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Show attendance

Hi Scott,

Is it known what the lowest attended WWE PPV is compared to how many seats were available?

I notice a lot if talk about TV ratings and how important that data is to some but I'm more interested in knowing how well or not so well the shows are drawing.

Was 1995 a bad era for attendance for example or is that just a shitty year in regards to in ring product and WWF still drew decently regardless? Is this information even available?

​Yeah, Dave still regularly publishes attendance info in the Observer and has for a long time.  1995 was a disaster for house shows but PPVs were typically well attended if nothing else.  I think that 96/97, before Austin caught fire, were among the worst as far as PPVs go.  ​

Comments

  1. For what it's worth, I just logged on to the Quicken Loans Arena ticket site, and there are scattered seats on the floor and some blocks of four seats available in the upper deck. So not sold out, but not too far from full, either.

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  2. Wasn't the 1997 Royal Rumble disastrous in terms of attendance? Wasn't there a huge amount of comp tickets given out and areas papered over?

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  3. Yeah, as far as size of the venue vs seats sold it has to be up there.

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  4. It's funny because I just watched I think it was one of the Monday Night Wars episodes and they talk about the huge crowd there and completely gloss over anything about how a lot of those people didn't even pay to be there.

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  5. Are we including events where they had to move the event due to poor tick... security threats? If so, WrestleMania VII would probably have to be close to the top of the list of worst attendance:intended capacity ratio as the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena only holds about 1/5 to 1/6 the capacity of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

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  6. I was at WM 12 and practically the entire side of the arena where the hard camera is located was empty/roped off. They did a good job hiding this on the air. I have pictures of these sections, but they are on 35mm film and I don't have a scanner.

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  7. WWE really downsized the arenas they were working in the mid 90s also.

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  8. Worst attended in the modern era is definitely Survivor Series 2012.

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  9. Not disastrous, no. It was very disappointing in that they had tried to have a huge show there based around it being Shawn facing off against Sid, to get his title back.


    It was a big show. But, not as big as they'd hoped. As HartKiller said, in terms of venus vs seats it has to be up there. Sure. But, and I could be wrong, I think it was one of their best attended PPVs that year. Just nowhere near as big as they expected.

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  10. Aye, and thousands of people making that attendance record at WM 3 didn't even exist.

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  11. I'm curious to see if Miz gets fewer cheers than Mizdow in his own hometown. That would be spectacularly hilarious.

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  12. Wasn't that the show where you can only order the tickets through mail? That would explain the empty sections and that was also the only time they ever tried that strategy.

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  13. Yep. Only in that era could Syracuse, New York get any PPVs let alone two in the same year.

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  14. Wouldn't be surprised at all. Lawler always well-received here (except for the Ravens jersey at SummerSlam '96). Ziggler and MIz aren't as closely identified with Cleveland as Cena is from Boston, for example.

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