Life at The Library

[Nem]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2013452,00.html

Arsenal look to fill empty seats at 'full' stadium

Arsenal have confirmed the suspicions of many visitors to the Emirates Stadium this season, admitting that the club routinely declares misleading attendance figures for home games.

Regular visitors to the new stadium, including season ticket holders and reporters, have noted that, while attendance figures give the impression that it is at or close to its 60,500 capacity, the reality is that at times numerous seats have been empty. Sunday's game against Wigan Athletic was a case in point, with the official figure of 60,049 at odds with the large number of empty seats.


The club confirmed yesterday that the figure announced was for tickets sold rather than actual attendance and that on average as many as 3% of ticket holders - more than 1,800 people - did not take up their seats. The number of no-shows reflects the increase in corporate season ticket holders at the stadium and the club will trial a buy-back system later this year that will allow fans to purchase seats that season ticket holders are not going to take up. Arsenal have decided to run the system in-house rather than use a ticket agency.

[boldie]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2013452,00.html

Arsenal look to fill empty seats at 'full' stadium

Arsenal have confirmed the suspicions of many visitors to the Emirates Stadium this season, admitting that the club routinely declares misleading attendance figures for home games.

Regular visitors to the new stadium, including season ticket holders and reporters, have noted that, while attendance figures give the impression that it is at or close to its 60,500 capacity, the reality is that at times numerous seats have been empty. Sunday's game against Wigan Athletic was a case in point, with the official figure of 60,049 at odds with the large number of empty seats.


The club confirmed yesterday that the figure announced was for tickets sold rather than actual attendance and that on average as many as 3% of ticket holders - more than 1,800 people - did not take up their seats. The number of no-shows reflects the increase in corporate season ticket holders at the stadium and the club will trial a buy-back system later this year that will allow fans to purchase seats that season ticket holders are not going to take up. Arsenal have decided to run the system in-house rather than use a ticket agency.

that's the problem with corporate seats...Most of those guys only care about business and don't give a toss about the club...and the companies themselves ussually don't even give the employees that really are fans of the club any spare tickets for the weekend.

A shame that clubs need them as those Prawncracker and cucumber sandwich types make me sick at the footie. (The "supporters" the Dutch national side is a prime example of this)

[matt674]

But was the main reason for moving to a new stadium so that they could compete with the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea by getting extra revenue from ticket sales.

If they sell the tickets but then the people don't turn up then they probably couldn't care less.......

anyway who in their right mind would want to watch Arsenal?!?!?!?!