Attendances

[Ossydave]

True but that applies to most grounds, pint of Singha at City was probably my last decent pint in a ground ?

[old darwen blue]

Having once been involved in running licensed premises I think the problem at Rovers is that they don’t clean the pipes properly and leave a bit of cleaner in which gets in the first few pints pulled. 

[AllRoverAsia]

5 hours ago, Ossydave said:

True but that applies to most grounds, pint of Singha at City was probably my last decent pint in a ground ?

You can't do much wrong to something that started as pis.

Allegedly formaldehyde levels reduced for UK market. 

[JHRover]

Despite the official attendance today there were around 30 or more empty seats in the immediate area of 5 rows either side of me. Vast majority have been occupied in most 3pm games this season. Then folk reckon needless early kick offs don't affect numbers attending. Rubbish.

[Mattyblue]

14,000 home tickets sold, most we’ve had this season.

Plus, a full Darwen End, so Waggott will see it as a job well done.

[JHRover]

33 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

14,000 home tickets sold, most we’ve had this season.

Plus, a full Darwen End, so Waggott will see it as a job well done.

More home fans than the plastic people at Preston managed for a 3pm game at their place earlier this season. Interesting.

[tomphil]

The official stats say a couple of thousand more home fans which is really the least you'd expect for a game so close. The unofficial stats will probably show a lot of ST holders didn't show because of the kick off time and another couple of thousand home fans followed it elsewhere when they'd have otherwise been there.

The smug suits will see it as a raging success though but they'll probably want it kicking off at 11 am next season after getting the police bill.

[HowieFive0]

 

Love this ..

[Sparks Rover]

On 09/03/2019 at 01:03, old darwen blue said:

Having once been involved in running licensed premises I think the problem at Rovers is that they don’t clean the pipes properly and leave a bit of cleaner in which gets in the first few pints pulled. 

Are you Pafell in disguise?

[Stuart]

4 minutes ago, HowieFive0 said:

 

Love this ..

What are Bradford doing that we aren’t?

This one gets it...

[HowieFive0]

Just now, Stuart said:

What are Bradford doing that we aren’t?

This one gets it...

Exactly and on my tweet tagging @rovers I simply put a …?

Ways n means ..

[SBlue]

Heartwarming that. 

We aren’t alone in neglecting a large part of the local population. Seems these women may have took the initiative. 

Bloody good luck to them.

[old darwen blue]

3 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

Are you Pafell in disguise?

Sorry no, wonder what happened to him?

3 hours ago, Stuart said:

What are Bradford doing that we aren’t?

This one gets it...

Thanks for posting that video Stuart, absolutely brilliant. 

 

Oh and samosas and pakora for half time, mmmmmmmm!

[Mattyblue]

Are we neglecting them? I think the club does try to engage and must as the demographics of the town are only going one way. The club certainly doesn’t do enough to engage with the support outside the borough, but that’s another issue.

However, an issue is that football (Man Utd, Liverpool etc) is massive within the Blackburn Asian population, however most Asian lads I’ve talked to look at you if you have two heads if you ask them if they are a Rovers fan. As always, it’s about kids, get them involved young, 18,000 empty seats so fill them with as many schools as possible.

Lets hope Stoke sees the start of that...

[Stuart]

4 hours ago, old darwen blue said:

Sorry no, wonder what happened to him?

Thanks for posting that video Stuart, absolutely brilliant. 

 

Oh and samosas and pakora for half time, mmmmmmmm!

I didn’t post it mate. Thanks go to @HowieFive0.

[Stuart]

24 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Are we neglecting them? I think the club does try to engage and must as the demographics of the town are only going one way. The club certainly doesn’t do enough to engage with the support outside the borough, but that’s another issue.

However, an issue is that football (Man Utd, Liverpool etc) is massive within the Blackburn Asian population, however most Asian lads I’ve talked to look at you if you have two heads if you ask them if they are a Rovers fan. As always, it’s about kids, get them involved young, 18,000 empty seats so fill them with as many schools as possible.

Lets hope Stoke sees the start of that...

They should be looking at both. But to grow the fanbase with newbies, you need to offer incentives. Instead, the current strategy is about attempting to increase the ‘value’ of the product by making it cost more.

We need someone with more vision and imagination than Waggott in charge of increasing revenue.

[K-Hod]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

Are we neglecting them? I think the club does try to engage and must as the demographics of the town are only going one way. The club certainly doesn’t do enough to engage with the support outside the borough, but that’s another issue.

However, an issue is that football (Man Utd, Liverpool etc) is massive within the Blackburn Asian population, however most Asian lads I’ve talked to look at you if you have two heads if you ask them if they are a Rovers fan. As always, it’s about kids, get them involved young, 18,000 empty seats so fill them with as many schools as possible.

Lets hope Stoke sees the start of that...

Must admit, I'm seeing more and more Asian folk at and coming away from the ground.

(Obvs not in Ewood WMC pre-match, but if they wanted to get on the ale trail, it's a cheap place to start!)

[Mattyblue]

Oh I am, but still very small numbers in comparison to the make up of the town. 

[MCMC1875]

6 hours ago, old darwen blue said:

Sorry no, wonder what happened to him?

Cirrhosis?

[Don Said]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Get them involved young, 18,000 empty seats so fill them with as many schools as possible.

 

Too right. I feel we miss a trick with this and quite a few other things.

Is the club trying to attract more people to Ewood? Yes.

Does the club understand how best to attract more people to Ewood? No.

[MCMC1875]

5 minutes ago, Don Said said:

Too right. I feel we miss a trick with this and quite a few other things.

Is the club trying to attract more people to Ewood? Yes.

Does the club understand how best to attract more people to Ewood? No.

No. Steve Waggott on attendances before Christmas, "As a club, we've done everything we can". 89 pages on this thread says they haven't.

Edited March 15, 2019 by MCMC1875

[JHRover]

Still no season ticket news nor any suggestion there will be anytime soon. Meanwhile down at Forest folk are queuing outside their ticket office this morning to get their renewals in. Norwich have shifted more than 20,000. Numerous others have got them on sale, many 'without knowing what league they will be in'.

Meanwhile nothing from Ewood and I'd be surprised if there was anything before May. Then Waggott and co. have the brass neck to complain about the number of people buying.

[Don Said]

24 minutes ago, MCMC1875 said:

No. Steve Waggott on attendances before Christmas, "As a club, we've done everything we can". 89 pages on this thread says they haven't.

Recent and not quite as recent changes such as contactless payment, print at home tickets, the sensory room along with the other family stand improvements, fosters fanzone etc show that there is some sort of effort to improve attendances, however they are relatively minor and superficial and don't do much other than slightly improve the matchday experience for the modern football fan (theoretically could boost attendances.. slightly).

So I think we are trying on a very low scale, going back to my point on how we are trying but we really don't know how to actually do it - we certainly aren't doing anything 'proper' to bring future fans in/fans back.

The club needs to learn that minor change will not really change anything, and will only produce minor change at best. Things only change noticeably when a piece of work is done that actually shifts and changes the status quo. I genuinely don't think Waggot understands that - there are no quick wins to be had when it comes to Ewood Park attendances.

Hadn't seen that statement, if he did say that that's astounding and is just another example of how out of touch he is with the club and the community.

[JHRover]

32 minutes ago, Don Said said:

Recent and not quite as recent changes such as contactless payment, print at home tickets, the sensory room along with the other family stand improvements, fosters fanzone etc show that there is some sort of effort to improve attendances, however they are relatively minor and superficial and don't do much other than slightly improve the matchday experience for the modern football fan (theoretically could boost attendances.. slightly).

So I think we are trying on a very low scale, going back to my point on how we are trying but we really don't know how to actually do it - we certainly aren't doing anything 'proper' to bring future fans in/fans back.

The club needs to learn that minor change will not really change anything, and will only produce minor change at best. Things only change noticeably when a piece of work is done that actually shifts and changes the status quo. I genuinely don't think Waggot understands that - there are no quick wins to be had when it comes to Ewood Park attendances.

Hadn't seen that statement, if he did say that that's astounding and is just another example of how out of touch he is with the club and the community.

The sensory room has been there for years. Not sure if it has recently been improved or not. The Fosters Fanzone was done during the Myers days. Contactless payment is something that has been in place at rival clubs for years, we're only just getting round to it. Fylde had it before us. As you say, relatively minor things.

What we need to do is reach out over the long run to different groups in society. There's more to it than sending players into primary schools or running a few promotions on tickets. It's a multi-year gradual build where you have to engrain loyalty to the club and habits into the minds of people who either haven't done it before or haven't done it for a long time.

Waggott's comments that the club 'had done all they could' were alarming, particularly given he has only been here for just over 12 months. If he genuinely feels he's done all he can and exhausted all possibilities in the space of 12 months then that is concerning. The fact that he's now re-opening the Blackburn Upper tier for free tickets suggests the opposite - that there are other options available in an attempt to boost crowds and grow a fanbase.

I've done it to death before but I've seen no evidence whatsoever that the club has made any serious attempts to entice fans to the club from outside BWDBC boundaries. Hyndburn, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble - nothing. No promotions, no travel, no posters, no school visits. Very foolish in my opinion given the large and I expect increasing percentage of our fanbase that live in these areas and have moved out of Blackburn.

PNE ran coaches to Ewood last week from Leyland. I'd love Waggott to tell me why Rovers don't operate coaches to Ewood from these areas which are every bit as much Blackburn as they are Preston.

[Don Said]

7 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I've done it to death before but I've seen no evidence whatsoever that the club has made any serious attempts to entice fans to the club from outside BWDBC boundaries. Hyndburn, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble - nothing. No promotions, no travel, no posters, no school visits. Very foolish in my opinion given the large and I expect increasing percentage of our fanbase that live in these areas and have moved out of Blackburn.

PNE ran coaches to Ewood last week from Leyland. I'd love Waggott to tell me why Rovers don't operate coaches to Ewood from these areas which are every bit as much Blackburn as they are Preston.

Bang on, a little geographical and competitive know-how needs to be taken on board.

To the north and east of the town there's no relevant clubs for miles. To the south and west of the town there are clubs of a similar size competing for supporters. All of the areas here contain thousands of non die hard football fans, what an opportunity.

This is simple, easy stuff. A little creativity in some areas, a little bit of simple work done by other clubs in others.

If we can't tap in to that, and can't tap in to the community within and immediately surrounding Blackburn, it's no wonder we get smaller crowds than Bolton.