The location is great, the parking is fine if you do a bit of research on where to park beforehand and the stadium looks great from the outside. Once inside, I thought the open concourses seemed a strange design, and as we’ve heard from all quarters, will be awful in the winter and wet. However the food and drink facilities on offer were very good.

Once inside the stadium itself, I felt it was a massive let down and it is no way better than the HJ for a viewing spectator or in terms of its visual impact. The main stand with the exec boxes looked brilliant, but the halo and open corners, whilst brave in concept, looked dreadful and the swirling wind and rain on a bad night will be ridiculous. Cladding will certainly help, but that won’t sort the concourses out.

I also thought that Saints’ corporate power would be limited by having just one stand of exec boxes (or are there others that I’m missing?).

You can get into a p1ssing contest about whether Langtree or the HJ is better and which will be the better in future when all the trumpeted improvements are made to both grounds, but they’re very similar in most ways and it’s each to their own. I was just very surprised at how poor it looked when I got inside and frankly, the design of the halo, etc, struck me as A for effort, but C for execution.

That's my opinion, anyway.

Yeah it will. The cladding is going on the external walls, so the concourses will no longer be open to the elements.

I agree with certain elements of your comments DM. Making the game cheaper for kids might encourage more dads to take "little Johnny" to the game BUT from a commericla point of view, would it be worth it. For every child at the game who pays £5 instead of £15 (figures changed slightly for simplicity) the club would have to get two addition kids to compensate on the gate receipts. It would be hard to quantify have much pure extra review would be generated for "NEW" supporters attending those games which are not currently a sell-out but I am sure the club will have marketing data and stats models on this. If you take the WarringtonvSaints game though, the HJ at its current capacity is a sell-out so therefore cannot accomomdate any EXTRA fans. The Saints crowd at LP was announced at 15800ish which (again in simple terms) is 500ish more than would be at the HJ. IF all 500 were adults then this is an extra £1000 on the gate. This would be lost if only 100 kids paid £10 less at Saints than at Warrington.

Pure laws of supply and demand....it doesnt make commercial sense for Warrington to reduce kids prices. Clubs have a choice of whether they make the game cheap to attract addition numbers or whether they charge an amount which maximises their gate revenue. Bradford chose one route, Warrington another. Who got it right?]

Your 16-21 argument does have merit though as there will be supporters who fall into that catagory. Changes coming in over the next two years will reduce these numbers when students have to stay "in education" until 18. Once again though it all comes down to who pays full price at the moment and how many more will pay the reduced price.

Does it always have to be about "the bottom line" though? Saints are a bigger club than us and have a bigger ground which reflects that. Warrington is a bigger town that St Helens though so arguably we have more potential to attract more fans if we can sustain the level of success Saints have had.

You mention Bradford and of course they have had massive problems since the success dried up and people started deserting them. They had to lower prices to try and get those people back. Success tends to go in cycles, so Saints and ourselves may both have that problem in future, but that remains to be seen.

Either way, I imagine Saints and ourselves to have a fairly similar revenue stream - Saints may have a slight advantage but not massively so. Would the attendance on Monday night have been significantly lower if they had charged £14 on the turnstile for kids to access the terraces? I doubt it. Slightly lower perhaps but not massively so.

Therefore Saints sacrificed some potential revenue in order to let young fans in at a price which is easier on their parents' wallets than Warrington charge. For that I applaud them.

What wire could do is introduce prices for the lower attended games, but for the sell out games leave them as they are, i've no problem with two tier price structuring, supply and demand ateotd.

I can't say i was overly impressed, yeah its new and yes its miles better than knowsley road but i wasn't bowled over.

Maybe its because there's been a spate of new stadia lately, or maybe i was expecting something much much more from what the PR has been about it.

it felt somewhat daft, going inside, and then still being outside before heading up to the terraces.

It's not overly impressive inside either, one main stand, not too dissimilar from the one at leigh, and the others, i thought it was supposed to be a bowl? It looked and felt to me, half finished.

Do we know what the corporate £££ is like for them on a matchday? how many boxes or actually dining facilities?

Sponsors Lounge £75 each + VAT (£90) 3 course meal
Players Lounge £59 + VAT (£70.80) Hot & Cold Buffet

Yes. Warrington Sports Holdings is a business.

What were you expecting? It's in line with modern stadiums and for a rugby league facility, wholly owned by the club, it's a fantastic outcome is it not?

It's apparently doing really well from a commercial point of view, with conference suites, meeting rooms and dining facilities being used daily by businesses. Corporate boxes have sold out regularly throughout the season as well and the bars are making a wedge on matchdays and we've just opened a really posh coffee shop that is open throughout the week. The club is also showing away games at the stadium and we're making plenty of wonger through that as well.

The cladding will give it a far more finished sheen. The open concourses and lack of cladding is obviously an issue, but the club's designers quoted other stadiums like the Galpharm for example where this exists. They tested the height of the walls and the direction of the wind movement and concluded the stadium didn't need cladding, but could be added for £x. After experiencing some pretty nasty weather early doors this season it became evident it did need cladding. Saints are therefore paying to add this at the end of the season. Once that's done it'll be like the HJ's big cousin.

Who came up with that pearler?

To be fair, Warrington have been doing all that for years plus have other businesses actually based from the HJ (NHS for example). We're still the blueprint to be followed. Although LP is newer, and a higher capacity, it's still light years behind how diversely developed the HJ is.

Well you'd expect the Halliwell Jones to be diversely developed as it's been there for a good few years, so it has established links and contacts etc.

Langtree Park is getting there and when the stadium becomes established it will be a very good money making machine, as it seems to be already. Every time I go past the stadium during the day the car-park is packed full of cars, so something is always happening there...I mean the other day it was full of British Gas vans. The hospitality seems to be near full every home game which is great.

I'm actually surprised by the comments on here, they seem to be positive which shows the potential that it has once it has been finished. If you compare your views to that of Bradford fans then you will see the effect that the weather has. There is no doubt that the original design was a monumental balls up, but there are legal issues that are being cleared up behind the scenes according to a statement released the other month and we have been promised that it'll be fixed after the season.

I'm sure you don't really care about what's happening at our club, so I'll shut up now

Chaz, whatever you do don't disagree with him, you will just go round in circles...apparently.

Sorry Albion couldn't resist.