|
Post by polarbearpete on May 20, 2022 9:02:29 GMT -5
Before the general on-sale today, Meltzer said they sold 30,000 tickets. So that's a bit under half the seats then, if accurate. Not... too bad? I guess? For pre-sale? But having read Twitter occasionally over these past few days it seems like a lot of people who might've paid for the £35, £65, £120(ish) tickets were put off by Ticketmaster showing them £200+ tickets, they might not be inclined to check again. Yeah, I assume they’ll trickle down the prices, offer 2 for 1s, etc. as the days and weeks go on. That seems to be their pricing strategy lately. Instant sellout usually means you left money on the table with your pricing and the secondary market reaps the rewards.
|
|
Kalmia
King Koopa
Happy to be here
Posts: 12,555
|
Post by Kalmia on May 20, 2022 9:03:15 GMT -5
man, i must say I am so incredibly disappointed at how they have priced this. Its absolutely insanse. I was thinking that £250 might get you a decent floor seat and that you would get upper tier seats for around £15 - we got raw after wrestlemania tickets for 10 dollars (granted it was a loooong time ago) but still. How can anyone in this economical climate justify 2 grand for floor seats at what will be a C tier ppv? Its absolutely mad. I was super excited to go to this, haven't been to a live show since the UK championship tourney in blackpool - but yeah cheapest ticket i can see now is for 168 bills, at the back of the bloody millenium stadium - where the view for the rugby or football would be grand but for this, why would you pay that money to just have to watch it on the screens anyway? I really hope this ends up being half empty. dick move by the e. Looks like it's going to be fairly well packed out at this point, now we're at the general sales, there's not a massive amount of choice left on the seat maps as far as I can see. I'm happy with my £40 ticket, because it was "cheap" (compared to all the others), but I really don't think many price tiers above the one I got in at are reasonable. As I said in an earlier comment, even the ticket I have isn't very good for the price I paid, and that's the dirt cheapest ticket they had, right up in the arse end of the roof seats, but at least I could tolerate paying that price to be there, even if I should probably be getting a better seat for the same money. My excuse is it's an excuse to get out of the house, experience a huge event for the sake of being there, and perhaps have a social drink or two with fans hanging around the area. £40 isn't a massive price to pay to convince myself I should go there and do that, after the past two years of not doing any of that. But if the only accessible prices are the limited number of "cheap seats", that surely means that all of the rest of the overinflated prices are doubled or tripled to a level that most people can't afford, or certainly can't comfortably afford, leading to stress (especially in families) and having to deal with debt. That really sucks. It's fine having premium seats for people who can and will pay, it's fine having a select few special areas for the people who can pay for the very best, but the rest of the venue should be varying levels of accessible to normal everyday fans - you can't pack out a stadium with people who can afford thousands of pounds (without even considering accommodation or travel), especially in Wales of all places. I don't think it's reasonable, especially in the current financial climate, to force people to make those choices when those tickets could've been - and should've been - cheaper. I think it's a little hard to tell how the tickets are going because different sites seem to have different allocations. The tickets available directly from the Principality Stadium are in sections not available on Ticketmaster (and vice versa). I don't know if there are other authorised sellers out there. You're right about the pricing scale. I'm sure that by the time the show happens it will have sold out (or near enough) but the fact it hasn't sold out immediately, considering the demand and pre-registrations, is absolutely a statement on the insane pricing. You have to expect to drop £1000+ for ringside, but £200+ to sit in the top tier is nuts. Especially with the current financial climate.
|
|
ssdrivin
ALF
Claims to be squishy, has yet to be proven.
Posts: 1,042
|
Post by ssdrivin on May 20, 2022 9:46:20 GMT -5
If that's accurate then I was clearly quite wrong in my previous assessment of the seat maps.
|
|
|
Post by Feargus McReddit on May 20, 2022 9:57:24 GMT -5
Looks like it's going to be fairly well packed out at this point, now we're at the general sales, there's not a massive amount of choice left on the seat maps as far as I can see. I'm happy with my £40 ticket, because it was "cheap" (compared to all the others), but I really don't think many price tiers above the one I got in at are reasonable. As I said in an earlier comment, even the ticket I have isn't very good for the price I paid, and that's the dirt cheapest ticket they had, right up in the arse end of the roof seats, but at least I could tolerate paying that price to be there, even if I should probably be getting a better seat for the same money. My excuse is it's an excuse to get out of the house, experience a huge event for the sake of being there, and perhaps have a social drink or two with fans hanging around the area. £40 isn't a massive price to pay to convince myself I should go there and do that, after the past two years of not doing any of that. But if the only accessible prices are the limited number of "cheap seats", that surely means that all of the rest of the overinflated prices are doubled or tripled to a level that most people can't afford, or certainly can't comfortably afford, leading to stress (especially in families) and having to deal with debt. That really sucks. It's fine having premium seats for people who can and will pay, it's fine having a select few special areas for the people who can pay for the very best, but the rest of the venue should be varying levels of accessible to normal everyday fans - you can't pack out a stadium with people who can afford thousands of pounds (without even considering accommodation or travel), especially in Wales of all places. I don't think it's reasonable, especially in the current financial climate, to force people to make those choices when those tickets could've been - and should've been - cheaper. I think it's a little hard to tell how the tickets are going because different sites seem to have different allocations. The tickets available directly from the Principality Stadium are in sections not available on Ticketmaster (and vice versa). I don't know if there are other authorised sellers out there. You're right about the pricing scale. I'm sure that by the time the show happens it will have sold out (or near enough) but the fact it hasn't sold out immediately, considering the demand and pre-registrations, is absolutely a statement on the insane pricing. You have to expect to drop £1000+ for ringside, but £200+ to sit in the top tier is nuts. Especially with the current financial climate. I think that’s just it; it’ll likely be successful and sell at least 75% but you can’t help but think if the prices were scaled a bit differently, we’d be talking about different things. A lot of stuff are not things WWE can control and maybe the agreements were too far in place to account for stuff but it feels like a real missed opportunity and having a thing talked about is cost isn’t great regardless on how well it does.
|
|
4real
Wade Wilson
Posts: 28,744
|
Post by 4real on May 20, 2022 13:08:14 GMT -5
Got my ticket. £67 is steep but how many times do you get to see a WWE stadium show in the U.K?
|
|
|
Post by Cvslfc123 on May 21, 2022 3:57:17 GMT -5
No sympathy for WWE if it doesn't sell out, they've had years to do something like this and even just 5 years ago it would have sold out in hours.
|
|
Mecca
Wade Wilson
Posts: 25,185
|
Post by Mecca on May 21, 2022 8:18:17 GMT -5
Apparently the WWE decided they wanted to make back the 2 years of missed UK revenue with 1 show, looking at some of those prices, way to piss people off...
|
|
Mecca
Wade Wilson
Posts: 25,185
|
Post by Mecca on May 21, 2022 8:20:49 GMT -5
From whatculture regarding Clash in the Castle
Ticket sales have failed to meet projections. 30,000 tickets have been sold at time of writing, despite WWE hyping up that 85,000 tickets had been signed up for to investors.
Historically low product interest in the UK, or the effects of the ongoing cost of living crisis?
|
|
|
Post by Famous Rocking Chimes on May 21, 2022 8:27:34 GMT -5
WWE got greedy with their ticket prices. Personally I was hoping to go as I always said if WWE did do a stadium show in the UK I would go, but the prices are ridiculous especially as we’re currently in a cost of living crisis
I’m sorry but I cannot justify paying the money they’re asking me to over stuff like petrol, rent, food etc.
|
|
|
Post by Feargus McReddit on May 21, 2022 8:37:18 GMT -5
Historically low product interest in the UK, or the effects of the ongoing cost of living crisis? I feel like a lot of factors go towards your first point (WWE raiding the scene, SpeakingOut and the aftermath etc) but I also don’t think it can be stated enough how much the living crisis has wrecked things and, without getting too political, how little the government is doing to help solve it right now. That’s not to say it’d be a massive success if that wasn’t a factor but it would be certainly above 30k by now if it wasn’t.
|
|
ssdrivin
ALF
Claims to be squishy, has yet to be proven.
Posts: 1,042
|
Post by ssdrivin on May 21, 2022 8:45:55 GMT -5
Oof. I was definitely being overly optimistic when looking at those seating plans and which seats were still available.
30,000 tickets? You really have to screw up to sell less than half the capacity of a blockbuster show like that, after a 30 year absence, after initial demand indicated a 100% sellout.
Even if they reduce the prices going forward, they've already poisoned the well, there's countless people on Twitter who got presented with multiple hundreds of pounds as the entry price who just shrugged and said "well, I guess that's me out", and I'm sure many of them now don't care to keep up with the news of further developments (or simply aren't engaged enough to hear the news if such a thing does happen).
The prices should've been half what they were, they should've been consistent, not presented in a confusing and opaque way (you had to manually tweak settings to get a price you were comfortable with and the person getting the seat in front of you might've paid half or twice what you've been offered), and although I don't know for sure if/how much it was used, any dynamic pricing on Ticketmaster's part was definitely a bad move.
As has been said here and elsewhere, stuff's expensive right now. Rent, taxes, energy, fuel, food. Obviously these are far more important than a 3 hour wrestling show. People obviously have to travel too, not everybody lives in or near Wales. The hotel prices are ludicrous, if you can even still find a room to book at this point.
I initially hoped that the package prices would let me sort everything out in one shot, so I'd get the hotel without having to mess about piecing together my own set of bookings for things, I expected them to be expensive because they're premium/convenience packages with perks, but there's no way on earth I (or many other potential buyers) could've afforded the many thousands of pounds they wanted for those packages, and even the perks were crap for the price. The £700 base package, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, didn't even come with any kind of accommodation, or travel, or really anything worth even half the price. I think the lowest package with a hotel - and not even one of the better hotels - was £2500 or something silly, and those packages required you to buy two of them to cover the double/twin room, so that instantly doubles the cost whether you wanted to go alone or not (and good luck finding a buddy who's got another couple of grand to shell out to join you).
People predicted that this would be a dumpster fire when there were no clues about prices beforehand, and because Ticketmaster were involved, and again when the pre-registration emails didn't go out to everyone on time (I think mine arrived a day or two late), and then again when the prices were revealed for the packages, and then... well, you get the picture. Anybody with half a clue should've seen this coming. WWE surely have people who are paid to worry about this stuff when planning events, no? How can you run an event like that and not be aware of local market conditions? How can you be so oblivious to the warning signs that savvy fans could see from a mile away? I don't want to fall back to generic insults like "typical WWE", but... really?
|
|
|
Post by polarbearpete on May 21, 2022 10:15:04 GMT -5
Oof. I was definitely being overly optimistic when looking at those seating plans and which seats were still available. 30,000 tickets? You really have to screw up to sell less than half the capacity of a blockbuster show like that, after a 30 year absence, after initial demand indicated a 100% sellout. Even if they reduce the prices going forward, they've already poisoned the well, there's countless people on Twitter who got presented with multiple hundreds of pounds as the entry price who just shrugged and said "well, I guess that's me out", and I'm sure many of them now don't care to keep up with the news of further developments (or simply aren't engaged enough to hear the news if such a thing does happen). The prices should've been half what they were, they should've been consistent, not presented in a confusing and opaque way (you had to manually tweak settings to get a price you were comfortable with and the person getting the seat in front of you might've paid half or twice what you've been offered), and although I don't know for sure if/how much it was used, any dynamic pricing on Ticketmaster's part was definitely a bad move. As has been said here and elsewhere, stuff's expensive right now. Rent, taxes, energy, fuel, food. Obviously these are far more important than a 3 hour wrestling show. People obviously have to travel too, not everybody lives in or near Wales. The hotel prices are ludicrous, if you can even still find a room to book at this point. I initially hoped that the package prices would let me sort everything out in one shot, so I'd get the hotel without having to mess about piecing together my own set of bookings for things, I expected them to be expensive because they're premium/convenience packages with perks, but there's no way on earth I (or many other potential buyers) could've afforded the many thousands of pounds they wanted for those packages, and even the perks were crap for the price. The £700 base package, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, didn't even come with any kind of accommodation, or travel, or really anything worth even half the price. I think the lowest package with a hotel - and not even one of the better hotels - was £2500 or something silly, and those packages required you to buy two of them to cover the double/twin room, so that instantly doubles the cost whether you wanted to go alone or not (and good luck finding a buddy who's got another couple of grand to shell out to join you). People predicted that this would be a dumpster fire when there were no clues about prices beforehand, and because Ticketmaster were involved, and again when the pre-registration emails didn't go out to everyone on time (I think mine arrived a day or two late), and then again when the prices were revealed for the packages, and then... well, you get the picture. Anybody with half a clue should've seen this coming. WWE surely have people who are paid to worry about this stuff when planning events, no? How can you run an event like that and not be aware of local market conditions? How can you be so oblivious to the warning signs that savvy fans could see from a mile away? I don't want to fall back to generic insults like "typical WWE", but... really? Their pricing strategy is likely to get it as high as possible to make as much as money as possible by the time of the show. If they had an instant sell out I’m sure they’d think that they left money on the table. As the show gets closer they’ll likely lower prices and end up with 50K plus people in the building, if not a papered sell out.
|
|
ssdrivin
ALF
Claims to be squishy, has yet to be proven.
Posts: 1,042
|
Post by ssdrivin on May 21, 2022 10:47:46 GMT -5
Their pricing strategy is likely to get it as high as possible to make as much as money as possible by the time of the show. If they had an instant sell out I’m sure they’d think that they left money on the table. As the show gets closer they’ll likely lower prices and end up with 50K plus people in the building, if not a papered sell out. That does make sense, but I can only imagine the heat radiating from the people who already paid all the pounds for their seats when people in a month or two can pick up a ticket for way less money. I know it's not totally unusual to reduce ticket prices to fill up a venue that isn't selling out, just to squeeze whatever money you can from those who will pay you at least some money to fill a seat instead of the nothing you get if the seat stays empty, but I don't think WWE's bonfire of goodwill is going to let people see it that way when they already feel they paid more than they wanted to (or even more than they could comfortably afford). I mean, imagine you just had to destroy your budget for weeks or months to come because you wanted to take your kid/family/whatever to the show, it's cost you a couple of grand for somewhat decent tickets for each of your family members, plus accommodation, plus travel, plus merch, plus eating out, and so on, and then you hear in a month's time that somebody got the same tickets for half the price, which would've saved you a bunch of hardship because you wouldn't have had to stretch the budget so hard. It's not going to make you feel real good that you, being the good parent and fan that you are, will be suffering financially for doing that when WWE drops the prices for everyone else. Many people already feel it's an overpriced fan-juicing screwjob, but have begrudgingly put their money down for a variety of reasons, it's going to be a kick in the nuts if/when WWE tries to fill up all the empties with people who weren't so dedicated to showing up for less money. Essentially what I'm trying to say, without wanting to sound like people who didn't buy "aren't true fans", is that the way this is playing out is (or at least appears to be) kinda predatory towards hardcore fans. They showed up when the tickets were available, they said "why, yes, Vince, I'd love to support you bringing your product to my home country!", and then got absolutely rinsed for being there to pay the price.
|
|
Nosnorb
El Dandy
Nachos and Fraggle Rock are TIMELESS.
Posts: 8,379
|
Post by Nosnorb on May 21, 2022 11:29:03 GMT -5
From whatculture regarding Clash in the Castle Ticket sales have failed to meet projections. 30,000 tickets have been sold at time of writing, despite WWE hyping up that 85,000 tickets had been signed up for to investors. Historically low product interest in the UK, or the effects of the ongoing cost of living crisis? A little from column A (Drew McIntyre is the first bonafide WWE main eventer the UK has produced, but he hasn't exactly looked like it this year) and a lot from column B.
|
|
Bo Rida
Fry's dog Seymour
Pulled one over on everyone. Got away with it, this time.
Posts: 24,184
|
Post by Bo Rida on May 22, 2022 4:34:39 GMT -5
From whatculture regarding Clash in the Castle Ticket sales have failed to meet projections. 30,000 tickets have been sold at time of writing, despite WWE hyping up that 85,000 tickets had been signed up for to investors. Historically low product interest in the UK, or the effects of the ongoing cost of living crisis? Both but mostly the cost of living crisis. If this was last year it would probably have sold out quickly. However while many literally can't afford it others are more in a position that they can't justify it, if the product was better and/or the tickets were cheaper they'd find a way. It's not even all WWE but the high cost of transport and accommodation that goes with it. For the majority of those with the money finally going on a decent holiday is a much better option.
|
|
|
Post by An Dog On An Skateboard on May 22, 2022 5:41:48 GMT -5
It's not even all WWE but the high cost of transport and accommodation that goes with it. For the majority of those with the money finally going on a decent holiday is a much better option. This was my thought. The £40 to sit in the nosebleeds is nothing to compared to what you would get gouged for to have a hotel room for the night, or the £100 it would cost to get a train there and back from London or Manchester or wherever. My mate’s brothers are going and I think we briefly contemplated tagging along before thinking about what it’s going to cost, and are we going to enjoy it enough to justify shelling out that much? Especially with the product being what it is.
|
|
|
Post by David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 on May 22, 2022 7:27:40 GMT -5
From whatculture regarding Clash in the Castle Ticket sales have failed to meet projections. 30,000 tickets have been sold at time of writing, despite WWE hyping up that 85,000 tickets had been signed up for to investors. Historically low product interest in the UK, or the effects of the ongoing cost of living crisis? On that last point, I reckon a bit of both. The cost of living has truly increased and is being felt here in Wales. Some folk are not able to spend £10 on a local show, never mind £50 plus travel.
|
|
|
Post by Raw is Doodie101 on May 22, 2022 7:36:35 GMT -5
It's mostly the cost of living issue. Pre-Registration made it clear that there was tons of interest. Once the prices came out, that shit dropped like a ton of bricks.
Not sure what made them price this way. Probably would have still sold out and made a nice profit if they charged half the price. To me it's stupid because WWE doesn't need the money from this gate like that to make money.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,769
|
Post by nisidhe on May 22, 2022 9:01:03 GMT -5
Where I am now, the local cards are doing well enough to book some really big names from the indies or former WWE talent. Even then, the inclination is to offer VIP packages that include meet-and-greets, which can double or even triple the ticket price for a show that the local rec centre or Lions den.
And I think that's part of the problem. Tickets here aren't handled by Ticketmaster so overinflation isn't that big a deal, but value-added "perks", especially if a promotion is banking on these as part of their projected income rather than the windfall they can be, tend to increase pricing for the "regular" experience in order to maximize revenue. WWE's prices here for floor seats seem tied to the VIP packages and those are priced at between $300-600 per seat. Seriously, that's money that's only really available to the kinds of people in this city who wouldn't be caught dead at a wrestling show, or to companies whose employees have unlimited expense accounts.
Given the poor value WWE's programming has been providing the last few years, it astonishes me that they wouldn't at least take a bath on this event as a promotional measure rather than attempt to make an actual profit, on an event they've not held like this since 1992. Then again, maybe it doesn't. It just seems disappointing that UK fans are having to make such a difficult choice under less than ideal circumstances. I'd rather see them shell out the 10-20 quid for a local show then throw themselves into a hole over this.
|
|
|
Post by lemonyellowson on May 22, 2022 12:59:47 GMT -5
man, i must say I am so incredibly disappointed at how they have priced this. Its absolutely insanse. I was thinking that £250 might get you a decent floor seat and that you would get upper tier seats for around £15 - we got raw after wrestlemania tickets for 10 dollars (granted it was a loooong time ago) but still. How can anyone in this economical climate justify 2 grand for floor seats at what will be a C tier ppv? Its absolutely mad. I was super excited to go to this, haven't been to a live show since the UK championship tourney in blackpool - but yeah cheapest ticket i can see now is for 168 bills, at the back of the bloody millenium stadium - where the view for the rugby or football would be grand but for this, why would you pay that money to just have to watch it on the screens anyway? I really hope this ends up being half empty. dick move by the e. Looks like it's going to be fairly well packed out at this point, now we're at the general sales, there's not a massive amount of choice left on the seat maps as far as I can see. I'm happy with my £40 ticket, because it was "cheap" (compared to all the others), but I really don't think many price tiers above the one I got in at are reasonable. As I said in an earlier comment, even the ticket I have isn't very good for the price I paid, and that's the dirt cheapest ticket they had, right up in the arse end of the roof seats, but at least I could tolerate paying that price to be there, even if I should probably be getting a better seat for the same money. My excuse is it's an excuse to get out of the house, experience a huge event for the sake of being there, and perhaps have a social drink or two with fans hanging around the area. £40 isn't a massive price to pay to convince myself I should go there and do that, after the past two years of not doing any of that. But if the only accessible prices are the limited number of "cheap seats", that surely means that all of the rest of the overinflated prices are doubled or tripled to a level that most people can't afford, or certainly can't comfortably afford, leading to stress (especially in families) and having to deal with debt. That really sucks. It's fine having premium seats for people who can and will pay, it's fine having a select few special areas for the people who can pay for the very best, but the rest of the venue should be varying levels of accessible to normal everyday fans - you can't pack out a stadium with people who can afford thousands of pounds (without even considering accommodation or travel), especially in Wales of all places. I don't think it's reasonable, especially in the current financial climate, to force people to make those choices when those tickets could've been - and should've been - cheaper. I get you, it might be different if I lived on the mainland or could drive to it and back in one night, but having to get a flight, hotel and tickets at a dumbass price for me and my wife (would only go alone if i didn't have to do all these other things to get there). But aye, £40 for a nosebleed seat is different for footy or rubgy becuase they use all the pitch but £40 for that seat is still mental. But hey, if my situation was different and say this was at Croke park in Dublin, I might take the hit on it just to be there.
|
|