Estimated crowd for Bledisloe Cuo?

[Stoob]

With the recent financial crisis, especially the current exchange rate for the NZ & OZ dollar, how many people do you think will be at Saturday's Bledisloe Cup game?

[MovingIn07]

Me! But I didn't pay for my ticket....

[squid]

I'm looking for a free ticket....

[Stoob]

I'm looking for a free ticket....

I wouldn't rule it out, hkticketing sent out emails a couple of weeks back to remind people of the game... could you imagine that happening for the 7's

[PDLM]

My guess would be in the range 25-30,000. They clearly can't sell the rubbish tickets that were reserved for the local general population, and corporate tickets always have a 20-30% no show rate. At the Sevens they get given away and the place ends up almost full but for this one because it's reserved seating you can't just give the tickets away to random people like you can for the Sevens.

[Stoob]

My guess would be in the range 25-30,000. They clearly can't sell the rubbish tickets that were reserved for the local general population, and corporate tickets always have a 20-30% no show rate. At the Sevens they get given away and the place ends up almost full but for this one because it's reserved seating you can't just give the tickets away to random people like you can for the Sevens.

Yes, I don't believe the reserved seating with bronze/silver/gold tiers idea will go down as the smartest HKRFU marketing move.

If this game happens again I'm sure it will be a "bums on seats" strategy.

[jonnye]

Is there that much of a market for rugby with the local market? I know that football is ridiculously popular with the locals, but I've not seen that replicated to the same extent with rugby.

Rugby isn't a global sport in the same way that football is. There is undoubtedly a lot of interest in this game from expats from New Zealand and Australia, and also from other rugby playing nations, particularly South Africa and England. Not too sure if the Americans and Canadians are going to be that bother though?

And as I like to say to wind the Aussies and Kiwis up ... it's only a match between two world cup quarter finalists after all ...

[I should point out, I'm definitely going, and thoroughly looking forward to the match having been at the first game in Sydney earlier this year]

[MovingIn07]

Turned out to be 39,862 - not bad

[PDLM]

The question was how many people would be in the ground, not how many tickets would they sell or give away.

From looking on the TV is seemed to me that there were several thousand empty seats. Certainly far, far more that the 138 empty seats that your figure would suggest.

[fm7]

I was surprised by the number as well. The crowd was bigger than I expected and it looked like they sold every section. But around me there were lots of empty seats, 1-3 in every row.

Aren't crowd numbers meant to reflect attendance, not sales?