Round 1 Crowd

[BDA 22,308]

Ticketek is one s*house site.

I tried numerous times to book gen reserve tickets and each time it plonked me behind the goals. No offence to those who like that view but for the day that was in it, 2 years since I’ve been last, I wanted a better view. Paid the upgrade for better seats.

Swathes of open spaces at the G today.

Money grabbers

[Demonland 70,326]

42 minutes ago, Dee Dubya said:

My post was not about the politics of Covid but that we could not afford to attend as we are now on the dole directly because of Covid. I have had a very long history of membership with the club and am disappointed not to be a member this year and your heavy-handed censorship only adds to my disappointment.

You referred to COVID in a derogatory manner that I found unacceptable which is why the post was removed along with all other politically charged COVID related content and arguments.

The “censorship” had nothing to do with your personal situation which I sympathise with but was totally unaware of. 

[Dr. Gonzo 23,725]

2 hours ago, Superunknown said:

Some of us live interstate

I'm sure some do, probably still at least 20k supporters in Metro Melbourne who decided not to bother today. And that's being conservative.

[Dr. Gonzo 23,725]

2 hours ago, BW511 said:

Finally, I’d rather watch from home with the ability to do other things than be stuck at the ‘G watching games like that. It was a very ordinary affair

 

 

That type of thinking will doom our club. I get people staying away in dead rubbers at the end of a poor season. But round 1 on a beautiful autumn day after a year and a half without footy? Pathetic.

Plus not sure if you're aware but we actually won today. Great start to the season for our team, 9 other clubs will wish they could say that. Freo expect to play finals this year, how do you reckon their fans are feeling after today's game?

Edited March 20, 2021 by Dr. Gonzo

[Dr. Gonzo 23,725]

2 hours ago, Lampers said:

Tigers with 100k members vs. Carlton probably at 60k and they got a 49k crowd. One reigning premier the other talked up to make finals.

Collingwood and Dogs combined membership well over 120k and they got 46k crowd. Both made finals last year.

I get that those other crowds may have been close to sell out given capacity restrictions, but Demons who have been slagged off since the Bulldogs game in the media vs. interstate team and people are surprised by 21k?

Excuses. Yes I'm surprised, we got almost 40k against GWS a couple of years ago where were those people today? Bandwagoners.

I'm pretty furious about this because it's hamstringing the club. If the supporters don't care what hope have we got?

[Clayton spirit 252]

All tickets to the game were $50+ unless you were a member, where for a lengthy period of time it said they were unavailable. For a game already with relatively low demand, nothing was done to atttact people to attend. If this had been done right I reckon we may have gotten 30k. Ticketing has been terribly mismanaged. I thought the goal was to attract people back to live sport these days. 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Clayton spirit

[Dr. Gonzo 23,725]

41 minutes ago, —coach— said:

Annoying thing was i initially jumped on on the iPad to get my ticket, but when it came up with the $50 amount I was like, that can’t be right. So jumped onto the laptop and same thing, so assumed I had no choice. Frog it, was just great to be back at the G!

Is that because you upgraded your seat? That is you got a ticket in an area that you wouldn't normally have access to with a GA membership? You should've been able to get level 1 or level 3 seating for free.

[Dr. Gonzo 23,725]

32 minutes ago, Better days ahead said:

Ticketek is one s*house site.

I tried numerous times to book gen reserve tickets and each time it plonked me behind the goals. No offence to those who like that view but for the day that was in it, 2 years since I’ve been last, I wanted a better view. Paid the upgrade for better seats.

Swathes of open spaces at the G today.

Money grabbers

Yes it is a disgrace that you can't choose which seats or at least which bay you want to sit in.

[titan_uranus 24,656]

2 hours ago, Roost it far said:

There’s reasons 9,000 odd folk stayed away

1. Covid, older crew won’t risk public exposure. Most of them likely have friends in aged care and we know what a [censored] that’s been

2. Booking tickets. People have got used to no impediments in their way. The extra call no doubt made people think twice.

3. Game against the Dogs made people not bother for fear of watching us lose

4. A no win game. If we lose it’s a disaster if we win, well so we should have.

5. Weather, lots of people chose other activities on this gorgeous day.

Its no disaster or a surprise that it was a poor crowd, I’d guess crowds will be down for quite awhile. 

What, so when it's 10 degrees and raining in July people line up to sit outdoors at the G?

Today was great weather to enjoy watching your side play in front of you for the first time in 18 months. 

Plenty of people have genuine reasons they can't go, whether family, work, financial. But our club has a too-large subset of fans who "protest" against the club's performance by not going to games and/or not buying memberships. Those people are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves and shouldn't call themselves "supporters" of the club. You're doing the opposite of "supporting" us if you're withholding valuable membership and/or gate receipt funds by "protesting" against whatever it is you don't like about our on field performances.

[Billy 2,463]

5 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Club has got to win the Supporters back

It’s that simple

Getting tickets was a nightmare so I reckon a lot of people stayed away. 
We must keep winning 

Why?? You either support them or you don’t, to many fickle supporters 

[Sir Why You Little 36,670]

22 minutes ago, Billy said:

Why?? You either support them or you don’t, to many fickle supporters 

You haven’t been around as long as many have Billy, I suspect 

that’s fair enough. But don’t knock MFC Supporters

We have been smashed up for years

I pay my Membership so the Club don’t lose

[whatwhat say what 22,218]

23 minutes ago, Billy said:

Why?? You either support them or you don’t, to many fickle supporters 

the bigger issue is that we don't actually have a big supporter base, so when the casuals drop off it's that much more noticeable cos we go from 35k crowds down to today's dismal figure

[MT64 1,144]

7 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Do people think that our players get inspired to perform better by looking up at empty stands? Or do you think they rest on their laurels and think "we don't need to do anything more, people are already watching us" if the stands were full?

I am quite sure that, if it has any impact, it doesn't help our players. There is a reason the concept of a "home ground advantage" exists, and it doesn't come from empty stands.

I agree with this.

The MCC felt relatively well attended and AFAIK close to 100% of the seats available were taken on Monday/Tuesday.

If my maths is right and the MCC was allowed 50% capacity, that would be around 11,000 total. I'd be confident that around 8,000 were there. That means 13,000 in the rest of the ground, which had room for around 40,000.

If the MCC could have taken more, I'm confident it would have.

Well he'll feel empowered to get on that high horse because our supporters don't help our club.

The same supporters who don't go to games likely blame the club for not responding to these sorts of things in the media.

I was told by a friends who works in the MCC that they only allowed 8,000 patrons in yesterday. Where I sat there was heaps of space. People just moved to where they wanted to sit rather than their allocated seat.

Edited March 20, 2021 by MT64

[Rab D Nesbitt 8,128]

Whatever the reason for the low attendance it wasn’t a great look. That aside, I sat in an area of level 2 of the Northern Stand where lots of us were packed in together making a bit of a mockery of the social distancing set up supposedly in place. 

[JTR 2,842]

7 hours ago, Clayton spirit said:

All tickets to the game were $50+ unless you were a member, where for a lengthy period of time it said they were unavailable. For a game already with relatively low demand, nothing was done to atttact people to attend. If this had been done right I reckon we may have gotten 30k. Ticketing has been terribly mismanaged. I thought the goal was to attract people back to live sport these days. 

No they weren't.

"General Reserved" tickets were $27

[CBDees 3,165]

As an MCC member, when I finally got into the ticketec site I was told that all Level 2 & 3 seats had gone, apart from the 50 year members area! So I took a seat there and another seat on Level 1 and then went in the ballot for the Dining Room, when I was told that overflow was to be in the Committee Room and Long Room.

As it turned out,  there was no dining in the Long Room Carvery but the a-la-carte dining was extended into the Dining Members Bar, 15% of Level 2 seating was no-shows and the bars were all shut for stand up drinkers (despite there being no social distancing in the seated areas). Bedlam!

[JJJ 1,045]

I was at the Presidents Function and spoke to about 20-25 people and the lack of crowd came up in conversations as it became obvious that we were going to have a small crowd. 
 

Only 3 people were critical of supporters for not turning up that I can remember. Most signalled unhappiness with the club in one way or another as a reason that they could’ve stayed home if they didn’t have the lunch to attend. There was a sense of empathy to supporters who watched from home.

I also found theres a decent amount of apathy regarding the club, the poor list after Roos began the rebuild almost a decade ago, the coach, the board, the President, lack of marketing, untrustworthy playing group etc etc.

Whilst I don’t share all of those opinions, I couldn’t blame anybody for feeling that way. When asked to rise to the occasion, this coach and playing group have repeatedly failed.So even against an injury riddled team, I was not confident of a good result.

When you throw in the ticketing (when some fans in their 60-70’s are receiving QR code’s for tickets you can expect confusion) and a global pandemic you get 21,000 people turn up.

It’s up to the club to fix this. Win games. Get on the front foot publicly. Don’t be a doormat for other clubs and the AFL. Who knows, it might galvanise the weary.

[pitmaster 3,447]

As one who thought 30,000 was a minimum number given previous crowds against Freo and the fact we have not been able to attend a game for more than a year I have to say my faith in Melbourne supporters is seriously shaken. We, collectively, must be as weak as others say.

This old folks fearing Covid is lame. There is no virus circulating in the community currently and there were plenty of oldies around me yesterday. I do understand the ticketing was a pain but do it now to become accustomed to the system people. It's going to be this way for some time.

And as for the 'Oh, I won't go until they win some games and play well' crowd'; get over yourselves. It's a new year, new coaches, find out for yourself what they've come up with in the off-season.

Nope no excuses. That was a disgraceful effort. 

[Kent 2,863]

11 hours ago, Demons11 said:

Getting tickets was easy

Not in my experience nor the other 10 or 12 members that i regularly meet at the G

Try and get a location that you want and 10 tickets together. It is a nightmare for Melbourne membres whose average age and computer skills are probably at the lower end of the clubs

[ManDee 7,124]

8 hours ago, Billy said:

Why?? You either support them or you don’t, to many fickle supporters 

Billy I am a supporter, I pay my membership and rarely attend. Five hours of driving is disincentive enough even without covid and ticketing dramas. I think you mean barrackers. We certainly lack barrackers. Winning will get the barrackers out,  when it happens it will blow your socks off.

[Steno 200]

The MCC was a mess...

family members totalling 10 gave up trying to work out sitting together and didn’t attend.

I got seats (meters from Saty). I got seats for my young children directly behind tall large men. I struggled to see, they had no hope. The men were apologetic and tried to move/help. There was no ability to choose where to sit (or change what ticketek deemed best).

Half time tried to get a beer... no tap beer and 3 quarter time they had run out of beer cups. Imagine if a crowd had turned up!

 

[Demons1858 1,716]

14 hours ago, Demonland said:

21,365

Very disappointing after 580 odd days of no LIVE footy, perfect weather, Saturday afternoon and 40,000 signed up members.

Understand that we were playing an interstate team but would have thought we could hit at least 25,000 if not a 1,000 or 2 more.

Our supporter demographic might be a touch older which might not help if you are worried about your health. Still a disappointing crowd no matter

[sisso 2,555]

We’ve always had a small hard core supporter base who turns up every week and a larger fair weather base who wait until the team is going well...I don’t think this will ever change

[Demons11 6,718]

25 minutes ago, Kent said:

Not in my experience nor the other 10 or 12 members that i regularly meet at the G

Try and get a location that you want and 10 tickets together. It is a nightmare for Melbourne membres whose average age and computer skills are probably at the lower end of the clubs

Unfortunately you can’t get 10 tkts together, 6 in the max. 

[BW511 2,575]

16 minutes ago, sisso said:

We’ve always had a small hard core supporter base who turns up every week and a larger fair weather base who wait until the team is going well...I don’t think this will ever change

Reckon this is a chicken/egg type scenario.

Melbourne supporters are the way they are because of the club’s history. Success is the number one factor in new membership, whether that’s from the previous generation or the one before that. 
 

You could probably also argue that the demographic of Melbourne fans are more likely to have other hobbies, like skiing or visiting their beach houses, as cliche as that is. This means when the performance drops off the supporters interest wanders too.

Lot of the traditional Richmond/Carlton/Collingwood/Essendon supporter bases are from lower socioeconomic families and footy is their life

Edited March 20, 2021 by BW511