Quote: Smithers99 "Your last sentence is so well put (so is the first sentence as well). Three months ago I would have paid no attention to it. My perspective is so changed. I thought we'd go to a football match, now we are going to an event. We get there early to eat and drink having checked which food vans are arriving for the particular game.
Post match there is the (Wimbledon) Man of the Match interview in the Pub Area. Subtle but I promise you it increases the beer sales and also forces you to leave via the Club Shop as more merchandise flows.
Then there is the Kid's Area. The opportunity to take penalties or for the smaller kids drawing type activities. I saw Haydon (the mascot) was goalkeeper yesterday.
The only concern I have is how the Broncos use the Fans Zone. The East and South Stands were closed for the Papa John's match v Portsmouth reducing capacity to around 5,800 with no access to the Fan Zones. I'm not sure how the Broncos will utilise the ground with a presumably smaller crowd.
Here's a story of the Street Food Van's. Nobody (supporters) knew about them before the first match. So most supporters ate and drunk locally arriving late at the ground to see a variety of food options in addition to the stadium concessions. So the six vans did a poor trade. But the fans noticed, so for the midweek match three days later many changed their plans. Only three vans came this time, two doing chips. The queues were massive, even if you could even work out what was a queue.
I spoke to the guy at the local Fish & Chip shop. At the first match they sold very little and only came again as they signed up as a sponsor of the Family Zone section in the East Stand. On the Tuesday they were overwhelmed and ran out of food. The club also listened in their Thursday (for Saturday matches) Stadium Guide articles they now list the names of the vans attending the next match enabling supporters to make an informed choice of whether to eat at the ground.
The food vans, pub and beer stands remain open post match.
The food varieties include Fish & Chips, Pasta, Pizza, Jamaican, Vegan, Toasties, Indian plus some others I forget for now. The club stands sell burgers, hot dogs, pies etc. A variety of Beers and Ciders on tap at Beer only outlets. Basic Wine options (and beer) at the main concession outlets.'"
I think you are not comparing apples with apples, as a supporter of amateur football for many years now I can remember AFC starting in the Combined Counties League, every AFC away game was a bonus for the clubs in that league because of the money they made out of AFC fans attending the games.
The clubs in the lower leagues made a lot of money as AFC moved up the pyramid because of AFC fans attending away games. London broncos have been the opposite since 1997 when I first started supporting the Broncos they have gone from gates in the thousands to gates in the very low hundreds, moving to 6 new grounds over that period (including Plough Lane). Every time the club has moved we have been promised this move will be the last because we want to build a fan base.
AFC have not had the problem of moving home grounds since they were established, they made their home base Kingsmedow which is very close to Wimbledon and then moved back to Plough Lane which was where their original home ground was. With the move back to Plough Lane they are going pick up old fans who would not travel to Kingsmedow and a number of people who have since moved into the local area. Broncos are relying on picking up AFC fans and locals to the ground, this has not worked in the past after moving to 3 football grounds and 2 rugby union grounds. The gates may be swelled initially but once the novelty wears off it will be the same old same old.
I would love to see it work for AFC and the Broncos at Plough Lane, but do not build your hopes up.