Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[Hookeysmith]

Just over 30000 in the ground according to a steward.

37,000 villa , clearly not full but a piss poor turnout by Brentford and they notified us that late we could not sell those seats above them as we have before

[Hookeysmith]

I didnt go last night either, went to see Book of Mormon.

Fantastic isnt it?

Going on 17th for the 4th time i have seen it

[Olneythelonely]

I think it's fair to say there isn't anywhere near as many people on the waiting list as has previously been claimed.  If there are, then most are just doing what many Brits do as a pastime, and join a queue for the sheer fun of it.

The attendance last night has nothing to do with people on a season ticket waiting list. Which has been explained. Over and over again.

I wasn't referring to last night was I?

What was you referring to?

[eamonn]

A 30k seems too rounded/lazy to be accurate. And looking at those photos of the Trinity and North, you can only see pockets of empty blue seats here and there. 36k peopleoids in the gaff sounds about right.

[exigo]

Felt like about 35k in the ground to me.
But, because Villa's policy is not to put all the resale tickets back on actual sale until the whole ground is a sell out, there were loads of empty seats (plenty around me in L3) that won't get deducted from the official 'attendance'. Tickets sold would be fairly high still, as people couldn't resell.

[Nelly]

Peopleoids - love it! The, ahem, river that I was had, you could see the available seats a lot more clearly than the two pictures provided, perhaps their angle hides it a little. The bright blue sticks right out, as always.

[AV82EC]

Before we all get hung up on how many people were actually there:

1) probably 1k STHs decided to give it a miss as it was an inconvenient time, crap weather and live on Amazon.
2) the clubs ridiculous no resale unless sold out is continually proving to be a real shoot yourself in the foot decision.
3) there were about 2.5-3k tickets unsold (I checked in the early afternoon)
4) as someone said Brentford returned the away upper tier too late for us to get it on sale in a meaningful way.

In view of that I’d reckon 36-37k were there.

I don’t think last night tells us anything about people on the ST waiting list either for the reasons Risso and others have adequately explained. And the ST waiting list is real, my son is on it and he’s moved about 500 places up it in two seasons.

I’m just really fucked off that knowing all of the above my Guess the Crowd estimate was probably miles away.

[Drummond]

I think it's fair to say there isn't anywhere near as many people on the waiting list as has previously been claimed.  If there are, then most are just doing what many Brits do as a pastime, and join a queue for the sheer fun of it.

I'm on the list, but I didn't go last night. Time of year, weather, cost, other stuff to do etc all reasons.

[Witton Warrior]

Why was KO 8:15? Stupid time

[Drummond]

Amazon stagger the games when they broadcast

[Percy McCarthy]

I don't think it was just the prices last night, a few season ticket holders might have give it a miss as well. A dad and his lad who usually sit next to us weren't there and a couple behind us were missing as well.

The fella that sits next to me (STH) was absent last night as well. Went to see The Nutcracker at The Hippodrome. Yes obviously I sit in Trinity Upper.

I’m worried that Stewart Lee is on in town the same night as the Celtic game. Yes obviously I’m woke as fuck.

I’d better check actually as my buying day is Monday.

Edit: no conflict - phew!

[dave.woodhall]

Ticket giveaway opportunity missed by the club?

Absolutely, local schools and families could have benefitted from them. Lots of local people struggling financially who could have really enjoyed last night and a big PR opportunity missed as a result.

I feel like this has been covered before too, though could be wrong. Isn’t there very minimal take up when we try this?

And a lot of moaning from people who'd bought them.

[walsall villain]

Ticket giveaway opportunity missed by the club?

Absolutely, local schools and families could have benefitted from them. Lots of local people struggling financially who could have really enjoyed last night and a big PR opportunity missed as a result.

I wonder how many of the empty seats were season ticket holders who didn’t go? Do we include those in the official attendance? I know Arsenal used to when they had that dodgy period.
There was a time when the home game a week or so before Xmas was always poorly attended, with the cost of CL games and life in general maybe those days will return?

[pauliewalnuts]

Ticket giveaway opportunity missed by the club?

Absolutely, local schools and families could have benefitted from them. Lots of local people struggling financially who could have really enjoyed last night and a big PR opportunity missed as a result.

I wonder how many of the empty seats were season ticket holders who didn’t go? Do we include those in the official attendance? I know Arsenal used to when they had that dodgy period.
There was a time when the home game a week or so before Xmas was always poorly attended, with the cost of CL games and life in general maybe those days will return?

OMG.

Yes, every club includes season ticket holders who don't turn up, all the time. There's no subterfuge involved. If you have sold the ticket, you don't care if the buyer doesn't turn up.

[pauliewalnuts]

I think it's fair to say there isn't anywhere near as many people on the waiting list as has previously been claimed.  If there are, then most are just doing what many Brits do as a pastime, and join a queue for the sheer fun of it.

I'm on the list, but I didn't go last night. Time of year, weather, cost, other stuff to do etc all reasons.

I wouldn't have gone last night had I been given free tickets. It'd be too much of a ball-ache rearranging work to make the time to get there. Plus it was dark and cold.