or even by giving tickets away through local schools and clubs. I think the club would be missing a huge opportunity if they leave thousands of seats empty instead of getting the next generation hooked while they're young.

 

[londonblue]

Definitely not too big. It shows ambition & if our short term goal of acheiving & maintaining Championship status is reached, we could be averaging crowds of 12k to 14k. Not full I know but Roots Hall looks pretty full with 6 or 7k in it so i'm sure FF will generate a good atmosphere at around 60% capacity.

We usually have have 2 or 3 games a season where we could get close to 20k if we had the capacity, plus we'll be able to attract youth & under 21 internationals.

Then there is the Olympics, what better place to hold some of the footy matches at a brand new state of the art stadium that will have the ideal capacity, right on London's doorstep, with built in training & hotal facilities etc etc..

A smaller stadium might be nice & neat but it will slip under the radar & would confirm us as a club happy to stay small.

Nice idea, but the olympic football stadiums have already been agreed.

London2012

Maybe the world cup should we get it in 2018.

 

[londonblue]

Most people miss the fundamental point that the bigger the seating bowl, the more space you have beneath for associated development. Bear in mind we have accomodation in each stand.

Surely the other fundamental point is that it is cheaper to build big now than to try to extend in the future?

 

[Mr. Benedict]

There are a number of arguments against though:

With 22000 there would be no demand for seats most of the time. Season ticket sales would fall - why would you need one? If the season was going badly the casual season ticket holdermight not bother to go to everygame.

We have free seats RH at the moment and season tickets sales are stable. I would have thought that most people buy a seaso so they don't have to go through the hassle of buying a ticket every game and / or the tickets work out cheaper.

Aways always sit together making a good noise. Spread 8000 home fans over 18000 seats and you wouldnt hear anything.

That depends on the acoustics of the stadium surely. Are you forgetting that 100 people chanting in the North Bank can make a tremendous amount of noise? Get the acoustics right and a half-full stadium can still create an atmosphere.

The cost of policing, stewarding and manning a 22000 seater would be far greater than 15000, if we were doing badly where does the money come from?

Only if it's full up - and then we'd get more money from ticket sales anyway. You wouldn't need mroe stewards to handle 8,000 people in a 22k stadium than you would in a 15k, as the amount of fans would be the same and the ground will be single tiered.

I would rather we build 15000, get promoted, sell out every week. Play in front of a packed stadium with a great atmosphere. Demand for tickets would be high, ensuring the price would stay high. Season tickets sales would increase as people wouldnt want to miss out.
This would only work if the team did well.

But we would get people missing out as the ground is selling out - to build a fanbase you need to have tickets available for new fans, surely.

 

[graysblue]

look at coventry they have a decent large stadium yet it cannot be filled and city are broke!!

the evidence suggests the shrimpers will rarely ever sell out 15000 stadium let alone anything bigger.

sure as night follows day the club will have a plunge in on pitch fortunes thats the nature of the game,this could take years or even sooner who knows.

one thing is for certain when it happens the crowds will gradually become smaller and tis is when the crap hits the fan because how will the massive stadium (22000) fund itself?

 

[londonblue]

There are a number of arguments against though:

With 22000 there would be no demand for seats most of the time. Season ticket sales would fall - why would you need one? If the season was going badly the casual season ticket holdermight not bother to go to everygame.

Disagree completely. As far as I am aware people don't become season ticket holders just in case they can't get tickets for certain matches, they do it because it is cheaper and more convenient.

Aways always sit together making a good noise. Spread 8000 home fans over 18000 seats and you wouldnt hear anything.

That is a concern, but only if the stadium is empty. I'm not sure that will always be the case. Look how many people we took to the LDV finals when our average gate was a lot less than it is now. That is the potential we have.

The cost of policing, stewarding and manning a 22000 seater would be far greater than 15000, if we were doing badly where does the money come from?

I would imagine the numbers of police/stewards is based on the size of the crowd rather than the size of the stadium. (You don't need stewards where there are no people.) Even if that isn't the case, and I am wrong, I would imagine the incremental cost of stewarding the extra 7000 seats would be marginal. To me this is irrelevant for that alone, regardless of your assumption that the stadium will be empty.

I would rather we build 15000, get promoted, sell out every week. Play in front of a packed stadium with a great atmosphere. Demand for tickets would be high, ensuring the price would stay high. Season tickets sales would increase as people wouldnt want to miss out.
This would only work if the team did well.

I would rather we build 22000, get promoted, sell out every week. Play in front of a packed stadium with a great atmosphere. Demand for tickets would be high, ensuring the price would stay high. Season tickets sales would increase as people wouldnt want to miss out.
This would only work if the team did well.

 

[Mr. Benedict]

look at coventry they have a decent large stadium yet it cannot be filled and city are broke!!

the evidence suggests the shrimpers will rarely ever sell out 15000 stadium let alone anything bigger.

?

Coventry are broke because they over-spent trying to get back in the Premiership, not because of their stadium. If you're going to make comparisons like that please use realistic and relevant examples.

I think you'll find there is no such evidence to suggest that as we don't have a 15,000 seater stadium. In our championship season we could have sold that many for RH for some games and that's without any uplift a stadium would bring.

 

[Irate Ian]

Why not send a PM to RM or McScriven to request answer to the question ?

Suspect their are multiple arguments for and against.

Other uses proposed ?