Villa Park Redevelopment

[Ads]

There's a waiting list apparently. I've been in the middle bit of the Trinity a couple of times for functions going back a few years and there's not that many boxes for companies. Same in the North.

[Villan82]

I am just a lay man, I am no expert on FFP, costs, branding etc. But I am just sick of Heck's bullshit which is some doing considering he isn't here long

[Risso]

That only works if we can sell an additional 3000 GA+/Premium seats... It's been said several times that take-up in the TV and LG has been poor - so that has probably spooked them.

There's a huge waiting list for proper hospitality in the Trinity, where it's about the best in the Premier League. If the Terrace View is struggling, it's because it's a crappy half-arsed botched effort, in a stand that shouldn't have it. My mate's got a GA+ thing at Arsenal, and it's very good. Nice seats, and a really decent area for before the match and half time etc. You feel like you're getting a lot more than the standard seats. The TV and LG are just short term poor efforts to try to bring a few more quid in. It's symptomatic of the short term thinking thus far from Heck. A new North if done properly would have all of this planned out in advance.

[Risso]

How many businesses in Birmingham have season tickets / corporate hospitality at Villa?

London is nuts, there are so many businesses that buy them that I wonder if that is simply unrealistic for us to try and achieve their numbers?

Boxes are a bit old hat now. I've had a four seat table in one one of the restaurant areas for years now, and I wouldn't swap it for a box. There's a real buzz, with former players walking around, and you get to know the people on the tables around you so it's a lot more social than being behind a closed door. And obviously you can get a lot more people in a set area, than you can if it's a box. Honestly, we'd sell it out several times over, they could make the whole North corporate and it would sell, they really do it very well.

[London Villan]

It's more the volume of the GA+ rather than traditional hospitality that I think we'll struggle to sell (at the moment). There will be price brackets from £150 per match up to £1000 per person per match - We may not have the demand today to sell 5000+ premium seats.

Look at man city - look at what they offer, its mind-blowing for a team that 15 years ago were a mid table PL team https://www.mancity.com/hospitality/mens - must be 15000 premium seats - that didn't happen overnight though.

[LeeS]

Comparisons with Stratford are silly. Aside from the "London effect", which is huge, they also have very good transport links. Two tube lines, a mainline station and a high speed rail connection. They have Westfield, which is absolutely humungous. And they have the Queen Elizabeth Park (formerly the Olympic Park). With that comes the stadium, the cycling centre, The Aquatics Centre, The Copperbox and the Hockey and Tennis Centre, plus the giant helter skelter thing and a very attractive and large urban park. There are also swathes and swathes of new high rise apartments. It is basically a brand new (and very large) town.

A new stadium in Aston wont bring any of those things. Not in five years, not ever.

[Ads]

Stratford has an annoying human traffic light system which irritates the life out of me. Feck off and let me meander back to the station.

[aev]

How many businesses in Birmingham have season tickets / corporate hospitality at Villa?

London is nuts, there are so many businesses that buy them that I wonder if that is simply unrealistic for us to try and achieve their numbers?

Boxes are a bit old hat now. I've had a four seat table in one one of the restaurant areas for years now, and I wouldn't swap it for a box. There's a real buzz, with former players walking around, and you get to know the people on the tables around you so it's a lot more social than being behind a closed door. And obviously you can get a lot more people in a set area, than you can if it's a box. Honestly, we'd sell it out several times over, they could make the whole North corporate and it would sell, they really do it very well.

Which makes it all the more baffling to put it all on hold despite the Comcast tie in, unless a new stadium is the aim.

[Ads]

I wonder if you could get a middle tier in the North for corporate by getting rid of the boxes? That's probably the only place you could add a few hundred seats.

[London Villan]

Rip out the boxes and you could probably have 10ish additional rows - not sure if you'd be able to fit many more in with the sight lines? 1000 seats at a push.

The hospitality for these could be in semi-permanent marquees in the car park?

[LeeS]

Part of the issue is that since Heck made his announcement we've had (*doesnt bother counting) hundreds of posts on this thread analysing it and going round in circles and getting all worked up.

In the days pre-internet (or if we had better things to do), we'd have had the announcement, grumbled a bit in the pub that week, forgotten about it and then a couple of months later had a follow up announcement settling the issue. Its nice to speculate on what might happen but all the angst comes from constantly talking about it, not from the clubs actions.

Right, so has anyone got any more fancy mock ups of brick built football cathedrals we can drool over?

[Risso]

I wonder if you could get a middle tier in the North for corporate by getting rid of the boxes? That's probably the only place you could add a few hundred seats.

Anything they do there would be an improvement, those boxes are an embarrassment, behind glass that doesn't open, it's like watching the game on TV. But to repeat myself for the umpteenth time, just knock the fucking thing down and get it rebuilt, then do the Witton. We can't afford to be stuck in a 42K seater stadium for the next ten years.

[pauliewalnuts]

Rip out the boxes and you could probably have 10ish additional rows - not sure if you'd be able to fit many more in with the sight lines? 1000 seats at a push.

The hospitality for these could be in semi-permanent marquees in the car park?

Even if it were physically possible to replace executive boxes with 10 rows of seats - and the infrastructure needed to create access to and from these rows of seats - imagine the expense, and then think about the lost box revenue (which you'll never recover from tents in a car park).

[LeeS]

I wonder how long until someone decides to use the space directly above the pitch. You build a glass viewing platform that covers the entire space from stand to stand in all directions, 100feet up in the air. You then allocate standing spaces with spectators watching from above (by looking down past their own shoes). The perspective would be mind blowing. I reckon you could fit another 5,000 in that way. It would also serve as a roof so keeping all the noise from the main crowd in the stadium.

[Sexual Ealing]

I wonder how long until someone decides to use the space directly above the pitch. You build a glass viewing platform that covers the entire space from stand to stand in all directions, 100feet up in the air. You then allocate standing spaces with spectators watching from above (by looking down past their own shoes). The perspective would be mind blowing. I reckon you could fit another 5,000 in that way. It would also serve as a roof so keeping all the noise from the main crowd in the stadium.

That is an obviously batshit idea. I approve of it in the strongest terms.