Same to you and yours BJ. I'm looking forward to our little jousts in the coming year.

Pretty much with you on this.

There is no need for Saints to do a 'big one' promotion game as we don't know what our crowds will be like in the new stadium yet. It may be worth assessing in a few years when the novelty wears off but I'm expecting our lowest crowd will be well above 10,000 next season anyway. The Saints should be makreting most games anyway and really selling the new stadium as it could potentially hit near to capacity alot next season if we promote it enough.

Some quick estimates:
Wigan, Warrington, Widnes, Salford! ............ 16 to 18k
Leeds, Hull, Bradford, Castleford.................. 15 to 16k
Hull KR, Huddersfield, Wakefield ................. 14 to 15k
London, Catalans. ..................................... 12 to 14k

If we can get around 200 000 through the Superleague turnstile, revenue could be around 4 000 000 quid.

What is the cost per game of a season ticket? Is £20 per head a good average, taking into account reductions for old giffers, kids, students etc?

In the past, we took the Cas game on the road to Liverpool, I would imagine that this could be a good, entertaining game to be treated as a "Sizzling Saints Summertime Special", if any are any. If we could increase that from your lower estimate, to a sell out, would generate an extra £60k in revenue, so well worth £20k or so of marketing

Saints must have passed 9000 mark with season tickets sales now.

That is fantastic news, they are pushing for the 10,000 mark and are presently sending out cards offering a final last chance to renew your season tickets up to the 5pm on the 14 th January at Early Bird Prices.

The postcards state 9000 and counting.

Saints must have passed 9000 mark with season tickets sales now.

That is fantastic news, they are pushing for the 10,000 mark and are presently sending out cards offering a final last chance to renew your season tickets up to the 5pm on the 14 th January at Early Bird Prices.

The postcards state 9000 and counting.

Well it is good news, so it's worth saying twice.

Wigan sales at 9,300 apparently, so it's looking really good for Saints if we have hit 9,000.

We just need to find a way of maintaining this high number through to 2013, 2014 etc and look at ways to increase the number as much as we can.

Think on field success would probably help.

out of the allocated season tickets from the north and south stands (about 6600) seats less than 350 are still avaliable, add to that the standing area is nearly full and every directors box is fully sold for the season. Not bad at all!

At last count I got 4357 allocated tickets sold out of an available 4711.

i counted the presold/allocated prawn sandwich seats in the southstand too

Great news! Would be great if we can hit the 10,000 mark.

If we get a season ticket surge we could end up as the club with the most season ticket holders. Not sure about Leeds but looks as though Wigan, Warrington and Hull won,t make 10000.
I suspect Leeds will have over 10k, but they have a population at least 5 times bigger than St Helen's.

Chaiman says in the Star today that 9500 season tickets sold, aiming for 10k and an season average gate of 14k
[urlhttp://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/saints/news/9467987.Saints_target_10_000_season_ticket_sales/[/url

Fantastic news for the club, who would have thought it a few years ago?

Amazing what a new stadium and some feel good factor can do, isn't it?

Yup!!

Do you think 14k is obtainable?

as an average, its very obtainable.
We'll probably get 18k for the first game against salford, and wigan, wire, leeds and possibly Hull. I'd be very surprised if we ever got under 10k this year on the back of nearly 10k season tickets plus away fans.

I reckon we'll get a good crowd against Widnes too. I imagine away fans will want to visit and hopefully they'll enjoy coming to the new place unlike KR. 14k average is very possible.

Reckon:
Salford, Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Hull 17 to 18k
Bradford, Castleford, Widnes, Hull KR 14 to 16k
Wakefield, London, Catalans, Hudds 10 to 14k

So thats 9 matches might average out at 16k the remaining 4 matches averaging out at 12k, so 14k looks certain even more if we have an entertaining free flowing rugby season.

I already know quite a few cumbrian lads thinking of having a day out to see the new stadium and to see the home grown talent in the team.

Average of 14K is realistic.

Anything more would be an exceptional achievement.

I'm a lot more cautious in my thinking.

Personally think Salford will be lucky to bring 1000 to Langtree park.
That means Saints will have to shift 17k tickets. I dont think that is a realistic attainable figure, for a match against low grade opposition.
I think the reality will be that we get about 14k-15k for the Salford match.

I hope i am wrong by the way. I was wrong in terms of season ticket sales. Never in a month of sundays would i have ever thought Saints had the level of support to get 9.5k+ season ticket holders.

Remember while there are many that have dismissed the friendly as not being the first genuine match, there are a lot of fans that clearly are treating it as that. Many of whom wont be season ticket holders. Therefore i suspect that quite a few of these people may give the Salford match a miss and instead save their money for the big games against Wire, Leeds, etc.

With regard to average gate over the season. A lot depends on form, but i think 13k average should be well within our grasp. Getting upto 15k would be really pushing it, as statistically it means that you need to be getting that level of support or above for most fixtures, with just a few being allowed to drop down to 12k or so. The reality is that matches against the likes of London and Catalan will draw the basic 9.5k season ticket holders and a few hundred to a thousand pay on the day speccies.

Realistically only Warrington and Wigan will fill the away end in my opinion.

Another thing to take into account as a possibility, is the police classing some matches as high risk.

Hull being a case in point. Regardless of the fact we get on allright with Hull fans, the plod may just look at it from a reputation point of view, and insist on segregation within the new ground for such matches. This would then preclude Saints fans from buying tickets in the East stand.