The first home game is about 5 months away. When will we find out the actual capacity? How many season tickets will be sold? Will we sellout every game in 2012? The Dynamo have increased attendance at Robertson Stadium every year since they joined the league. Will the elimination of games over 22,000 keep us from beating last years 17,694 average? Here is a look at past years attendance: http://90ish.com/2011/10/2011-houston-dynamo-attendance/
It's too early to say how many season tickets will be sold. They'll keep selling them up until kick-off at the new stadium opening. Having a reduced capacity over last season should help the attendance. There will be more of a demand for tickets. Instead of having a lot of up-and-down attendance stats like this season (i.e., 15,000 one game, then 30,000 the next), it will be more consistant since the max will be around 22,000.
Hey, this is my thread dammit. For reference, here are the Robertson Stadium numbers: http://90ish.com/2011/10/2011-houston-dynamo-attendance/ And the playoff attendance numbers: http://90ish.com/2011/11/dynamo-playoff-attendance-at-robertson-stadium/
I predict something like this: we will get over 17,000 every game sell out more than 10 of a 17 home game schedule be in need of a 28,000 stadium in 5 years. this is a conservative estimate.
Well, Westside hasn't chimed in yet. Oh, wait. "Light rail." "Light rail." "Light rail." There, that should do it. Now, cue the discussion of the parking and hobo cluster#$%^ and how after trying to go to the first game there won't be anybody going after that. And soon the stadium will need to be moved to a glorious suburb, perhaps the Woodlands, Pearland, somewhere convenient with acres of majestic parking and plenty of smiling white faces.....
Only if it is something that can be perceived as negative. If its positive it will be Oliver Luck, the players, or the supporters groups fault.
That's very fair to me. Also, for the people who say what if we need bigger capacity in about 5-10 years "Whatever will we do??" Well, this is Houston Damn-it! If here in Houston we were able to make that stadium from nothing to spectacular in less than a year....you guys seriously think they cant expand and extra 3-5k seats (if needed) in an off season?? They definitely can and i'm judging they will.....wait has any SSS actually expanded after being built yet?? I know Seattle is making more seats available now but they don't count in my book they play in a Throw-ball stadium.
Good question: HDC: Temporary expansions only. Crew Stadium: Actually took seats out for a stage. FCD Stadium: No. Rio Tinto: No. Dick's: No. Toyota Park: I don't think so, not sure. RBA: No. PPL Park: Expansion announced. Jeldwen: Expansion by uncovering existing seats. Livestrong: No. Anyone know if I go any of this wrong?
That was before their first season right? I was counting those projects as the creation of the SSS from the old baseball field.
Toronto expanded their capacity at least once already. As for estimates, we topple last year's number, sell out lots of games but not the season. Expansion won't happen for close to a decade.
I read somewhere back in early November we had sold over 8,500 season tickets. I would imagine there were some season tickets under some Christmas trees this year. I would guess we have passed 10,000. Have the Dynamo mentioned a cap on season tickets like some other clubs? What should/would that cap be. In years past we have averaged almost 10,000 per game walk up. I think there maybe a chance we sellout ALL games this year?!?
I would bet we are still around the 9k mark. The holiday season is actually the slowest ticket selling time of year (office was even closed last week I think) so I doubt they moved too many tickets. I have heard nothing of a cap, but I doubt we will see one in the short term. I think we will end up around the 12k mark.
I hope we don't have a cap. The way I see it we need that stadium filled, however, I already saw that partial plans are being sold. That would lead me to believe that some kind of cap is in place, or that the Dynamo feel that they cannot sell 20K+ season tickets. I'm hoping that we can minimize walk-up crowds, but it would be nice to at least have some.
One thing to keep in mind, walk ups always show up to the game. Too many season ticket holders pass up on some games.
I predict we will finish with an average of 18,000 for the first season in the new stadium for MLS games. We'll have a string of sellouts or near sellouts to start, tapering off in mid-summer with the usual strong attendance the last few games. The compression of the schedule, along with the CCL game(s) and some friendlies added in, will drive down demand in the later portion of the schedule which will affect the MLS games. If you use the general formula or equation for the last few years, it's basically the season ticket base from Robertson (6,000 or so) plus the general single-game "attendance" (padded from freebies) of about 7-9,000 to get to the last few years' average. Scaling that up to the new stadium requires a base of over 11-12K to achieve full sellouts regularly. I also say this: all of the metrics about "being ahead of last year's sales pace" are not indicative of the actual demand for 2012. It's clear the new stadium has accelerated renewals and gotten others off of the fence about buying season tickets, but its a one-time bump. You can't really extrapolate that out to April to get a new estimate of attendance and assume you'll sell 50% more tickets every day since that is what you have done since September 1st. I did see they were selling partial season tickets. I don't think it is a sign of weakness as much as is it is just conforming to the way they have done things in prior years, knowing that a certain buying group either won't or cannot buy full season tickets and they need those sales to reach their goals. Though usually you don't put partials or packages out until you feel you have sort of exhausted the avenue of upselling those partials to full seasons. I'm actually more curious to see if they have blown thru the priority list already. Those tend to be fluffed up with folks who put their name in when they are opened up not sure if they are going to buy. To some degree, the easy sales are in the rearview mirror at this point. And any expansion talk is premature, and no offense to anyone, absurd at this point.
18,000 for next years average? We have an economy that is improving, a team that just went to the MLS Cup and brand new stadium and we only increase attendance by 300 per game? Really? Yes I know we have the 30,000 Galaxy game but I can't see a way we don't cross 20,000/game.
I don't agree with his 18K assessment, but I do doubt sell-outs every game. Maybe we may have "announced" sell-outs all season, but I wonder how many would be actual sell-outs.
side note: the Dynamo have averaged an increase in attendance of 366 per year since the first season @ Robertson stadium.
we also have a housing market that is in the tubes. We lost a huge workforce from the Continental/United Merger, every fed at NASA is putting out their resume to private companies, and we're in year 3 of a 10 year drought. 18K is probably pretty accurate. New crib or not, when the summer rolls around, a lot of folks are going to stay home and not melt. I also think the economy is a lot worse off around here than than the "experts" tell you. Granted we're not Las Vegas or Orlando, but money for Dynamo tickets later in the season will be hard to find for a lot of folks. the only way I see us making it to 20K is we sell out the last 5-6 home games in Sept/Oct
Remarkable consistent, huh? Gee, wonder how that happens? One reason why I think we won't have a huge 20,000 average is, to use a financial term, the "quality of earnings" in past years. Especially the last two years, I suspect that the actual attendance counts were heavily influenced by freebies (the extra season ticket or two everyone go for free) and flat-out padding of the figures. Anectodal, but announced attendance figures that would equate with a certain level of parking being consumed or full, concourse traffic, concession lines and other ancillary items did not seem to be occurring in 2011. Either we had a huge number of no-shows or the numbers were padded. The current season ticket sales along with partial season sales will be a better barometer. I suspect the group deals given in years' past won't be as generous. I'm not predicting woe, I just think expectations may be overdone when you spread it across 17-20 games. I think the economy is stabilized but not as strong depending upon what industry you are in. More "impactful" is what happens when we get Wednesday night game vs. Columbus the week school is back in session in August? You're not going to get a sellout crowd for that game at that part of the season. That's what will bring averages down IMO.
Keep this in mind. Historically we have had around 5-7K season tickets. Our average over the years has been 17K. That means we have around 10 thousand! walk up sales for games. If we hit 10-12K season tickets, I think it's possible to sell out the season. That being said, I don't know if it is something we'd continue in the future.
Put in your predictions for the first five home games: Game 1 Sellout Game 2 on a Tue 17000 Game 3 LA Sellout Game 4 Dallas Sellout Game 5 Toronto Wed lowest att of the season 14K