The Holte Suite

[PeterWithesShin]

Someone posted this on Twitter of the Upper Holte, saying

Taken at 2.59pm and vacant all game.....

[Chris Smith]

Less than 41,000 there on Saturday.

I think a big chunk of that shortfall was Palace not selling out their allocation.

[john2710]

A lot depends on personal circumstances. If you're in a job where wages have kept pace with inflation, or your mortage is still on a lower rate or even better paid off, then I guess most of us will tolerate a certain level of increase above what's normal. But everyone will have their own breaking point. The club, as a business, won't worry about you whilst there's tens of thousands waiting to take your place & that would be the same whoever was running the club. I'm sure there's fans at every club in the country expressing the same feelings.

[astonvilla82]

Less than 41,000 there on Saturday.

I think a big chunk of that shortfall was Palace not selling out their allocation.

when I looked Friday night there was about 95 terrace view tickets and about 400 approximately around the ground

[Brazilian Villain]

I think the issue is there isn't the demand they're banking on. Precisely zero Terrace View tickets were sold for Crystal Palace on a game by game basis.

That's not true.

 91 Seats available in that area on 29th August

I didn't check on matchday but was still in the 90s based on what those have said here

I looked about 3 weeks before the Palace game and there were 120+ seats available in Terrace View. Then had a quick look every day or so and they were selling pretty steadily until there were fewer than 20 available about 10 days out. When I checked a couple of days later to see if they'd sold out, there were then 120-130 seats available. Clearly they'd released another 100-150 Terrace View seats for sale. I didn't really look after that but there were 70-80 or so available a couple of hours before the game. So, as I said, it's simply not true that they didn't sell any TV tickets for that particular game.

[Kevin Dawson]

One of the problems with closing the Holte Suite is the half time issue. There's 600 people who might potentially then gather in the Holte lower concourse area, which makes it even more packed...

[VillaTim]

Didn't realise you could use the holte suite at HT

[astonvilla82]

Didn't realise you could use the holte suite at HT

it opens about 15 minutes before the  first half ends, which sometimes may be later and then you have about a half hour to get your drink/ drinks down your neck and of course queuing up for food

[London Villan]

Less than 41,000 there on Saturday.

I think a big chunk of that shortfall was Palace not selling out their allocation.

Easily 300 empty seats in the Palace end - I can't imagine hospitality was an easy sell for the game too.

[Chris Harte]

I reckon there were 10 of us who met up in the OC on Saturday, had a few before the game, got an Uber to the ground, jumped into a “taxi” on Trinity Road after the game, back to town to the pub for several more. My bank statement showed that I spent over £50 - and I’m sure the others with me probably spent the same - and none of it was spent in Villa Park. And  that’s a typical home game for us.

Is that a thing that you and your friends do out of habit, Chico? If there was some facility available at the club post game could that tempt you to spend your money there instead of in town? As I'm typing this I'm sure the Holte Suite used to be open post game.

[Des Little]

We do exactly the same, and until recently we did stay behind in the Holte Suite for a couple while the traffic eased. The club at least need to consider opening it to all after the game, as it’s a big place that could be very under used if they close it out to people wanting to spend their money.

[FatSam]

I’m very confused by the club’s strategy on this - they will obviously have given it a lot of thought, so I’m sure I’m just being stupid. However, my understanding was that most match goers spend very little time at Villa Park itself, and getting them to spend more time (and money) there would be a good way to increase matchday revenue. Rather than trying to create more opportunities for match goers to spend time at the ground, they are making the facilities that do exist more exclusive. Spurs seem to have the biggest matchday revenue at the moment. Do match goers have to pay to enter bars to get a drink at the Tottenham stadium?

[Gareth]

The revenue increase is to get more hospitality and packages like Terrace View across the ground…the rest of us the investment to make the facilities better and the servers more competent clearly doesn’t appeal in terms of returns or it would have been done already or would have been a headline message about what is coming at the Fan Board.

We have very little importance whilst they are confident that a couple of thousand not renewing will be replaced from the list.

[pauliewalnuts]

I reckon there were 10 of us who met up in the OC on Saturday, had a few before the game, got an Uber to the ground, jumped into a “taxi” on Trinity Road after the game, back to town to the pub for several more. My bank statement showed that I spent over £50 - and I’m sure the others with me probably spent the same - and none of it was spent in Villa Park. And  that’s a typical home game for us.

Is that a thing that you and your friends do out of habit, Chico? If there was some facility available at the club post game could that tempt you to spend your money there instead of in town? As I'm typing this I'm sure the Holte Suite used to be open post game.

That’s exactly our routine.

Drinks and food jewellery quarter, Uber to ground half hour before kick off.

There’s nothing they could do to make me spend that money at the ground, because the food won’t be as good, the beer won’t be either, and most city centre pubs are much more pleasant places to be than the concourse or Holte Suite.

[Risso]

So apparently feedback from the recent supporters' consulation meeting is that they want to hugely increase the hospitality offering, including putting marquees up in car parks. They do that at Leeds which I've been to, and it's massively, massively shit. I went with my Leeds supporting mate last season, and we had some French lads on our table. To say they were disappointed with the quality of British sports facility catering would be a huge understatement. They didn't actually say "you dirty fucking rosbifs" but I could tell they were thinking it.