More Seats

Ocko

Well-Known Member
#21
I think Cardiff Council are planning for any new arena to be on the Brains site, so just on the outskirts of town.
 
#22
My understanding is Rightacre are pushing for the site to not have an arena on that development. Cardiff is expanding and attracting businesses at a very healthy rate, to place an arena in the city centre onto that site would be ludicrous. The final decision is yet to be made public.
As for the Devils future, we are certainly back, how long, who cares, two facts I've learnt as a Devils fan, the sport is never going to be mainstream and owners of British Hockey Clubs can rarely be trusted.
 

kingmo19.1

Well-Known Member
#23
I have been on the gantry. Easily able to fit an extra 5000 seats, 5 snooker tables, a small animal petting zoo, 3 land rover discoveries, a climbing wall, a full production team and possibly a gym. Or not
There we are - and at long last, somebody else has cottoned on to the potential of the Gantry! :)

It's CAVENOUS up there !!!! ... I was even thinking of proposing a 9 hole pitch and putt next to the nightclub.
 
#24
It is very easy for the likes of season ticket holders to try and shut down debate and discussion of seating expansion of the IAW, as for them, getting a seat and watching our beloved Devils play is obviously not an issue.

However, the recent sell outs, while definitely being a very good thing for the club, do mean that those such as new fans, fans who can't afford season tickets, fans that can make many games for whatever reason and so on, directly experience the negative effects of the current capacity of IAW. People are clearly very keen on following the Devils and to tell those who are unable to get their hands on tickets 'that's just the way it is' just doesn't seem right or reflective of the nature of ice hockey. There is potential for the Devils to grow even more than they already have, so naturally people would like to ruminate upon this.

It is a valid discussion and should so be so readily dismissed but it should be noted that talking about this subject does not in anyway diminish the many positive aspects that the IAW has brought ice hockey in Cardiff.
 

Johnnybravo1927

Well-Known Member
#25
It is very easy for the likes of season ticket holders to try and shut down debate and discussion of seating expansion of the IAW, as for them, getting a seat and watching our beloved Devils play is


obviously not an issue.

However, the recent sell outs, while definitely being a very good thing for the club, do mean that those such as new fans, fans who can't afford season tickets, fans that can make many games for whatever reason and so on, directly experience the negative effects of the current capacity of IAW. People are clearly very keen on following the Devils and to tell those who are unable to get their hands on tickets 'that's just the way it is' just doesn't seem right or reflective of the nature of ice hockey. There is potential for the Devils to grow even more than they already have, so naturally people would like to ruminate upon this.

It is a valid discussion and should so be so readily dismissed but it should be noted that talking about this subject does not in anyway diminish the many positive aspects that the IAW has brought ice hockey in Cardiff.
The huge expense of buying a rink we currently pay no rent for plus the cost of extending it and adding extra seats when we dont sell out every game just doesnt add up. There probably isnt 3000 people wanting a ticket and cant get 1 on sold out games. The club is having a tremendous season so people want to be there but this needs to be sustained for years before it becomes an acceptable risk to invest more money into seating
 

JC23

Well-Known Member
#26
People are far too quick to forget that IAW is a business, and if the owners of our club bought said business, in order to actually make any money (to invest in our club) they would have to in turn charge our club to use the ice...


Meaning overall, we would be worse off. Not gonna happen.

We've got an incredible deal the way things are.

As for expansion being shut down by "Season ticket holders" I'm not a season ticket holder this season, for various reasons. But, the talk of expanding IAW has been done to death. It's not worth it, there's no real scope for it, and it's not going to happen.

LET IT DIE.

Christ...
 

bdevil

Active Member
#27
The club is run as a business so if the owners bought the rink why wouldn't it be bought as an asset to the business that is the club?
 

JC23

Well-Known Member
#28
The club is run as a business so if the owners bought the rink why wouldn't it be bought as an asset to the business that is the club?
Where do I start??

Firstly, where does the revenue come from to make it a viable business? 36 weekends a year where 3000 people come through the door for one night, maybe sometimes two. The rest of the time, it's practically empty! Public skating during term time, you're talking maybe 8 people a day charged at £8 per person £64 a day, if they each spend £10 on food and drinks at the cafe you're still only making £144 a day during the week which means you're practically losing money daily right there.

Then you have the various ice hockey teams and clubs below the Devils who use the ice, £150 a week is all clubs like the junior Devils are paying, say for instance there are 10 teams paying that weekly, that's still only £1500 a week, not forgetting our lovely little £144 a day from the public skating (woooo) so making around £16008 a week if the Devils have no games that weekend at home.

Which I doubt even covers the Salary of the full time staff at the rink, plus the electricity bill.

So, how do they make up for this?
They hold events like the Netball (are we allowed to talk about that now? ) which was hiring out the rink for £20000+ to host an event at the venue, or they hold a night of boxing etc. Then for 30 weekends a year (averaged for the number of weekends the Devils would actually play home games) there are 3000+ people inside the rink, and IAW cannot staff themselves for it, because they have no money, therefore limiting their earning potential on those weekends. Bear in mind, all they make money on is the cafe and the bars during games.

Simple bit of math here, but 3000 people spending for instance £15 each at the cafe/bar still only makes them £45000. So 1.35mil a year made from match night...

Adding that on to our £16008 a week made elsewhere (rounded up) 2.2mil a year.

Do you really think IAW costs much less than three million pounds per year to run? Let alone a budget for a team?

In summary, (and in my view...you don't have to agree, and I wouldn't ask you to) it would be ridiculous to buy such an "asset" for our club which could end up burdening us for years to come, limiting our on ice budget and our potential to one day move on to somewhere bigger.

Don't forget, we're only getting such a high demand this season due to the fact that we have done so well across the board, who's to say that next year we won't end up having the CHL hang over us until Christmas time and finish up in 5th like Nottingham did this year after the Continental Cup? I wonder how many games we'd sell out when playing around in mid table...
 

Johnnybravo1927

Well-Known Member
#29
Where do I start??

Firstly, where does the revenue come from to make it a viable business? 36 weekends a year where 3000 people come through the door for one night, maybe sometimes two. The rest of the time, it's practically empty! Public skating during term time, you're talking maybe 8 people a day charged at £8 per person £64 a day, if they each spend £10 on food and drinks at the cafe you're still only making £144 a day during the week which means you're practically losing money daily right there.

Then you have the various ice hockey teams and clubs below the Devils who use the ice, £150 a week is all clubs like the junior Devils are paying, say for instance there are 10 teams paying that weekly, that's still only £1500 a week, not forgetting our lovely little £144 a day from the public skating (woooo) so making around £16008 a week if the Devils have no games that weekend at home.

Which I doubt even covers the Salary of the full time staff at the rink, plus the electricity bill.

So, how do they make up for this?
They hold events like the Netball (are we allowed to talk about that now? ) which was hiring out the rink for £20000+ to host an event at the venue, or they hold a night of boxing etc. Then for 30 weekends a year (averaged for the number of weekends the Devils would actually play home games) there are 3000+ people inside the rink, and IAW cannot staff themselves for it, because they have no money, therefore limiting their earning potential on those weekends. Bear in mind, all they make money on is the cafe and the bars during games.

Simple bit of math here, but 3000 people spending for instance £15 each at the cafe/bar still only makes them £45000. So 1.35mil a year made from match night...

Adding that on to our £16008 a week made elsewhere (rounded up) 2.2mil a year.

Do you really think IAW costs much less than three million pounds per year to run? Let alone a budget for a team?

In summary, (and in my view...you don't have to agree, and I wouldn't ask you to) it would be ridiculous to buy such an "asset" for our club which could end up burdening us for years to come, limiting our on ice budget and our potential to one day move on to somewhere bigger.

Don't forget, we're only getting such a high demand this season due to the fact that we have done so well across the board, who's to say that next year we won't end up having the CHL hang over us until Christmas time and finish up in 5th like Nottingham did this year after the Continental Cup? I wonder how many games we'd sell out when playing around in mid table...
Agree with all of that except the junior devils only paying £150 a week. Its a hell of a lot more than that but still nowhere near enough to make IAW worth buying
 

JC23

Well-Known Member
#30
Agree with all of that except the junior devils only paying £150 a week. Its a hell of a lot more than that but still nowhere near enough to make IAW worth buying
From what I'm told bud, that's all the people who run the club pay for the ice time.

I know you (players parents) pay a hell of a lot more collectively. Just going by what I've been told by others on that one. Which also matches up to a lot more than what I've paid for ice time myself over the years before IAW.

I may well be wrong mind you.
 

Ocko

Well-Known Member
#31
It is indeed £150 an hour to rent the ice. But I think the juniors have 2 sessions a week each plus 2 hours each for games on a weekend.

But still it is hardly worth buying. The club don't gain anything from buying the rink and expanding at all. It cost about £18m to build so let's say Greenbank want £15m plus a couple of mil to expand you're looking at close to if not greatly exceeding £20m.

So what do you get for your £20m? A extra thousand seats and a massive debt on the club. Ice time is free anyway so what do you gain?

If there is an appetite to own our own facility then the club are far better off building their own rink. If a twin pad 3k seat rink cost £18m then a single pad rink could have a much bigger capacity than what we currently have for a similar price.
 

Samael

Well-Known Member
#32
I prefer the move to the CIA option. For me IAW is managed and owned by a company who dont have any interest in British ice hockey and they will neglect the facility over time as they are more interested in house building. Im actually suprised the ownership group even expressed an interest in it especially as we are there rent free at the moment.
 

youngbob

Active Member
#33
Just finished our 24th season watching Devils and have renewed season tickets, but for someone who's new to this that's a valid question to ask and people should treat them with some respect

There's been speculation for months, with all sorts of ideas, people being ridiculed on both sides of the argument
One thing missing is any factual basis in either direction as far as i can see
Does anyone KNOW - i.e. seen engineering specifications, not "my mate's a builder and he says it would be simple / impossible", whether the building structure is even capable of being expanded?
Was it designed with the possibility of extended height and/or width? If not that sounds like a hugely expensive job
Would it impinge on plans for the surrounding area?
I've not been onto the gantry, doubt I ever will, but it appears to be full of HVAC piping, and doesn't have much ceiling height for seating, while standing by the railings would suit some, but probably not the sponsors who would get beer spilled on them....

And as has been mentioned, we've been in IAW for ONE season, sports fans can be fickle, who's to say it will be sell-outs next season and so on

A couple of years ago it was "why does it need to be so big, we'll never fill it" - things change, they certainly have in the time I've been watching, and there have been times which anyone who experienced them hopes will never be repeated

There's every indication that we now have our best ever ownership team and management, but they'll want to see more evidence, I think, before rushing into potentially massive investments, and none of us knows where the EIHL will be in a few years
 

Paul Sullivan

Well-Known Member
#34
There are vital operations carried out on the Gantry each game regarding spectator safety, security, game analysis for Lordo, web streaming, and match night operations / production. Not to mention media from visiting teams and media outlets / broadcasters.

If anyone is able to inform us where these operations could be performed from if this space were to beused for spectators, I'd be all ears as to adding some seating on the top level.

This genuinely isn't a few of us pooh-poohing a suggestion - this is a logistical response to the question about putting seating up there.

I mean just for one obvious question, as the game being recorded is a League requirement - where would you put our cameraman?

We are talking about a far bigger deal than some stud partitioning and a lick of Dulux.

Our continued success in selling tickets, thanks to the hard work of our full time staff, is a fantastic achievement. It's worth pointing out that whilst Nottingham can attract an average of an additional say 2000 fans per game, they also have to pay around £15,000 to hire the Motorpoint each night. Likewise Sheffield. If we assume the average ticket price in the building is say £12, that means our ice time deal alone equates to us having a sold out 4,300 seat arena - so it's not too shabby, really. Only Belfast potentially own all the cards as they are the only arena team to own and operate the team and the venue. Edinburgh do also (and have around 4,000 seats), but they seem unable to be competitive despite this.

But moreover - my God do I love us debating the problems of having an outrageously successful team both on and off the ice. How times have changed.
 
D

Deleted member 1337

Guest
#35
This may seem like a boring and repetitive topic, but I'd rather us talk about how to fit more fans in with our arena not fitting more than 3000 than a few years ago when we'd struggle to get over a thousand and wed be asking how to get more fans, all in all rather a good problem to have..
 

Milky

Active Member
#36
It is indeed £150 an hour to rent the ice. But I think the juniors have 2 sessions a week each plus 2 hours each for games on a weekend.

But still it is hardly worth buying. The club don't gain anything from buying the rink and expanding at all. It cost about £18m to build so let's say Greenbank want £15m plus a couple of mil to expand you're looking at close to if not greatly exceeding £20m.

So what do you get for your £20m? A extra thousand seats and a massive debt on the club. Ice time is free anyway so what do you gain?

If there is an appetite to own our own facility then the club are far better off building their own rink. If a twin pad 3k seat rink cost £18m then a single pad rink could have a much bigger capacity than what we currently have for a similar price.
I've never been convinced at the figures bandied around on the build cost to be fair, however even if you are right (or even if we reduce that figure to £15m) it has no bearing on its current commercial value.

The bricks. mortar, pipework, electrics etc all have an inherent base cost but the driving factor for it's valuation is the income it generates as an asset. I've mentioned this before in a previous post (and I'm being lazy so can't be bothered to re type it;)) but I cannot see any justification that the acquisition cost will exceed £7m.

It simply doesn't generate the income to justify it.
 

Have Hope#35

Well-Known Member
#38
17 million was the build cost.
Doesn't that include the land cost of £4-5m which was free so lets say around £12m!? I believe Greenbank wanted to recover around £10m but were offered around £6m. Maybe we're just playing the waiting game as I believe the building is still making a substancial loss, £5-6m may soon sound like an inviting prospect!?
 
#40
Wasn't there supposed to be a ski slope above the arena at some point, or has that been scrapped now? If it's still in plan, surely that would require some sort of roof restructure, which could be the time to look at extra seats?
 
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