How to raise attendance at ISU events

FCSSp4 said:

Oh it's not that big an arena but do you think more people attended 4CC 2019?

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I honestly couldn’t say but I think the Honda centre definitely has a bigger capacity (Google: 18,000+) so it might have looked more empty but had about the same amount of people. However that would be a guess.

Bcash said:

I wouldn’t be surprised that it was mostly Japanese fans. Lots of directs flights from Japan to Helsinki and they are not that long.

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Isn’t it 9hrs? It took me 3hrs to fly from London which felt pretty long so 9hrs would have felt like an eternity.

andromache said:

Many seats were empty because of ticket price (Groupons did not come out very far in advance of the competition) and because it was in the US, where there are not many fans of the sport - and the fans we do have cannot all afford to travel to the West Coast.

I suspect the event would have been more well attended on the East Coast, Canada, or in Asia.

I am surprised at what a contentious debate is happening over audience size.

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As someone who bought tickets during presale the fact that they discounted and put it on Groupon made me pretty upset, particularly due to the high Ticketmaster fee I was forced to pay for the all event ticket, I don’t remember ever having to pay that much convenience fee for a figure skating event even when the tickets were from Ticketmaster for Skate Canada run events. It was definitely a deterrent when I was deciding whether or not to go when tickets first went on sale, and I’m sure it did deter many.

Here are some observations I had from my seat on the judges side.

1. There’s clearly a restricted view for seats next to and behind the judges due to the large black platform. Not sure if they even bothered to sell those seats.
2. I noticed for Thursday and Friday that the last 5 rows of the lower bowl on the judges side had stickers marking the seats as reserved. I think they took those stickers off on Saturday but the seats remained empty for most of the event any way so I’m not sure why they needed to block off so many seats. .
3. Attendance Thursday and Friday were pretty sparse up until ladies FS on Friday, which was in the evening. I think this helped for locals who had to go to work. I’m still puzzled why they chose to have ladies SP midday on a Thursday, it’s an awful time slot unless you can take time off.
4. They used a black drape to cover up the highest part of the upper bowl. I don’t think they bothered selling tickets for that section which arguably they would’ve had to price cheaper.
5. Saturday and Sunday seats opposite the judges were much more filled, gala seemed well attended, but there were still empty seats on the side the judges side. Since there was that black structure I couldn’t see if this was the case to the left of the judges as well.
6. Public transportation is fairly limited in this area, I’d say if you didn’t have a car this is not a friendly location for foreigners to get to and from the Honda Center. Even then parking was $20 each time you enter/exit the parking lot, so if you drove off inbetween events tough luck, you had to pay again.
7. For my section I think the spectators were largely made up of locals with some connection to figure skating, but I saw a good number of Japanese fans and some Korean fans as well. I actually expected to see more folks make the trip down from Canada, but maybe southern California isn’t as easy to get to as say, Boston, where Worlds 2016 was where I remember seeing a good number of Canadians. GPF in Vancouver was a smaller venue and full, and same side of the coast, but maybe it was easier to get to for Canadians. I think 4CC in Asia attendance is generally not high the past couple of times it was held in Taiwan, where the tickets were free. 2017 4CC in South Korea seemed to have decent attendance (and larger participation by athletes) but the high speed rail line to Gangneung hadn’t been completed at the time so the main way to get to the venue I think was with a lengthy bus ride, usually from Seoul, so maybe some fans in Asia decided not to make that trip since the location within South Korea also wasn’t the most convenient at the time.

Bcash said:

I wouldn’t be surprised that it was mostly Japanese fans. Lots of directs flights from Japan to Helsinki and they are not that long.

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I was there, and there more European fans (or at least European looking) overall. In the lower levels the ratio between European and Asian seemed 50/50. The upper parts were all European, I assume they were Finnish people who bought tickets late. When it comes to flights, Helsinki is fairly well connected with Europe, and in-Europe flights are not terribly expensive and sometimes dirt-cheap (mine was €55 round trip).

From what I saw on TV, the attendance was pretty ok on the weekend parts in Anaheim. The US still has quite a lot FS fans. For comparison, the this and last year's Europeans were well-attended but 2015 Europeans in Stockholm looked even even empitier than Anaheim.

What surprised me was that the empty seats were interspersed throught all sections., even the most attractive oness, which looked sold out on the website. The only explanation I can think of is that there was a number of people who bought the tickets but decided not to come.

From the start tickets were just too expensive and there wasn’t enough range in price. I was almost 100 percent certain they would end up on Groupon and tbh still thought it was a bit expensive. I think We ended up paying around 65 for the ladies free skate? But we got to avoid the absurd Ticketmaster fees. The only ones we bought from there were men’s free skating which had an extra 24 dollars in fees it was sad to see empty sections but not at all surprising considering the costs.

FCSSp4 said:

Yuzuru is 2-time OGM now, not the same as he was in 2017 although maybe he'd still be a big audience pull for being OGM around that time.

GP Helsinki sold 20,000 tickets...I think that's even more than Honda Center's seat capacity. There was news about it on Finnish papers.

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I'd say GP Helsinki was a bit of an anomaly given that they're a) a country that appreciates figure skating moreso than the US on the whole and b) it was the first (and possibly only) time a Grand Prix was held in Finland.

As far as selling 20,000 tickets -- great. But I'd be curious to know how many of them were skating fans (and not just skater fans), and actually showed up to watch the pairs or ice dance? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAdVZLlezxc#t=2m44s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7V5xCgcANk#t=4m11s) . Even ladies, with the reigning OGM, had empty seats in the stands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5zLJ3ylAWo#t=6m55s

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

As far as selling 20,000 tickets -- great. But how many of them were skating (and not just skater) fans, and actually showed up to watch the pairs or ice dance? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAdVZLlezxc#t=2m44s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7V5xCgcANk#t=4m11s) . Even ladies, with the reigning OGM, had empty seats in the stands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5zLJ3ylAWo#t=6m55s

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Do male skaters not skate?

narcissa said:

Do male skaters not skate?

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My point was that certain fans only showed up to watch the men's (or, in some cases, just Hanyu). It's totally their prerogative to watch whoever and however many skaters/disciplines they want to watch, but I consider those who watch all disciplines to be truer skating fans than those who show up to watch just a handful of skaters in one discipline (and some of them probably just one flight at that). Hence my distinction between skating fans and skater fans.

It's especially unfortunate if someone bought an all-events ticket just so they could watch one or two skaters/disciplines, which again, is their prerogative, but in the process denied someone who actually wanted to see all 4 disciplines a seat, resulting in emptier stands for those disciplines. :disapp:

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

but I consider those who watch all disciplines to be truer skating fans than those who show up to watch just a handful of skaters in one discipline

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What if someone just isn't interested in a discipline?

Doesn't have enough money for all the events (hotel night stay for instance)? Not true skating fans because they're frugal?

What a foolish debate.

narcissa said:

Do male skaters not skate?

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I think they mean how many came for just one person that they were a fan of and how many came for everyone and to enjoy the whole competition.

I went for Phillip Harris so guilty as charged in my case lol but next season I’ll go to France no matter who is there as every other GP location is to far away from me.

chopinskate said:

What if someone just isn't interested in a discipline?

Doesn't have enough money for all the events (hotel night stay for instance)? Not true skating fans because they're frugal?

What a foolish debate.

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I emphasise a little bit. It’s really sad to see the early flight have such empty seats and then see the last flight have packed out stands. That’s less of a thing at a GP (only two flights) but at Europeans you could definitely see an increase in the audience during the second to last flight during the ladies FS.

DSQ said:

I emphasise a little bit. It’s really sad to see the early flight have such empty seats and then see the last flight have packed out stands. That’s less of a thing at a GP (only two flights) but at Europeans you could definitely see an increase in the audience during the second to last flight during the ladies FS.

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<Did you mean "empathise"?> I get it, that's one part I don't like either. Getting in after the first few flights, and getting out after the fave's done. It's disrespectful in any spectator-based activity, and heck you're wasting your own money. But saying someone isn't a "true skating fan" because they don't see watch the disciplines is nonsense, as is criticising someone for turning up only if a fave at an event.

chopinskate said:

<Did you mean "empathise"?> I get it, that's one part I don't like either. Getting in after the first few flights, and getting out after the faves done. It's disrespectful in any spectator-based activity, and heck you're wasting your own money. But saying someone isn't a "true skating fan" because they don't see all the disciplines is nonsense, as is criticising someone for turning up only if a fave at an event.

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Yes I did mean empathise, sorry I’m sick today xD

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

My point was that certain fans only showed up to watch the men's (or, in some cases, just Hanyu). It's totally their prerogative to watch whoever and however many skaters/disciplines they want to watch, but I consider those who watch all disciplines to be truer skating fans than those who show up to watch just a handful of skaters in one discipline (and some of them probably just one flight at that). Hence my distinction between skating fans and skater fans.

It's especially unfortunate if someone bought an all-events ticket just so they could watch one or two skaters/disciplines, which again, is their prerogative, but in the process denied someone who actually wanted to see all 4 disciplines a seat, resulting in emptier stands for those disciplines. :disapp:

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Oh. I consider anyone who's interested in skating of any form to be a skating fan. Doesn't matter if it's only pairs or men or ladies or dance or synchronized skating or solo dance or...any permutation of the above (and more).

I hope people reading this know that most people in the fan community don't think the same way as you. Gatekeeping is antiquated and frankly has classist/other -ists undertones. I do understand why elitism makes one feels good so I try extra hard not to follow those lines of thought.

(Personally, I was in Helsinki and I didn't watch pairs or ice dance. I wasn't interested at all in the lineup. I really wanted to go to both at the Olympics but I couldn't afford it, so I just watched it in my AirBnB in Pyeongchang )

It's especially unfortunate if someone bought an all-events ticket just so they could watch one or two skaters/disciplines, which again, is their prerogative, but in the process denied someone who actually wanted to see all 4 disciplines a seat, resulting in emptier stands for those disciplines. :disapp:

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This is a simple case of "don't blame the user for your own stupidity." ISU could easily fix this problem by selling individual tickets, but they don't until All Event tickets are 99% sold out. They seem to think that's the only way they can sell tickets for the less popular events. This is 100% the fault of ISU's ticketing strategy. It's also easy to fix so you could write to ISU if you cared enough

Is this really a big problem for figure skating? That the events are sold out by fans clamoring for all-event tickets so nobody can sneak in to watch the first flight of the pairs short program on Thursday afternoon?

Mathman said:

Is this really a big problem for figure skating? That the events are sold out by fans clamoring for all-event tickets so nobody can sneak in to watch the first flight of the pairs short program on Thursday afternoon?

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It’s not a big problem but it doesn’t look good to see empty seats on TV.

narcissa said:

This is a simple case of "don't blame the user for your own stupidity." ISU could easily fix this problem by selling individual tickets, but they don't until All Event tickets are 99% sold out. They seem to think that's the only way they can sell tickets for the less popular events. This is 100% the fault of ISU's ticketing strategy. It's also easy to fix so you could write to ISU if you cared enough

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Even if you're not a fan of certain disciplines, if you're buying the All-Event ticket, you should go to all of the events. Getting to see skating live in ANY discipline, especially at certain big events, is an incredible privilege and it frustrates me when I think about people who buy All-Event tickets and just let their seats stay empty for some events. Someone could have been lucky enough to have that seat - you (not YOU-you, but general you) are the lucky one ,and you're wasting it.

Then again, I'll admit I am saying this as someone in the Midwest with pretty limited means for most of my life - can't afford to travel, can't afford tickets to events (let alone all event tickets). I'm somewhat more fortunate than I used to be so I am budgeting so hard for Montreal 2020 and I'm going to be livid if I am unable to get tickets for whatever reason and there are people just letting their tickets go to waste.

I broke my own cardinal rule and watched TSL.

According to "the guy who is not Dave - the other one" there was some sort of snafu with the event website, in which large blocks of seats were shown as sold out, and as such, fans could not purchase them... when in fact those seats remained unsold. Apparently, this issue persisted for some time.

Whether you accept the reliability of their webshow is up to you (buyer beware), but in this case, it was he personally who was attempting to purchase the tickets, and he was in attendance.

andromache said:

Even if you're not a fan of certain disciplines, if you're buying the All-Event ticket, you should go to all of the events. Getting to see skating live in ANY discipline, especially at certain big events, is an incredible privilege and it frustrates me when I think about people who buy All-Event tickets and just let their seats stay empty for some events. Someone could have been lucky enough to have that seat - you (not YOU-you, but general you) are the lucky one ,and you're wasting it.

Then again, I'll admit I am saying this as someone in the Midwest with pretty limited means for most of my life - can't afford to travel, can't afford tickets to events (let alone all event tickets). I'm somewhat more fortunate than I used to be so I am budgeting so hard for Montreal 2020 and I'm going to be livid if I am unable to get tickets for whatever reason and there are people just letting their tickets go to waste.

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Sorry, when holding an All-Event ticket is the only way to go to ANY events, I don't see anyone having any obligation to use every ticket. And not everyone is able to. But for me, often the only reason I can go to these events is to work in between the events. So the alternative is to not go at all. People who have the time to go to all events are lucky.

And don't worry, I have never seen empty arenas that had sold out tickets. I don't think it's common. I'm sure it exists -- I'm not denying others' experiences -- but I have just never seen it. Especially if the All-Event ticket can be split apart and sold, you'll often find people trying to sell their unused tickets at face value.

Personally, I don't understand moralizing the act of attending a figure skating event. From the way some people are talking about skating events it's like we're curing world hunger here It's so illogical I honestly don't have anything left to say on this topic :confused2:

DSQ said:

I emphasise a little bit. It’s really sad to see the early flight have such empty seats and then see the last flight have packed out stands. That’s less of a thing at a GP (only two flights) but at Europeans you could definitely see an increase in the audience during the second to last flight during the ladies FS.

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I think it can be tough sometimes if you’ve traveled a long way to stay for everything. Both of the competitions I’ve been too I was extremely jetlagged the entire time. I don’t think I missed anything (though I did literally fall asleep in my seat once—15 hours time difference is very unforgiving), but I can kinda understand if some fans decide to miss earlier flights in order to rest up, if they’ve just flown halfway across the world. I think it’s important to keep in mind that at any given high profile competition, this is likely to be a significant proportion of the audience.

chopinskate said:

What if someone just isn't interested in a discipline?

Doesn't have enough money for all the events (hotel night stay for instance)? Not true skating fans because they're frugal?

What a foolish debate.

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There are fans who also don't show up to the earlier flight(s) at these competitions, nd if they were frugal, wouldn't they want to get their money's worth by seeing every possible skater? I'm not trying to debate this, but a superstar(s) showing up to an event doesn't make it a "great competition" because it fills seats for those who are only interested in seeing them skate (or just the flight of skaters that they're in).

I brought up Sochi as an example for this where a great deal of the audience only came to watch Plushenko skate and when he withdrew they weren't interested in watching the competition - not true skating fans, just Plushenko fans. Just because the arena was packed at one point and tickets were sold doesn't mean that it was a great audience - if anything, they were an awful audience (particularly in the men's competition).

My point was that, in my opinion, truer skating fans are interested in seeing the breadth of skaters in a discipline, and even truer skating fans are interested in seeing the breadth of disciplines. People paying the cost of travelling from Japan/Canada/etc. all the way to Helsinki and then play it frugal when it comes to tickets for the competition? Sure, there may be some of those, but there's also those who come only to see one skater (or a couple of them). Which is fine. But they're more skater fans and less skating fans, in my books. I get it, fans will watch who/what they're interested in - e.g. there are people don't even watch ice dance at all. But a diehard skating fan loves the sport as a whole, and will make the time and shell out the dough to watch as many disciplines as they can. And even if they can't afford to see every discipline, they'll at least watch every skater in their fave skater's discipline and give them that respect. And I was just pointing out that there are fans who don't do that.