Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[MikeMcKenna]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Don't think that's right. 

Various reports show that exact same number for the attendance of the game on 4 January 2023. Seems too much of a coincidence. I think someone has lifted that attendance stat from an old report unwittingly (or mischievously) 

I’m sure you are right. 4th January 2023 was 39,978. It was a midweek game, immediately after Christmas and amid some rail strikes. It was the lowest crowd at home since Millwall in April 2019 in the Championship. I serious doubt there was 39000 there on Saturday. Incidentally are there any other PL clubs that don’t release the attendance?

Edited 9 hours ago by MikeMcKenna

[CVByrne]

Remember attendance does not equal tickets sold. If someone owns a seat and doesn't turn up that's not the clubs issue. 

[allani]

17 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

Don't know if it was low as 39000 but there were clearly significant sections of empty seats in the Trinity and Witton Lane which I noticed for the first time in a long while.  The irony is that North Stand rebuild was postponed/cancelled because Heck/Unai wanted a full stadium rocking for the CL games in particular - yet I somehow doubt the Bologna game in particular will see a full house at these prices, which kind of defeat the object.   

PSR and its UEFA equivalent are the reasons behind most of the off-field decisions at the moment.  If we're earning more in match-day revenue (including shop earnings / food & drinks / etc) than we were previously then those decisions are valid (at least in the short-term) if we aren't then those decisions will have been wrong.  I also suspect that if the revenues are not meeting the targets then adjustments to pricing will follow.  These are issues that the clubs we are trying to compete against have had 20 seasons to adapt and tweak (and they almost all have higher ticket prices than Villa) whereas we are trying to catch up in a hurry.  As much as arguing that some unsold seats are a sign that Heck has the pricing wrong - you could also argue that if we were selling out every match to capacity then he must also have got the pricing wrong the other way.  It's a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.  And it's easier to fix having overpriced tickets than it is to fix having underpriced tickets.

I think that the financial restrictions are going to come under more pressure and even if they are not lifted I do think that a compromise will be made that will make it easier for clubs to underwrite projects proven to be about improving the sustainability of clubs.  Whilst some of these infrastructure costs can be excluded from PSR others (for example lost revenues - seats, shop sales, drinks, etc - due to reduced attendance) remain pretty grey and unclear - but the punishments in terms of points deductions, etc have been pretty harsh.  It would be foolish to finish in a CL spot and then lose out because of a points deduction for a "misunderstanding" about direct or indirect costs and what is deemed acceptable (and whilst Everton mismanaged in many areas - the reason they thought that they were OK and the PL didn't was down to indirect costs linked to their new stadium - or at least partially down to that).

[Sam-AVFC]

12 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Remember attendance does not equal tickets sold. If someone owns a seat and doesn't turn up that's not the clubs issue. 

I think what you mean to say is it isn't the club's fault in your hypothetical scenario. It absolutely is their 'issue' if crowds drop.

Have we had an problem in recent years with large amounts of sold seats being empty, or is it only starting now? Out of interest, have you seen any evidence seats are empty for this reason? 

Edited 9 hours ago by Sam-AVFC

[Captain_Townsend]

55 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

The irony is that North Stand rebuild was postponed/cancelled because Heck/Unai wanted a full stadium rocking for the CL games in particular - 

The problem there is you took his words at face value, big mistake!

[allani]

6 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Remember attendance does not equal tickets sold. If someone owns a seat and doesn't turn up that's not the clubs issue. 

Also worth pointing at that if you've attended a sporting event as a corporate client then you might never take your seat.  The worst sports event I ever attended was a T20 match (England v West Indies) when I was invited by a client of ours.  I missed the first 2 overs because everyone was doing a "meet and greet", watched the next 6 overs (slightly to the disappointment of my boss who thought I should be doing more chatting to other guests) and then missed the last 12 overs of the first innings and all of the second innings because we were inside eating dinner.  Anyone looking at our seats would have seen them empty and might conclude that the pricing of those seats must have been wrong.  But we were there and our client was spending a lot more money by us not being sat watching the game.  Now you can argue that this is completely the wrong way of treating a sports event (and I wouldn't disagree) but when so many of the rules imposed by the sporting body force revenue into being THE single most important metric that's what happens.

Obviously my example above may have no relevance at all to the empty seats at VP - but it is just one example of times when I've been at an event when it looks like there are empty spaces only for the official numbers to then say that it was a complete sell-out.

[fightoffyour]

17 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Remember attendance does not equal tickets sold. If someone owns a seat and doesn't turn up that's not the clubs issue. 

Are you suggesting that several hundred people who had bought GA+ tickets all in the same blocks decided not to turn up? Few plane loads on a cancelled ryanair from Dublin was it? Shame that.

[Tomaszk]

10 hours ago, DakotaVilla said:

This is all coming directly from the owners. The targets that have been set require Heck to maximize income from every stream available - including from fans. No doubt he is looking at additional commercial partners as well. 

I’ve personally realised that there’s absolutely no point in us making Heck the Villain here as even if he left, his replacement would have to do exactly the same as Heck. 

Bottom line is that in a PSR world and with the commercial limitations of Villa Park the club is obsessed with getting to a point where our turnover will let Emery compete with the larger teams on a more even footing. 

They've employed an idiot though. 

Putting prices up is not hard. Anyone can do that.

Balancing this all together while doing your actual job of getting sponsors is where the ability is.

They're lucky Wycombe is away, that's where you'd really see it. <20k easy.

[rodders0223]

Hecky's getting 3000 people to pay for a ticket that don't even attend. He really is the GOAT.

Fans really digging deep to rally against the PSR rules.

[sharkyvilla]

17 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

They've employed an idiot though. 

Putting prices up is not hard. Anyone can do that.

Balancing this all together while doing your actual job of getting sponsors is where the ability is.

They're lucky Wycombe is away, that's where you'd really see it. <20k easy.

He/the club must have spent tens of millions doing the work as well.  It must be a long time before we get a return on the investment at this rate, albeit the expenditure probably doesn't count towards PSR, just Wes and Nassef's pockets?

[Rob182]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

Remember attendance does not equal tickets sold. If someone owns a seat and doesn't turn up that's not the clubs issue. 

Exactly.

And while we’re talking sense, it’s not like the toilets were flooded with Wes and Nassef’s piss. (They just added to it).

[The Fun Factory]

3 hours ago, Risso said:

Somebody on Twitter has said the Wolves attendance was just over 39,000. When was the last time we had a crowd that low? Heck has really badly misjudged this.

I wouldn't know as they haven't given attendances at the ground for well over a year now. Possibly two.  Some of these may well be down to facilities not being complete. They seem to advertising GA spaces at half time on computer generated imagery which wouldn't fill me with a lot of confidence. It looked like some off plan dodgy time share investment.

[CVByrne]

55 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Are you suggesting that several hundred people who had bought GA+ tickets all in the same blocks decided not to turn up? Few plane loads on a cancelled ryanair from Dublin was it? Shame that.

No I'm not. I'm just stating that attendance figures doesn't mean number of tickets sold. 

Edited 8 hours ago by CVByrne

[choffer]

1 hour ago, allani said:

Also worth pointing at that if you've attended a sporting event as a corporate client then you might never take your seat. 

When I was working in Brum 30 years ago, my firm had a box at the Moulinex. Right on the halfway line. Nobody ever sat in it. Arrive, dump your coat in the box, repair to the bar until the final whistle. 

[Tomaszk]

12 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

No I'm not. I'm just stating that attendance figures doesn't mean number of tickets sold. 

Good grief. As smart as the Heckster this.

Any more genius nuggets?

The kits being clean doesn't mean the players washed theirs at home.

The ball being full of air doesn't mean the referee pumped it up.

Grass on the pitch doesn't mean Unai Emery laid the turf.

[The Fun Factory]

5 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Good grief. As smart as the Heckster this.

Any more genius nuggets?

The kits being clean doesn't mean the players washed theirs at home.

The ball being full of air doesn't mean the referee pumped it up.

Grass on the pitch doesn't mean Unai Emery laid the turf.

At least our pitch looks better than Wimbledon's at the moment.

[ThornburyVilla]

1 hour ago, fightoffyour said:

Are you suggesting that several hundred people who had bought GA+ tickets all in the same blocks decided not to turn up? Few plane loads on a cancelled ryanair from Dublin was it? Shame that.

Authorised resellers who purchase a big chunk of GA+ seats had a fair amount unsold this weekend, hence why decent chunks of empty seats in certain locations.  Its the nature of that industry, not everything sells all the time

[Tomaszk]

Just now, ThornburyVilla said:

Authorised resellers who purchase a big chunk of GA+ seats had a fair amount unsold this weekend, hence why decent chunks of empty seats in certain locations.  Its the nature of that industry, not everything sells all the time

I have a maverick idea that might make the seats sell.

[Dale]

4 minutes ago, ThornburyVilla said:

purchase a big chunk of GA+ seats

Unless they're silly that'd be on a sale or return basis. So the club doesn't count the income regardless of an individual picking up the ticket. 

[rodders0223]

The streets will never forget when the club used to put about 10k tickets on seatwave for 15 quid.

Oh, on topic.

Chris Heck is a sock cooker.