Cardiff Bay “Masterplan” including a 15,000 seater arena!

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moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#4
#4
I would love to see an arena like that hosting the playoffs and the world championships in a post covid19 world. Todd and co would have a lot of work to put in to build the fan base to a size that could sustain devils matches there though. That said, the panthers went from 3000 to what they have now pretty easily.
 
Wannabe2

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#5
#5
The thing is that the Devils pay nothing for ice time and that’s a huge help, to then go somewhere and have to pay between £12-15K per game, plus office rental,and extra stewarting may be a step too far.
 
august04 2.0

august04 2.0

Well-Known Member
#7
#7
Cardiff needs a multipurpose arena of this size for concerts etc but it’s of no interest to the Devils I wouldn’t have thought. Simply too big and too expensive to run an EIHL team out of there. It might be great for the play-offs though if you could get an ice pad down and 15,000 hockey fans in there.
 
Wannabe2

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#8
#8
A 15,000 seater would be down to approx 10-11,000 for hockey, Nottingham is also centrally located in the country, myself I like it where we are.
 
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moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#9
#9
Wannabe2 said:
A 15,000 seater would be down to approx 10-11,000 for hockey, Nottingham is also centrally located in the country, myself I like it where we are.
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But that would still make it the biggest building in the league by quite a margin, unless I'm very much mistaken. I'm not sure that the argument about Nottingham being centrally located really stacks up - particularly from the point of view of the Scottish teams. The last time we had a centrally located arena for playoffs is when they used the MEN in Manchester. I'm sure the EIHL would love a venue in which they could sit another 4000 paying customers.
 
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pjj365

Well-Known Member
#10
#10
moggy#9 said:
But that would still make it the biggest building in the league by quite a margin, unless I'm very much mistaken. I'm not sure that the argument about Nottingham being centrally located really stacks up - particularly from the point of view of the Scottish teams. The last time we had a centrally located arena for playoffs is when they used the MEN in Manchester. I'm sure the EIHL would love a venue in which they could sit another 4000 paying customers.
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The new arena would (eventually) stack up against Nottingham - hotels both local and, with good transport links, the city centre, loads of Air B&B, eateries of all types (at the moment a bit low on snack bars/fast food places though) and great night life

Two possible problems
1 - could the Devils sustain a 10k stadium (bums on seats and the extra cost) to make it worth putting in an ice plant. I doubt it the short to medium term
2 - would Cardiff Council subsidise play-off as I am led to believe Nottingham does.

It's a great idea/dream though
 
K

kingmo19.1

Well-Known Member
#11
Thread starter #11
Was thinking this for a while .... there are quite a lot of general sports fans in Wales - I now quite a few folk who watch Cardiff City and the Devils and a few rugby fans who also watch the Devils.

If we were to ever look at a bigger venue then I think the club should be looking at tying in with these groups of fans whereby they work with the local football and rugby clubs and offer a joint season ticket for both sports - the fans would likely benefit from some form of reduced pricing but each sport could then benefit from an increased fan base and attendance.

Just good for thought at this point.
 
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moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#12
#12
pjj365 said:
The new arena would (eventually) stack up against Nottingham - hotels both local and, with good transport links, the city centre, loads of Air B&B, eateries of all types (at the moment a bit low on snack bars/fast food places though) and great night life

Two possible problems
1 - could the Devils sustain a 10k stadium (bums on seats and the extra cost) to make it worth putting in an ice plant. I doubt it the short to medium term
2 - would Cardiff Council subsidise play-off as I am led to believe Nottingham does.

It's a great idea/dream though
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Those are fair points. The issue of increasing regular attendances is a challenge. This is why I would favour specific one off events to start. I think that in the longer term though the devils must grow their fan base to be successful.

Given the challenges local businesses are going to face over the next few years, bringing thousands of fans in for a weekend seems a great way to bring money into local hotels and restaurants. I would hope that any investment from the council would get returned many times over into the local economy.
 
O

Ocko

Well-Known Member
#13
#13
I’d like to think it would certainly be a consideration.

The current deal we have is excellent - no getting away from that. But who is to say we couldn’t get a good deal in the new arena, the arena might need/want a regular tenant. If we say it’s 15k rent per game at worst case scenario. That’s only roughly 1k paying fans extra through the door. So the second we start hitting 4k crowds we are immediately in a better position than we are now financially. The deal in IAW will still exist so it’s not an impossible idea to still use it for cup games/lesser games and as a training facility.

Clearly small crowds in a big venue is a bit crap but if anyone can fill it, it’s probably TK. It’s likely 10k seats for hockey when you take out seating for the pad - only slightly bigger than Sheffield - so why not try and compete with them? If there is a chance for growth we have to try and exploit it IMO.

IAW has been amazing for the club but the capacity and corporate/hospitality facilities always lacked a bit of forward thinking and optimism, which ultimately will hamstring the club. In terms of the size of the brand and organisation, this is as good as it gets - we have to always look to improve. The potential the Devils could have by having the chance to go somewhere bigger and better must be very tempting for the management.
 
M

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#14
#14
Ocko said:
I’d like to think it would certainly be a consideration.

The current deal we have is excellent - no getting away from that. But who is to say we couldn’t get a good deal in the new arena, the arena might need/want a regular tenant. If we say it’s 15k rent per game at worst case scenario. That’s only roughly 1k paying fans extra through the door. So the second we start hitting 4k crowds we are immediately in a better position than we are now financially. The deal in IAW will still exist so it’s not an impossible idea to still use it for cup games/lesser games and as a training facility.

Clearly small crowds in a big venue is a bit crap but if anyone can fill it, it’s probably TK. It’s likely 10k seats for hockey when you take out seating for the pad - only slightly bigger than Sheffield - so why not try and compete with them? If there is a chance for growth we have to try and exploit it IMO.

IAW has been amazing for the club but the capacity and corporate/hospitality facilities always lacked a bit of forward thinking and optimism, which ultimately will hamstring the club. In terms of the size of the brand and organisation, this is as good as it gets - we have to always look to improve. The potential the Devils could have by having the chance to go somewhere bigger and better must be very tempting for the management.
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You make a good point about hospitality boxes. That can be a big money spinner and is something that all of our rinks so far have lacked on a decent scale.
 
tim78

tim78

Well-Known Member
#15
#15
Does anyone else think a 15,000 seated arena could be a bit of a mare to attend down the bay.
It sounds great but if you only have 4000 people in 15,000 arena, the sound and atmosphere will go amiss.

Hopefully there won't be concerts on a Sat/Sun night (8o) .
 
Kevlar68

Kevlar68

Well-Known Member
#16
#16
Let's be realistic not idealistic here.
We've seen moans on here about lack of atmosphere in a arena thats full capacity, we've seen games with maybe just 2000 - 2500 fans in attendance in a 3100 caoacity arena, now translate that over to a 10,000 - 15,000 arena. At a push I reckon we could get 4000 avid fans not piss up night out groups.
Having run hospitality at the WNIR we had 4 boxes and maybe 3/4 of the season all boxes were booked at once and 2 of them were taken up by Temme and Guy.
I've also run hospitality at the Millennium Stadium and half of the suite bookings weren't even interested about the game they were just out for the jolly.
Hospitality boxes only work well if they are sponsored boxes for a whole season by a company as that way there is a point of contact for the people using that box not just one off bookings and that box has been paid for all season whether its being used or not. When you have hospitality boxes just for match by match bookings they can be left empty for weeks so add nothing to revenue.
The 2 boxes in Gretzkys Bar at the WNIR had great views out from the scoreboard end but the seasons were never fully booked out for those boxes and they were match by match bookings.
The only possible way of making a large venue good for a ice hockey crowd is acoustic sound proof curtains cutting down the capacity of the arena. They use them when certain concerts don't sell out and numbers are low to try to make it look and sound better.
 
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Wannabe2

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#17
#17
It won’t be 15,000 for hockey, it will be more like 10,000, for hockey, and as for concerts they will take preference as that’s where the money lies. We would need 6/7,000 to get the place buzzing.
 
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BostonBart22

Well-Known Member
#18
#18
Wannabe2 said:
It won’t be 15,000 for hockey, it will be more like 10,000, for hockey, and as for concerts they will take preference as that’s where the money lies. We would need 6/7,000 to get the place buzzing.
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Tyson Fury v Joshua on the undercard b4 a game of hockey... saying that if its the same delay as the BBT these boxers will be in their late 40 s
 
tim78

tim78

Well-Known Member
#19
#19
Wooooow, I like the idea of Tyson fury in the warm up for games... would bring a bigger crowd and help replace some of the old skool hockey we've been missing. ;)
 
E

Earnie

Well-Known Member
#20
#20
It would be so good to have an ice pad there just as a luxury and a back up for big events and even the possibility of a Playoff Weekend.
Commercially I guess it is not practical and Nottingham is so well placed as a fairly central location. ( Let’s not forget Wembley was the best and far from being central )
 
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