The crowd has been really quiet in both our home games.
I noticed the drums have gone from the south stand and the haven't turned up in the east stand.
Is this a planned policy by the club?

i thought this at wakey. its silent! are we gonna be 'that' set of supporters who are silent this season? hopefully those who are also going castleford on sunday will be vocal!

What's happened to the much touted Singing Section: I thought it was supposed to be in the SE corner of the east stand?

Also what happened to the flags that were above the South Stand.
They wern't there v Wakefield and were missed

Perhaps our Landlord has come up with some new rules for this season.

The club have ruined it. They've put the 'singing section' in the east stand in a bit where nobody sits. They won't allow the drums into the south stand because it's a 'family stand.' So now when ever you try to start a chant people turn round and look at you like you have 4 heads.
Away games are the way forward these days, something needs to be done to sort out some atmosphere at home.

The flags were there against huddersfield

Sorry to hear that, i enjoyed the atmosphere in the south stand, my kids hate it if we sit anywhere else
Because of the singing and being part of the crowd. Its a shame the club have taken this line, but they probably won't care as long as the money keeps rolling in.

I think the club probably did what they have to head off the problems that a small number of people had started to cause over the last few years.

Regarding the atmosphere or lack of it the nature of the two games so far may have contributed. Against Huddersfield the team produced little worth singing about and we were comfortably second best. Against Wakefield we were comfortably in control for most of the game so the tension that helps build atmosphere was never there in either game. Add to that the Wakefield game being on a Sunday when our crowd tend to be less lively anyway in general and the lack of much singing and shouting (for the team) so far isn't really that surprising.

The atmosphere at home games has been poor for a long while. To be frank, I think since a few got banned last year for the incident at Huddersfield. It was never great to be fair but their doesn't seem to be any leading voices these days. I think its generally the late teens/early 20s bracket that take up the singing mantra. We perhaps are lacking in getting this age group through the gate?

Doing the radio, in which we get the atmosphere in our headsets via the effects mic, I hear the atmosphere to greater effect and every big home game (Huddersfield x2, Leeds League Match late last year) I've done recently has sounded the same. Soon as the opposition takes a lead you can almost feel the hearts of every Wigan fan in the stadium sink. Its like the whole place gives up and awaits the inevitable big game defeat. Everything falls flat and I think it hinders the team badly. It puts weight on the shoulders of our team and lifts the opposition every time.

I wrote in the Evening post last month rl(click)rl about how we haven't beaten a Leeds, Huddersfield, St Helens or Warrington at home in the regular season in a night match since June 2011. A long, long time now.

Even with day games thrown in we have a record of 6 wins out of 18 against those four sides at the DW since Madge arrived in 2010 and thats despite two title succession. So it isn't just a recent problem. One thing contributes to the other I suppose.

Sounds like we need to get the singing and the fun back.
Maybe Sean should drop No18 until we start to perform as well.

We beat Leeds at home in Feb 2012.

Not winning at home when playing the big teams isn't necessarily the problem. The problem is having no current area where 'singers' are likely to gather. If there was a definite area which fans bought into i'm sure the atmosphere would improve. The club tried to designate an area but this doesn't seem to have worked which suggests we need something more organic and fan led.

The atmosphere has been poor for several seasons now, not just the last two games.

The reasons are that our unreserved, "atmosphere generating" stand is nothing more than a creche for the under 10s and is awful to watch your rugby in because of that, and our top heavy (age wise) fan base that prefer to have a nip of whiskey under their wigan-branded blankets than contribute to any atmosphere.

It's been poor for ages now. I don't really miss the teenage chavs who did sing but also caused bother and generally made the club look bad at any given opportunity though. Hopefully it'll improve but I'm not sure how

So we did. By floodlit I was referring more to 8pm games. That was a Saturday tea time, albeit in dark at time of year.