Where are the empty seats at Pride Park?

[Srg]

10 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

What's the reason for this non use of seats, I've missed it .  Saw some fan footage of the Everton -Newcastle match the other night.  Only thing separating them was a line of police and a cigarette nub. Literally 3 feet. Must cost a fortune in lost revenue.  Could easily have sold more tickets to home fans  for some games and at least a third, probably more, of the away teams would happily have taken more tickets.  Equates to another sold out game over the course of the season.

Might be the cost of policing that. Netting and less police must be cheaper.

[Foreveram]

Not been too many of them, the average attendance for league games this season is 27,259.

[Tamworthram]

3 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Do you know that for a fact? I think the OP makes a good point and it certainly feels like they have gone back to the attendance = tickets sold rather than attendance = turnstiles clacked

And why wouldn't they - it makes no odds to anyone if the attendance is reported as the number of tickets sold. It's actually a far  more reliable and consistent way of calculating the attendance than wasting time trying to reconcile data from an unreliable turnstile system. Hundreds of people don't even go through the turnstiles for one reason or another

Hmm - maybe not, in as much as I'm sure they don't check every club, every game, but if they are looking into a club's financial affairs and see that they are consistently reporting ticket sales that don't match the reported attendances then that could be a red flag for money laundering?

I really don’t think HMRC have the time or resources to compare actual v declared football match attendances especially in the Championship, league 1 or below. Even in the Premier League they’d need to know the price paid for each ticket in order to undertake any kind of reconciliation between declared attendances and income from ticket sales. I reckon the only time it would get anywhere near raising a red flag of sufficient importance to initiate an investigation is if the reported income is significantly higher than HMRC would expect for a club of that size.

I agree, actual ticket sales must be a far easier than turnstyle clicks (although it must be easier now clubs have electronic ticketing) and, as you say, who is really interested in how many actual bums on seats there are? but I doubt HMRC are.

[Mucker1884]

8 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Hundreds of people don't even go through the turnstiles for one reason or another

 

Really?  Hundreds?

I've seen with my own eyes wheelchair users being ushered through the big doors, with the steward then kindly swiping their card/ticket for them, via the scanner on the wall just inside said big door (The exits at full time).

And I once won a vip doodah up in the top-nob box, entering by the main entrance, but still had to show our tickets.  I assume nowadays they'd have a ticket scanner in the foyer?  And maybe a concierge to do the honours?  

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