AEW attendance figures are becoming a cause for concern.
Although the upcoming episode of AEW Dynamite has promoted Adam Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki and Sting appearing live ahead of time, fans in the Savannah, Georgia area are not buying tickets for the event. As reported by WrestleTix, less than 2,000 tickets have been sold for the next taping. According to a new update, this has been an ongoing trend due to a number of factors.
Analysing the ticket sales on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that previous shows have seen a sudden uptake as the show drew nearer and increased audiences. However, as has been seen in recent shows, there is not any last-minute interest coupled with diminishing returns when revisiting markets:
One of the things is that like the last quarter, there were a lot of weak advances in the last quarter. But they had a lot of the shows where they got late buys, whether it was Bryan and Okada or Mystico or having the MJF and Kenny Omega match, or just good local promotion, sending guys in or lowering ticket prices, things like that. So I kind of got whatever the word is, kind of got lulled into this sense of, okay, the advances suck, but it’s not that bad. And it really wasn’t that bad the last quarter. Well, now, it’s that bad and it looks worse.
I mean, the Wednesday show. They’re under 2,000. 4,000 to me is fine for AEW, under 4,000 is not so great, under 3,000 is pretty bad. And under 2000 is really bad, especially when you’re coming to the city once a year. They got Tulsa coming up, they’ve never been to Tulsa, and they’re under 2,000 there as well.
So I mean, there’s real [concern]. And then the last week, I mean, St. Louis on Saturday, when I saw that number. St. Louis is a historically great wrestling city, it’s not like they come there often. And to do under 3,000 on Saturday night, it’s really not good at all. And, you know, another problem that they have is that every time they go back to a market, in more cases than not, the attendance goes down.
Meltzer continued, noting that the decline in AEW attendance is approaching the same level as WCW did in the year 2000 and that there haven’t been any changes to drive sales:
There’s always exceptions to every rule. But in more cases than not, they go down. And it’s like, okay, when you’re at four [thousand], and you’re going down, and not so great. When you’re 2,800 and you’re going down in a major city, where are you headed? I mean you’re getting now to WCW 2000.
People hate when I use that term, but they’re getting there and that’s a scary place to be. And I mean, there’s a lot of slight things that they could do, but they haven’t. I know that there’s Kosha Irby in and this is actually his job, his job is going to be to get this stuff up. And it’s way too early to put any blame on him. He just got there.
Meltzer concluded by noting that even though the live fans who do attend the tapings love what they see and there are those at home who buy the pay-per-views, there has been difficulty in getting fans in the area to travel to the live shows:
As far as touring and promoting and things like that, even if you’re the greatest promoter in the world, people are going to buy more or less based on the product and the excitement of the product. I mean, WCW had Zane Bresloff in 2000 and they couldn’t sell tickets, because nobody wanted to buy tickets to the product. And with AEW, it’s like the number of people who want to buy tickets to the product. They buy the pay-per-views, watch Wednesday night TV, but they’re not going in any great numbers to the shows. The people that go seem to love the shows.
Is The Next AEW PPV An Anomaly?
Although there have been concerns regarding AEW’s attendance, interest for AEW Revolution has been very strong with over 15,000 tickets sold for the upcoming event. While Tony Khan will be very happy with this, many are predicting that this is due to it being Sting’s final match and not for the show itself. Many are expecting a sharp decline in fans attending Double or Nothing later in the year.
If you use any quotes from this article please credit Wrestling Observer Radio and leave a h/t to Inside The Ropes.