Today's Announcement NOT About Stadium

[silvercue]

45k is rather ambitious. I do agree that better facilities attract more supporters, but we will have to be more competitive with pricing I think. We have literally sold out LR a handful of times in the last 5 years. We struuggled to sell out the home supporters tickets in most of our games in the 1st year back in the prem.

That is significant - especially when many on here perdicted EVERY home game would be sold out. I think 35k with option to exand would be a better option.

It is all well and good talking about being ambitious, but we would have to have really good pricing and a much better way to buy tickets to come close to filling a 45k stadium. And as for global brand? That takes many years, not 2 or 3. And signing a famous Korean does not make us a global brand.

[Felt]

45k might seem big at the moment, but the club has a lot of potential due to location and for concerts it's perfectly placed if we end up near Westfield. When you consider the progress the club has made building as a brand over the last 11 months it is incredible and I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years' time attendances have at least doubled.

[DeepcutHoop]

45k might seem big at the moment, but the club has a lot of potential due to location and for concerts it's perfectly placed if we end up near Westfield. When you consider the progress the club has made building as a brand over the last 11 months it is incredible and I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years' time attendances have at least doubled.

It could end up with 20 od thousand people rattling about in a huge stadium struggling to generate an atmosphere

It's a really tough one, there is potential for increasing attendances, but it will take time. They have to balance a future potential crowd size, against the length of time it'll take.

Ideally we'd need something no bigger than 30,000 certainly, with a potential to increase later. Tough for the owners and architects tbf

I'm still not convinced we could ever fill 45,000.

[dave58]

45k??? brilliant news.

I think he's downplaying things ahead of the conference. I'm sure he wouldn't want to play his hand early in the day.

45.000 far too big for a little club like us 35.000 would just about right 45K too many empty seats

[Felt]

It could end up with 20 od thousand people rattling about in a huge stadium struggling to generate an atmosphere

It's a really tough one, there is potential for increasing attendances, but it will take time. They have to balance a future potential crowd size, against the length of time it'll take.

Ideally we'd need something no bigger than 30,000 certainly, with a potential to increase later. Tough for the owners and architects tbf

I'm still not convinced we could ever fill 45,000.

I agree it will take time and the stadium will be at least a few seasons away anyway, but Fernandes is a marketing genius above all else, so if anyone can do it I think it's him. It is a gamble though, definitely.

[Ellerslie]

We didn't quite sell out our 33,000 allocation for the Cardiff play-off final. We're going to have to find a lot of new fans by the time this stadium is opened or we'll be playing in a half filled ground.

Go to admire the man's ambition though. I'm sure it's possible to achieve Tony's goals, it will be a lot of hard work for a lot of people though.

I think we're all going to have to accept an influx of "jonny-come-lately" fans too.

[qpr]

45,000 is rather huge but then again 60,000 people turn up in London to watch Arsenal do nothing every other week

[Bigears]

Lots of good points and a couple of other points that may help understand why a 45k seated stadium and why it may be built in one go:
• The technology and building materials will be much cheaper to build a 45k stadium in one go, doing it in stages will mean more expense
• If you are looking at doing concerns you will lose around ¼ of the capacity as one end will be turned into the stage
• The bigger the capacity the more different type of events you can hold
• If it is done in tiers, you can hold small events as well as bigger ones as it will be easy to restrict capacity tailored to each request
• You can be more cost competitive e.g. tickets at £20 on 45k will bring in more revenue than £40 at 18k. This will allow hopefully keep the prices within the loyal QPR fans price range and stop all the tickets being taken up tourist

If your going to spend the amount of money they are talking about you need to look at the ways to maximise what u can get for your money and maximise revenue, and this means designing something not just for QPR but the other events they wish to hold, and that means a bigger capacity than what we get at the moment,, they need to look at it from a higher level than just us fans which look at it from a lower level just for QPR.
Anyway my thoughts

[yugohoop]

Wow, there is a lot of small club mentality in this thread! TF and co know that we won't fill 45k being a mid table side. We are at the beginning of a new chapter in the history of our great club and I can't ****ing wait. Remember there is no law that states that the current big boys must remain the big boys.

[qpr]

Lots of good points and a couple of other points that may help understand why a 45k seated stadium and why it may be built in one go:
• The technology and building materials will be much cheaper to build a 45k stadium in one go, doing it in stages will mean more expense
• If you are looking at doing concerns you will lose around ¼ of the capacity as one end will be turned into the stage
• The bigger the capacity the more different type of events you can hold
• If it is done in tiers, you can hold small events as well as bigger ones as it will be easy to restrict capacity tailored to each request
• You can be more cost competitive e.g. tickets at £20 on 45k will bring in more revenue than £40 at 18k. This will allow hopefully keep the prices within the loyal QPR fans price range and stop all the tickets being taken up tourist

If your going to spend the amount of money they are talking about you need to look at the ways to maximise what u can get for your money and maximise revenue, and this means designing something not just for QPR but the other events they wish to hold, and that means a bigger capacity than what we get at the moment,, they need to look at it from a higher level than just us fans which look at it from a lower level just for QPR.
Anyway my thoughts

Jezus, what a very simple point that I overlooked.

Also like your point at tiers, that's a must imo

[alanfullerqpr]

Think about it guys. He says it will make us a truely global brand..... I think it will just be an official press piece on all our signings:

Park - SK legend
Nelson - NZ captain
Fabio - upcoming Brazilian
Diakite - Promising African
Green - England international
Johnson - former England international.

I actually think there may also be a surprise player among them... Could it be Samba or Canadian Hoilett..?

or both.

[blueboy]

Lots of good points and a couple of other points that may help understand why a 45k seated stadium and why it may be built in one go:
• The technology and building materials will be much cheaper to build a 45k stadium in one go, doing it in stages will mean more expense
• If you are looking at doing concerns you will lose around ¼ of the capacity as one end will be turned into the stage
• The bigger the capacity the more different type of events you can hold
• If it is done in tiers, you can hold small events as well as bigger ones as it will be easy to restrict capacity tailored to each request
• You can be more cost competitive e.g. tickets at £20 on 45k will bring in more revenue than £40 at 18k. This will allow hopefully keep the prices within the loyal QPR fans price range and stop all the tickets being taken up tourist

If your going to spend the amount of money they are talking about you need to look at the ways to maximise what u can get for your money and maximise revenue, and this means designing something not just for QPR but the other events they wish to hold, and that means a bigger capacity than what we get at the moment,, they need to look at it from a higher level than just us fans which look at it from a lower level just for QPR.
Anyway my thoughts

a lot of good points.i think the trend is to have one end smaller and/0r a single tier for the stage..then the rest .contructed in 2 tiers...fill it from the bottom up,like Wembley does,so for smaller crowds,have everybody togther in lower tier,shutting off top tier so it wont seem so empty
one point that hasnt been mentioned is with a larger capacity,will everybody who has season tickets now,get them in a new ground,or will people go back to the way it was when i fist started going int he 80's...pay on the day,on the door...do most people,(i am one of these)only got season tickets as they were afraid they wouldnt get in at LR..and then you feel compelled to go to every game coz u paid for it..with 35-45k,that might not be the case

[EYR]

Should be plenty of walk up tickets available for most games barring the obvious ones.

[stainrodisalegend]

Couple of points:

We are only looking at attendences from a football perspective. Football wont be the single or even the major focus of the new stadium. Therefore how many fans we might attract is a bit of a red-herring - they are thinking more along the lines of "what capacity do we need to get Coldplay/ U2/ The Killers" to play at our ground rather than the O2/ Wembley/ Emirates/ wherever?

Fans hoping for reduced prices are being way too optimistic imo. if you double your sales but halve your prices then you are left with exactly the same revenue. Nobody builds a £180m stadium to be left with the same income. How you get high attendances while charging high prices for a small club is a very difficult circle - but my hunch is it will be via targetting schools etc with reduced price/ free tickets and trying to make it more of a full day experience for families.

You have to remember this isnt going to happen for at least three years. By then we might (!) be a well established, mid-table prem club. The club will hope to do (on a much smaller scale) what Arsenal has done on season tickets and build up a waiting list. By then dont think its unrealistic to think we might sell 20,000 season tickets. Big games will be boosted by away fans (five derbies, several other v big matches). Good facilities cd attract more tourists/ casual fans. The new ground will be a bit echoey for football matches, but if you don't try to grow you might as well give up. If anyone can turn us into an established prem, medium sized club this board can.

[blueboy]

Should be plenty of walk up tickets available for most games barring the obvious ones.

thats what i am saying,with that in mind,will people's habits change ie go from being a ST holder,to walking up on the day
supply and demand will end up dictating prices