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New Everton Stadium

I've never been bothered by the capacity, especially when factoring in potential for safe standing increase.

For a bit of perspective, if Everton have a full house in the last game at Goodison, and gave everyone in attendance a ticket for the 1st game, they could do so without selling a single ticket in the new South stand.

Further, if the new legislation moves from 1:1 to only 1:3, it will only take 5.5k converted safe standing spaces to go over 60k, which is similar to the bottom tier of the new South Stand, with further provisions for the north stand lower as well.

There are some minor things about the stadium that i would love to be slightly different, mostly design features that were probably not done for good reasons, including cost. But it looks amazing as it is, and more so each passing week.

It's going to be incredible and something to be proud of.

Good illustration there about how much bigger the new place is. Hadn't thought of it that way.
 
A 1.3:1 ratio, will never yield a 60k+ capacity unless far more capacity is given up to safe-standing. At present only the lower section of the South stand and a small part of the visitor's section are earmarked for safe standing. I think that's a total of approximately 7500. That equates to just a 2,250 increase at 1.3:1 and 3,750 at 1.5:1. Even if the whole Lower North stand was also safe-standing, that would only give a total 4-6,000 increase. Making the Upper South stand safe-standing too would nudge it over 60k (at 1.5:1), but that might compromise the concourse space and of course would reduce our seated capacity to less than that at Goodison. Of course that is all dependent on a legislation change, which is by no means a certainty. Colin Chong said at a meeting with Shareholders that he thought any future expansion would be by extending the east and west stands. This of course would require whole new side roof sections. Hopefully it would also help facilitate a closing roof to increase the stadium flexibility/atmosphere.

You might be on to something there regards the roof. If they were to take it off for expansion they might want to think about putting it back as a closing roof. I wonder if the roof is designed in any way for future expansion or to be a closing roof? I think just having 2 bigger sides would look ugly. Can't see the expansion being from increasing the sides for a minimum of 20 years and I won't be here to see that. I think we'll sweat the asset and go to high 50's with safe standing in the near future. That's fine for me.
 
That's great if you have a ticket, not so great if you dont

Deciding on capacity was always going to be a balancing act. Cost rises almost exponentially with capacity. So unless you're getting the stadium for nothing (at £10k+ construction cost per seat), you cannot really afford any spare capacity. Basic economics of supply and demand tends towards limiting capacity to control both costs and ticket prices to achieve reasonable ROI. West Ham have the luxury of a massive floating vote in the capital's population and an essentially free stadium. Their matchday income barely budged for the first few years. Unless we get major sponsorship and seriously rich owners, we cannot afford a similar stack'em high, sell'em cheap strategy even at 53k. At 60k, that viability only worsens.
 
Deciding on capacity was always going to be a balancing act. Cost rises almost exponentially with capacity. So unless you're getting the stadium for nothing (at £10k+ construction cost per seat), you cannot really afford any spare capacity. Basic economics of supply and demand tends towards limiting capacity to control both costs and ticket prices to achieve

reasonable ROI. West Ham have the luxury of a massive floating vote in the capital's population and an essentially free stadium. Their matchday income barely budged for the first few years. Unless we get major sponsorship and seriously rich owners, we cannot afford a similar stack'em high, sell'em cheap strategy even at 53k. At 60k, that viability only worsens.
That seems to be correct. However it is clear that the benchmark for the top clubs in the league is now 60k not 50k so even with the new stadium we are 10k light.
I also know that the club are intending to sell hospitality tickets on a match by match basis and presumably "ordinary " tickets as well. In that case it seems( on the basis of the size of the waiting list) they are intending to limit season ticket sales and some may be disappointed, hence my it's OK if you have a ticket comment.
As you say it is a balancing act and once we went for the dock site a lower capacity was probably inevitable. My fear as someone guaranteed a ticket is that we have a future built in disadvantage. Hopefully safe standing will help us bridge that gap
 

That seems to be correct. However it is clear that the benchmark for the top clubs in the league is now 60k not 50k so even with the new stadium we are 10k light.
I also know that the club are intending to sell hospitality tickets on a match by match basis and presumably "ordinary " tickets as well. In that case it seems( on the basis of the size of the waiting list) they are intending to limit season ticket sales and some may be disappointed, hence my it's OK if you have a ticket comment.
As you say it is a balancing act and once we went for the dock site a lower capacity was probably inevitable. My fear as someone guaranteed a ticket is that we have a future built in disadvantage. Hopefully safe standing will help us bridge that gap

It's not really a one size fits all solution. It's very much dependent on cost of construction (Supply) and size of fanbase (Demand).... and how deep the owners pockets are to absorb those costs. Apparently Villa have a nearly 30k waiting list on top of the existing 42,600 capacity, yet they are only going for 50k+. With a ROI measured in just a few years. They may have longer term ambitions for the two older stands but there doesn't appear to be an imminent rush for 60k.
 
You might be on to something there regards the roof. If they were to take it off for expansion they might want to think about putting it back as a closing roof. I wonder if the roof is designed in any way for future expansion or to be a closing roof? I think just having 2 bigger sides would look ugly. Can't see the expansion being from increasing the sides for a minimum of 20 years and I won't be here to see that. I think we'll sweat the asset and go to high 50's with safe standing in the near future. That's fine for me.

I asked Colin Chong if the current roof trusses were engineered to to take a sliding roof. They're not, and in anycase an extension on either side would require a higher roof. Two new full trusses above the existing end ones would produce an armadillo roof effect.
 

Don't Juventus have an even smaller capacity?

Yes, the trend was towards falling attendances in Italy, so they chose a very conservative capacity, to both minimise costs and to squeeze demand. Italy's club's attendances seem to be recovering recently, so they may regret it at some point. The Milan clubs have been looking at a new 60k stadium.... but both are currently averaging over 70k..... so again it may require a rethink or a simple make-over.
 
There was a mention of the stadium being similar to the Galatasary stadium which is 52,280. From this video, it does look very similar inside with the seating angle and the style of roof.



Promising that if it's similar the noise levels can get so high.

I think that capacity is plenty to create an amazing atmosphere


Nice of them to sing Spirit of the Blues!
 
I'm sure a lot of west hams tickets are sold to fans who don't even support them, just cheap tickets London.

Let's not run before we can walk re the stadium, if we start selling out every game for years I'm sure they can do something to increase it.

I'd rather for now at least, have a packed stadium full of atmosphere then a massive stadium with gaps everywhere

They had a few issues with that. I'm sure season tickets were about £80, so you're right. They had a lot of fighting in the ground because you got people who support united etc turning up and being a nuisance.
 

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