North Stand Expansion | Configuration plans revealed by club (p 1285)

[Kippaxpete]

Oh, they will have been offended!!

In fact, they'll be arranging the candle-lit vigil as we speak.

 

[Grealish’s Shinpads]

For 1 match a season against Arsenal. For the rest of the season the Spurs fans in it don’t do it justice. But yes, a comparable stand where the North Stand is now is a must. But how long have we been saying that and still nothing. Even with Pep here, and Haaland coming, the club has reduced capacity at the Etihad, not increased it.

If we are being honest though would we do it justice? The atmosphere is rubbish at most of our home games

 

[Bill]

We don’t have the plastics like United and Liverpool have. Even Arsenal are suffering from empty seats at the Emirates. Only United and Liverpool can fill their stadiums for most home games. A few empty seats have started to appear at United of late.

What we do have is a solid and expanding hardcore of fans. The vast majority are low to middle income working class fans, with a small percentage of wealthy fans. We’ve also got a slowly growing fan base from outside Manchester. This is evident in PL games, and more so in CL games. We also get a lot of football tourists coming to watch City at weekend home matches

But we’ve lost a lot of local fans through season ticket and match day ticket price increases over the years (here jrb goes again), and through forced relocations inside the stadium on different occasions and throughout the years to make way for new corporate areas and seating. We need to get those fans back for a start. And also attract new local City fans with more cheaper season ticket and match day ticket prices. The games in the early rounds of the Carabao Cup, FA Cup, and CL group stages prove cheaper tickets do attract more local fans. Over the last few seasons we have had 50,000+ attendances for early round FA Cup games.

If the club expands the North Stand it has to somehow balance match day income with cheaper season tickets and match day tickets in an effort to attract those City fans that have walked away and City fans who are desperate to watch City, but are priced out at current season ticket and match day ticket prices. If City did that they could fill an expanded North Stand and a 60,000 capacity Etihad.

bang on the money .

i have been forced to move for corporate , who moves a disabled supporter to behind fans that stand up ffs. i tell them of course to sit the fuck down but shouldn't have to .
only fucking City .

and my lot still want to renew lol.

 

[Prophet of Doom]

£100 season tickets ! Are people living in fantasyland here ?

City ain’t gonna invest £150m + in a new stand in a hope that it will be populated by fans that stopped going to football 5 years ago and for them to pay an amount for season tickets similar to what is paid by supporters of teams at the lowest level of semi pro football on the league pyramid.

And for amounts much less than what the loyal supporters that have renewed every year pay !

Absolute fantasy !

In case anybody didn’t notice we ripped out 1500 seats last Summer yet its still easy to get an ad hoc ticket for almost every game bar the games against the top 4.

Whether it’s Covid, pricing, lack of atmosphere, style of play, the way we are perceived in the media ( the excuses I’ve read on here ) our attendances have stalled and there is no justification for investing huge resource in a new stand as the recent ripping out of front row seats has proved.

The focus should be in what can be done to improve atmosphere and analysis on those seasoncard holders that don’t attend 10 games a season and get that sorted.

We don’t need more seats no matter how romantic a new one tier stand would be. The current capacity is more than sufficient.

 

[Fred_Quimby]

I think we missed a trick all those years ago. We should have replicatedthe Kippax back in the day; lower section of East Stand but chose to have an end. Would we fill that with fans who want to sing? Singing section is a bit of a joke. I know the people there do their best but, let's face it, they are often outperformed by the away fans. The main problem over there is the layer 2 people dividing the fans.

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

£100 season tickets ! Are people living in fantasyland here ?

City ain’t gonna invest £150m + in a new stand in a hope that it will be populated by fans that stopped going to football 5 years ago and for them to pay an amount for season tickets similar to what is paid by supporters of teams at the lowest level of semi pro football on the league pyramid.

And for amounts much less than what the loyal supporters that have renewed every year pay !

Absolute fantasy !

In case anybody didn’t notice we ripped out 1500 seats last Summer yet its still easy to get an ad hoc ticket for almost every game bar the games against the top 4.

Whether it’s Covid, pricing, lack of atmosphere, style of play, the way we are perceived in the media ( the excuses I’ve read on here ) our attendances have stalled and there is no justification for investing huge resource in a new stand as the recent ripping out of front row seats has proved.

The focus should be in what can be done to improve atmosphere and analysis on those seasoncard holders that don’t attend 10 games a season and get that sorted.

We don’t need more seats no matter how romantic a new one tier stand would be. The current capacity is more than sufficient.

Your post contains a lot of hard headed (& unwelcome to many) home truths.

Another reason I don’t see any huge expansion of the North Stand combined with low SC prices is based on what happened when SS3 opened. Thousands of supporters in more expensive areas of the stadium (me included) took the opportunity to relocate to SS3 and that left thousands of expensive SCs for the club to shift. I was paying over £700 in ES3 and my new seat cost £380 when SS3 opened. So if the NS was expanded the club has a choice to make. They can offer the new seats to existing SC holders and again be left with thousands of expensive seats to sell or they don’t allow relocations and only ‘new’ supporters can buy them. The first option makes no sense financially and the second could result in lots of pissed off SC holders bailing out.

There has to be a sound business case to spend a huge amount on any expansion and I’m not seeing it.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

Your post contains a lot of hard headed (& unwelcome to many) home truths.

Another reason I don’t see any huge expansion of the North Stand combined with low SC prices is based on what happened when SS3 opened. Thousands of supporters in more expensive areas of the stadium (me included) took the opportunity to relocate to SS3 and that left thousands of expensive SCs for the club to shift. I was paying over £700 in ES3 and my new seat cost £380 when SS3 opened. So if the NS was expanded the club has a choice to make. They can offer the new seats to existing SC holders and again be left with thousands of expensive seats to sell or they don’t allow relocations and only ‘new’ supporters can buy them. The first option makes no sense financially and the second could result in lots of pissed off SC holders bailing out.

There has to be a sound business case to spend a huge amount on any expansion and I’m not seeing it.

The club will have gone through the data after the SS3 expansion and probably realised a north stand expansion isn’t worth it. Like you said, them cheap tickets will get snapped from people relocating. I feel like the club are in a bit of tricky situation with the fans at the minute. Rumblings of fans being upset about the continuous season ticket price increases, driving long timers away but also on the other hand plenty of tourists are starting to turn up to games. They have to find the right balance.

 

[Blue Maverick]

Then why not do £350 for the north stand £18 a game bloody bargain

 

[PragueBlue]

even the £299.99 season tickets would be snapped up!

By existing season ticket holders which would then leave the club having to find takers for the more expensive areas of the ground.

 

[supercity88]

Your post contains a lot of hard headed (& unwelcome to many) home truths.

Another reason I don’t see any huge expansion of the North Stand combined with low SC prices is based on what happened when SS3 opened. Thousands of supporters in more expensive areas of the stadium (me included) took the opportunity to relocate to SS3 and that left thousands of expensive SCs for the club to shift. I was paying over £700 in ES3 and my new seat cost £380 when SS3 opened. So if the NS was expanded the club has a choice to make. They can offer the new seats to existing SC holders and again be left with thousands of expensive seats to sell or they don’t allow relocations and only ‘new’ supporters can buy them. The first option makes no sense financially and the second could result in lots of pissed off SC holders bailing out.

There has to be a sound business case to spend a huge amount on any expansion and I’m not seeing it.

I think you are right. We know the fanbase is there if tickets are cheaper. But you can't allow those without current SC to take priority over existing SC holders. 10,000 seats at £350 or 5,000 at £700. Same money. Maybe more in revenue from food/drink but still it's a major reason why the club have probably held off expanding the North Stand. They can't have those paying £700 moving to cheaper tickets because they can't be replaced.

The only thing they could do is create a new improved family stand where family or adult and a kid deals were offered and have it as a major family oriented part of the ground with new and improved facilities for kids. That's not going to address atmosphere but might be the best balance and might get more people coming along. Still, any game outside the usual weekend kick offs will see plenty stay at home because of routine for the kids. And atmosphere-wise we'll still be complaining. The South Stand doesn't cut it. But a single tier will only work if every ticket is cheap and it will then lead to empty seats elsewhere and an overall reduction in revenue I'd expect.

The best games for atmosphere outside the title clashes or derbies have been when seats were cheap. The Hamburg UEFA cup game was incredible and tickets were £5 or a kid and £20 for an adult iirc. Bluemoon was echoing around the whole stadium, it was incredible that day. Certainly no issue of noise absorbing roof or away fans being in the wrong place. Everyone was bang up for it and singing the classic songs everyone knows.

I'm sure there is more the club could do to help atmosphere without a new stand or cheaper tickets, and it's a problem at a lot of grounds. Anfield is often quiet, OT the same and Spurs is too.