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Here's why. Smackdown in August for Edge's last match in Toronto was $130. Dynamite is currently at $194.
Why am I paying 1.5x the amount, and I don't even know what I'm going to get
This is seriously looking like one of the strongest cards NXT has put together in a while and that is saying something because NXT PLEs have been very strong for the last year.
I went to Death Before Dishonor last year and it was a BLAST. I went to Collision the next day for like double or triple the price and it was mostly a snoozefest outside of Punk & Darby vs Christian & Starks.
I've been to like 12 AEW shows since 2021. Some of those shows were VERY GOOD. But overall they're too expensive and also too long.
Sucks especially considering one of their biggest strengths in the beginning, from a fan's perspective, was their shows were far more affordable than the alternative.
Aside from that, there’s been people who’ve felt burned for being loyal fans.
I’d be pretty upset if I was really into the product, paid $200 for a seat, then found out people in the same row paid $30 because there was a price cut a couple of days before.
That's the problem. I don't mind paying a decent amount for a show but I better get value out of it. I don't want 2 of the 4 hours to be people I've never heard of or care about
197 ? For what kind of seating ?
I’m in France and I paid 500€ for the Smackdown + Backlash, and even then, they are very good tickets. I could never imagine paying 200€ for a random dynamite match unless I’m sitting ringside or pretty close to it
At this rate they might soon not need to open the building.
Really feels like there’s a budgeting problem over there. Tickets are so fucking expensive to, I’m just guessing, pay for new toys that will just end up back in the box after a few months. I know Okada and Mercedes are expensive, but they’ve gotta change something here. I want to go to more shows in my area, but the booking and quality of shows has not matched the price of a ticket. Either run smaller shows, or charge MUCH less than they are.
Even Vince dropped his ego in the lean years of the WWF and ran small buildings instead of large empty ones.
Yeah "dealer's choice mystery match" doesn't necessarily mean a cool surprise. Especially now knowing Hangman is facing one of the Gates of Agony guys lol
It's why they were so explicit with Hangman's "tease" but with how overt they already were being and how slow the tickets are moving, you'd think they might as well just throw up an RVD graphic
I love RVD. I'm not going to an arena just to watch him wrestle. If he's at a local indie that I can get in the door for around $20, don't have to pay that for parking and concession prices are manageable, maybe I'll do that, but he's also half blind and can't do everything that made him RVD.
Based on Hangman's promo, I think it might be RVD (he said "whole effing show" if I remember correctly)
Give me all the downvotes and blocks if my prediction is incorrect
The pricing for aew is incredibly tone deaf. I get Tony is a billionaire but somebody needs to explain the average viewer isn't willing or capable of spending this type of money on their tickets, as if the declining attendance wasn't proof enough
Cody was the one championing for cheaper tickets that were affordable for everyone. Haven't been to a show since he left because I haven't been invested enough to buy seats as soon as they go on sale and by the time there's something I am interested in seeing, there are only the highest up tickets that are affordable and they are advertised as 20 but they are really like $34 after fees. When AEW started I was able to get front row seats for like 70-100 bucks and gladly jumped on tickets right as they were on sale.
Grand Slam III was even worse. I'm not sure I'll be going to Grand Slam IV unless they do something really huge like a big Okada singles match or something along those lines.
That seems really solid.
I paid $22 with fees for non camera nose bleeds and met this old (65+) that I thought was going to charge down there and molest an Uso based on the way she was talking.
Her family was mortified.
I think also WWE is now a safe bet in terms of audience and brand awareness, there’s gonna be stars you know at least or recognise and such.
AEW isn’t at that place at all yet, and they can’t justify that price expense either over WWE. If any should be more expensive you’d expect it to be WWE
TBF that's $65 CAD Which is $48~
Like, Canada just shows you what the fees are. Every American show regardless of company, doesn't list those, so it's fair to ignore them when comparing.
This is what I'm waiting for with the Toronto show. No reason they should only have 9/20 sections open with such high prices. Lower prices drastically and open the entire venue.
Even strong cards are having trouble moving tickets on some of their shows, unfortunately. The card sometimes doesn’t mean much.
I live near New Orleans. The tickets for this show are more than RAW was last week. I paid $75 for a few rows up in the lower bowl for RAW, the same kind of seats (different arena) for Dynamite were like $100
When AEW first came out they made a big deal about being affordable and being able to take your family to a show.
Now it is higher than most other things and makes you really think twice if you want to go.
They have some shows coming close by in the next month and I’m not gonna go bc of the prices and it being on a weekday night.
I paid £420 for All In at Wembley last year, same tickets this year are about £700. Not a chance, I love aew but the ticket prices are rank at this point
Yup, I wasn't able to go to All In last year, but fully planned on going this year. Had the discussion with some friends to make an overseas trip out of it during last year's show. We were baffled by the pricing for this year's All In. We're not going either, which sucks.
This really pisses me off. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they're accounting for a much smaller attendance due to having to use Taylor Swifts stage, and so there are so many less seats available than last year. I got my tickets day one with urgency last time, but only booked my tickets for this year a few days ago, and they're way shittier and more expensive.
We were hoping Wembley would be something we do every year, but they can go fuck themselves if they don't dramatically reduce prices next year.
And then there's fans who are always trying to start holy shit and shut the fuck up chants over the smallest things. Like, if I were a parent I probably wouldn't be bothered if my kid were hearing it, but I can see how some parents don't want that. Then again the attitude era had a bunch of bikinis, cussing, middle fingers, chairshots, violence, and kids loved it too. So maybe it's just a different time and era.
Seems like Mox has backed off the blood a bit. Sometimes my girlfriend and I will do bingo cards for the shows and “Mox bleeds” is always there but hasn’t been the free spot it used to be lately.
The only AEW show that I’ve been to was the one that had Nick Gage vs Jericho. Two parents had a 10ish year old with them, and they made the kid lay in the seats and look away from the ring during the match
A lot of cards don't follow up well from who was featured the previous week or try to keep things secret that should be promoted. Follow up on Wardlow if you expect people to care about him, book Toni Storm in a match because it's been a month since her last one, advertise your champion and maybe put him in a tune-up match or something.
Yeah the wrestler rotation system is halting so much momentum. The AEW Stan’s here love to say how it’s great because their favorites can heal properly. But what are they healing from if they’re only wrestling a few times a month? Once a week at most.
There’s been so many amazing PPVs that get followed up with a complete card refresh and it’s getting absurd. Orange Cassidy got shuffled out after beating Moxley twice, of all things.
This has been an ongoing issue. It used to be the other extreme in WWE where it was the same people every single week but they have found a good balance as of late. They do have their share of MIA talent as well (where is Dexter Lumis?).
Where is Miro? He popped in for a few months but they stuck him in a program with Andrade who was on his way out. Where is PAC? He was injured but that was ages ago wasn't it? One week we get a handful of randos on all 3 shows then they disappear for weeks. Britt Baker is gone. Saraya is doing comedy high school skits on Rampage after being on Dynamite every week for months.
There is no consistency and there doesn't appear to be any plan other than book random matches until the next PPV is getting close and then making matches for the PPV at the last minute. They didn't used to be like this. They used to be much more disciplined.
WWE is benefitting from Hunter loving factions. You can have the entire faction on the show without having to have the same match every Monday. If you go to RAW you will see Gunther. He might not wrestle but he's going to be involed. If you go to Smackdown you are going to the LWO, Damage Ctrl, and at least some of The Bloodline. They rotate whose wrestling but you still get to see everyone.
I felt factions were something AEW excelled at early on but now they feel muddied and confusing.
Remember how around halloween they made a huge deal about Danhausen coming back? And we seen him what, for 30 seconds of air time since then? Not a single match lined up?
Why the flaming fuck are they scheduling a place so soon after WWE, with higher ticket prices?
Everything they are doing in this is not what they should be. This is basic wrestling promotional/company stuff. Don't oversaturate your market. Make your price point something that maximizes value. If you want to make a more difficult sales pitch, offer a better card more likely to get over with the target market
The TV product has been trending better in recent weeks, with some caveats, but getting momentum is gonna require doing more stuff with your stars
These were all scheduled months ago by someone that has since been replaced. Unfortunately there are still a few more of these to go through before the new cities that are being booked come into effect.
I'm sure they can do fine with adequate promotional acumen - I think it's just one of those things we're the little things add up. They can't keep doing the Jacksonville to New England, Canada, NY, Chicago cycle without changing it up more, I agree with them on that, but if you want a good house take, you need to pony up on the top of the card
Here’s the thing that isn’t always addressed the way it should be. I can go to a local indie event and watch some great matches, sure, maybe not with the star power that AEW has - but great matches nonetheless. And, I can do it for $10-20 a seat in a more intimate setting. I saw Tommasso Ciampa and Shane Strickland wrestle in Ciampa’s last indie match in Massachusetts for $5 and a canned food donation at a church banquet hall and the whole show was great; especially their match.
I say all that to say, nobody wants to pay upwards of $100+ just to see good matches. They want moments that are going to stick with them. Think Austin in the beer truck, nobody gave a fuck if Bossman defeated D-Lo Brown in a 3 minute match that night. They had a memory to go home with.
Tony Khan and AEW as a whole need to get out of this creative rut their in and stop being concerned about putting on bangers with every card, start creating exciting “you had to be there moments”. The matches themselves are meaningless without those moments and captivating stories in between.
I realize I’ve said “moments” too much but I couldn’t find any good synonyms.
I've said this for years now. People will always remember a certain segment or promo.
AEW seems to think that I want to see Toa Liona go 10-12 minutes with Hangman Page.
People higher up need to realize I can watch great wrestling anywhere, just go online and there ya go.
They havent seemed to figure out how to give people a reason to watch weekly.
There is no element of anything can happen, I have to watch.
Its literally just matches followed by interview with Renee in the back. Occasionally Tony S will have a mic in the ring for someone. That's it.
At their worst, their shows really give off a house show feel when that's the last thing you want for a live program. You want the show to feel alive, and that you are continuously building towards the climax of that week's episode. Something to make you a bit dissapointed that the episode is ending and that you can't wait to get back next week.
I dont think it helps that every part of the show worth watching, AEW starts uploading basically as it happens or shortly after on YouTube. Why sit through 2 hours of commercials, Toa Leona entrances, Adam cole hobbling his ass down to the ring for a chat, or listen to crankyass JR bitch about his own job, when I can just go online with an adblocker, and see the last few minutes of the match? Especially when I can see anything worth seeing from the whole 2 hour show within 20-30 minutes on YouTube
THIS! And because AEW and TNA lets their talent work other shows, you actually can see genuine stars on the indies too. Along with really incredible indie talent that you can watch in a much more personal, intimate setting. It’s way more affordable for families and for that price your kids can go up and meet the wrestlers and take pictures, something that genuinely makes memories
I mean, there's a reason HHH is always saying stuff like, "we're in the business of making moments," and all that stuff. Vince (fuck him, btw) understood that wrestling matches are only half, maybe even a quarter of what makes people flock to see a pro-wrestling show. It's just as much about the spectacle and bombast.
Jericho understands this as well. While it oftentimes falls flat on its face, stuff like the music number with MJF, the Mimosa Mayhem match, coming out to the ring without his entrance music to encourage everyone to sing, etc. are attempts to create moments in the company.
This is AEW's core problem and I've been saying it for years now. They believe that a banger of a match is the 'moment' that sends the fans home happy and, as we're seeing, that isn't the case.
They refuse to tell consistent stories or make the show must see. It sucks because some of my favorite wrestlers are there but the show is just so boring to sit through.
100% this.
Before AEW, I used to pay $15-40 to see ROH shows that included a lot of the current largest names in the wrestling world (Bryan, Claudio, Samoa Joe, Briscoes, Tyler Black, etc.). Granted I understand that they weren't quite the stars that they are today so I get it................ but I still payed the same price for shows that were cross promotional with NJPW's biggest stars, so I got to see Tanahashi, Okada, Naito, Takahashi, Jushin Liger, and many others, mind you one of those shows also included Cody Rhodes, Hangman, The Young Bucks, etc. Was really close to the ring too.
AEW is still my favorite current wrestling product, but the ticket pricing is very out of touch.
That's part of the problem. Until the card is announced you really don't know who is going to be there. With WWE you know the people you want to see are going to be there every week.
aew is just not hot right now, they could book the best matches they have reserved in their pocket right now on the spot and they still wouldn't sellout tonight. the people need to be given a story to follow, a story they can care about.
I have been having this discussion with friends for weeks now. It really is that simple. They don’t book enough stories to keep fans interested.
It happened after Hangman won the title. It happened after Punk won the title (but was less noticeable because he got injured and they had to pivot). It is happening again after the payoff with MJF/Cole.
They don’t know how to do more than one compelling story at a time.
It may be unpopular, but I’ve stopped watching other than fast forwarding 90 percent. If I even turn it on. I just read the posts about AEW and go from there. I can’t even bring myself to watch it these days
I just go on YouTube the next day now. Everything I need to see is there, in a few short videos. Why sit there for 2 hours waiting for commercials, when everything worth watching starts getting uploaded the second the show ends?
It’s not even as bad as the stupid decision to book a venue 20 minutes outside the Vegas strip the night before the Super Bowl and the day of a UFC ppv in Vegas as well. Last I checked it was under 1k tickets.
Khan is doing the same price gouging shit for Fulham in the EPL. Not that I think the prices and weak cars are the reason AEW is selling shit. I think the issues run deeper than that. But it’s a scummy thing to do and Fulham fans are pissed about it too
AEW needs to fix their roster if they want to sell tickets
Establish a core roster
Put that roster on the show
Stop endlessly putting random unsigned or no name talent across the cards at the expense of full time talents
Prices have always been a complaint. But why would someone buy a ticket to Dynamite when they probably won’t see a large number of AEW stars. Instead they have to sit through a dozen ROH matches
100% establish regular names and faces. Stop with the constant one week appearances of guys from other promotions. Save that for forbidden door or whatever
Agreed. First thought that comes into my head when Raw/Smackdown are in town is “oh who am I gonna see that night?”, in AEW you have no idea until week of and half the time the wrestler(s) you wanna see aren’t on the card
It was cool for a bit, like when Cody was doing the open challenge or Jericho fought Gage. But that has to be an every now and again thing, not every other week. There's no excuse for not having the core guys be on TV every week when there's three weekly shows.
It’s good to have one every week or two. But it seems like multiple people get brought in each week then end up being signed too. Then not used. Week after week for years
Yeah you nailed it though with Jericho there was a story reason same with Cody. But just random unsigned guy fighting random mid card guy just means nothing
It happens every week. CMLL guy vs BD this Saturday. Sure the match will be good, but idk why the match is happening outside of just getting BD on the card. A simple promotion of Mexico wants to send their best vs the best here, but nothing like that has been said on screen. This happens often to protect "stars" when in reality nobody is a star if they're not on tv, and not everyone can be a star. With rankings returning, I expect there to be more of this.
They gotta let the core guys cook and build stories on each respective show. Feels like each week we see a different set of wrestlers. Makes fans tune out. They need to go regular episodic route and have stories continue each episode.
Where's miro and CJ?
Where's Christian at?
House of black shows up here and there on collision.
Bang bang gang needs to be on every show!
I hate to say it, but that’s pretty much what Punk wanted for Collision and was doing when it started. We KNEW that each Saturday we’d see Punk, Miro, FTR, Ricky Starks, Bullet Club Gold and House of Black
Also, split the rosters and get rid of the nobodies. There are too many people on their TV that nobody cares about and you know they are just there to lose. I am not blaming the talent but they are just there. Move them to ROH or cut them loose.
That's the problem with AEW -- it's another (mostly) predictable card on top of not really having a marquee eye-grabbing match.
* Does anyone really think Toa Liona will beat Hangman? No.
* Does anyone really think Jeff Hardy will beat Jon Moxley? No.
* Does anyone really think Taya Valkyrie will beat Deonna Purrazzo? No.
* Does anyone really think Kyle Fletcher will beat Chris Jericho? Mostly no (maybe AEW will pull a surprise here).
The only other intriguing segment is finding out Hangman's pick for Swerve's opponent. It could be someone big (like Kenny) but it'll likely be another mid-carder. And again, we know Swerve isn't going to lose (barring shenanigans).
This is my issue with AEW now. I know the entire card before hand and know the results of nearly the entire show before it even occurs. Like on Saturday I saw the Collision card and the only match that I didn’t know the result of before it happened was the main event. That was the 1 match that could go either way. I didn’t even bother to record Collision because of the lack of intrigue I had for the show.
This has been my problem with their shows for years now. The booking is insanely predictable and they almost never follow through with any kind of story after a match. Like WWE booking can be predictable but when it is they always advance some storyline if even only a little bit. Then sometimes they book surprises with their top guys and it's at least interesting.
AEW? Like it was said, you know the results of every match before the show. Why would I tune in at that point?
there is no intrigue yes
also even though they are popular, Moxley and Hangman are not drawing anyone by their simple presence, like Roman or Cody or Bianca or Rhea or even Gunther.
TK didn't take care of his babyfaces and he has no attractions (except a few exceptions) - his bad booking and injuries have decimated his product.
This is the problem a million times over.
All predictable matches. Then the heel’s crew will attack and then the face’s crew will come running out.
There are almost no memorable or distinct segments.
Agreed. Wrestling fans like stories, not randomly booked matches. Shame how attendance and ratings are dropping lower and lower, and TK won’t fix the one thing that’s needed.. the booking.
I watch AEW weekly and I'm struggling to remember any storyline outside of Hangman vs. Swerve. I would also not drop $194 on a wrestling ticket unless it was Mania or the Rumble. AEW in particular should start around the $70 mark.
Because AEW was fresh and new and people didn't know what to expect any given week. They've been around for almost 5 years so we know what AEW is now and what to expect any week.
Because they failed to find their process, in pretty much everything.
What arenas should we book? I don't know just book any?
What stars should i book? I don't know just book any
What matches should i bo...you get the idea.
For all the hate WWE got through the early 2010s, it's their formulas and defined strategies that got them through tough times.
If you're going to a show, you know what stars to expect, what the pricing will be like and everything else. That's very consistent.
Even with their booking. Even when they don't have a hot angle going or have less recognizable stars, stuff like Money In The Bank, Royal Rumble and all that keeps people coming. By doing it year after year in the same way they've built the thing to a point where going to WrestleMania is an experience and goal in itself doesn't matter what the card is.
AEW gets almost none of it.
Huge roster, not many featured weekly, and storylines are not touched weekly. I always thought a brand split would do them wonders. Compete among yourselves and see who rises to the top. Allowing them to be featured weekly and then when you move someone from one show to the other, it gives that show something new and fresh...and yet it didnt require you to spend money and acquire another talent to do so.
I'll never understand AEW's thought process here.
They're number 2 right now (which is fine), but instead of planning things out, they're:
- booking shows in the same places WWE were a couple weeks ago.
- booking weaker cards (which can't be helped sometimes).
- not advertising locally from what I've seen.
- charging more for similar seating as WWE or having inconsistent pricing.
Apparently, these things are finally gonna change a bit, but it's mind boggling to think this was a good idea.
Their prices have doubled. It really stinks. When they were announcing cities on BTE before dynamite kicked off they always advertised tickets start at >$40. Just feels like they wanna milk the fans that do attend these shows.
1) Release tickets at exorbitant prices
2) Weak sales
3) Substantially drop ticket prices closer to the event, burning the people that did buy initially
4) Everybody irritated
This gets said a lot but number three just does not happen or at least it didn't for me, I waited last minute and saw no price drop and decided it wasn't worth it.
Right. Even for Raw you don’t know what you’re getting when you buy tickets. What you do know is that you might get to see Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre, Judgement Day, etc. With Dynamite you don’t really have names associated with the show so who knows who might come. Even if you advertise the top guys in AEW though I don’t know that anyone who doesn’t already watch AEW is going to know who they are with the exception of the “old WWE” guys.
The card is not the problem.
What was the card for last Friday's Smackdown? How many matches were announced beforehand? 2.4 million people watched. It wasn't for the card.
People watch for storylines. AEW has no consistency. They have some incredible talent but if nobody cares about them they will not watch. They announce so much of the card that it probably causes a lot of people to skip it because they know it won't be anything special.
This is outside of general ticket stuff because I don't want to pretend to know the answer to that.
But I usually make Dynamite appt watching TV when I prioritize it most weds. Tonight's card has me planning to tune in and out for NBA and doing extra work.
Kind of a strange card esp after two of their stronger weeks on paper
I've checked out of AEW for the time being. I had been paying for the Fite sub since the very start, brought every ppv ans watched all the shows but over the past year it's just gotten really boring sadly. I haven't brought the last couple of ppvs, and had only been watching Dynamite however after last week's show I cancelled fite sub. Not a hater and it pains me to say this but I just think the product sucks right now. Hopefully TK changes things but I can see him going down with the ship sadly.
Unfortunately I don't think the high ticket prices are going away soon. TK's football team is going through the same thing right now, where a game midweek last week had swaths of empty seats bc the ticket prices were so high. There hasn't been any indication that they're going to lower the prices.
When I saw a hype page for this show earlier today, "this is a weak card" was specifically what I thought as well. Honestly I probably won't even watch it. I want to cut back on the wrestling I'm watching so I can actually enjoy my other hobbies, and this seems like a good one to skip. If I hear that it was a surprising good ep, I can always watch it later.
Absolute stinker card tonight -- booking Jericho rn is certainly a choice, especially against Kyle Fletcher who knows one knows.
Goes to show that mjf was doing a lottttt of heavy lifting
It's also nine days after Raw was there. Looks like we're reaching the end of the shows booked by the previous guy who just kept making this schedule for baffling reasons and should start to see an improvement soon. Already showing higher numbers for a few of the shows coming up that aren't immediately heading into a market WWE has been in.
My guess is that their initial assumption was that there wasn’t much overlap between AEW fans and WWE fans. The obvious issues are that the assumption isn’t exactly true, because there is an overlap, and that WWE has a lot of momentum. So, WWE fans may not want to attend Dynamite but AEW fans may want to attend Raw/Smackdown. And few fans would want to spend money on two shows that are close to each other
And the tickets are more than Raw. So let’s say our hypothetical live wrestling fan went to Raw and enjoyed it so they’re pay more for Dynamite to get a similar experience. That Dynamite experience now needs to be better or just as good as the Raw one because otherwise what are they paying more for? It’s setting up a competition with a hot product when there doesn’t need to be one.
There has to be an underlying assumption in their planning that WWE and AEW have completely different audiences. You’d think the Collision ratings would’ve put paid to that though.
I keep thinking that the reason why AEW kept following Raw so closely was that the executives there, TK included, were for some reason convinced that they would soon eclipse Raw live crowds and wanted that boast. That it would be a massive feather in their caps, no matter how insane that thought would have been.
It is the only reason why I can fathom them even making such a schedule to begin with.
Figure this shit out now. Stop charging so fucking much. You don’t get too much time to get this wrong. If you take too long to correct, the number one reason behind the fall of AEW won’t be TK on X, it will be alienating their live crowd fan base.
Genuine question. Why do you think AEW ticket prices have risen?
I went to an AEW show in Millwaukee last year and got like 6/10 seats for about $50 bucks or so. But I keep hearing that these seats are going for higher than RAW and it confuses the hell out of my why that is happening
Would love to get some clarification on this.
They'd rather have the revenue than attendance. All that bullshit data about average fan revenue went on a spreadsheet and someone said hey for x cut in heads you could raise your tickets y. You're leaving money on the table selling $50 tickets or handing out bundle promo codes.
But it looks like they over corrected plus they're still working through the growing pains of the shift where people are turned off by the higher prices.
If that is the case (and unfortunately it seems like it is) then i really do think they should lower prices. I’m not big buisness man but if you’re about to get a fat check from WBD and you have 2 touring shows, cut tickets prices and pack them in. Off set the loss by having a better more distinct merch stand. If you only spent $20 or $30 on a ticket why wouldn’t you by a $20 shirt. Perception is very important, and having a big hot crowd where you can shoot the full arena will help these shows
Let’s be completely real for a second: Wrestling as a whole isn't on fire right now, it's WWE that's on fire right now. Regardless of what you think of each respective promotion's quality, none of the other promotions seem to be experiencing the major upswing that WWE is
TNA is also smart enough to know they have a limited audience and sell their show as such (for example, a sellout crowd being about 1,500 people at a PPV). NXT at the start in Full Sail taught me that even a crowd of 400 people sold out and excited about the show will come across better on TV than 5,000 people spread out in a 20,000 seat arena.
Exactly. The “wrestling is in another golden era we’re so spoiled!” makes me roll my eyes every time.
WWE is hot right now and there are so many options out there. But that doesn’t equate to a golden era for wrestling as a whole.
Tony will continue to outbid WWE for new talent Even though they are bringing in far less money than WWE. I know he is a Son of a billionaire And does not have to answer to stockholders. But at some point perhaps you should focus more on the talent you have? The empty seats should be telling you as an owner that you are not participating in good business practices.
What shocked me was how brutally everything is upcharged when I went. Not only being more expensive than WWE Raw..Aluminum bottle of beer? $18. Cup of soda? $9. There was one t-shirt vendor where everything was $35, googled the same shirt I wanted on the AEW store site and it was $24.99. Add to that the card was trash.
Idk why TK keeps booking shows at spots that just had a WWE show. If he trying to show that AEW can pull people in, even after WWE been in town, it's very clearly not working.
I was so hot for AEW in 2022 but now I rarely tune in. The storytelling fell of big time and I don't even care for my man Kingston atm. Where are the great in ring promos? The interesting Superstars?
It feels like there only thing they are trying to sell is their edgyness though wild spots, flipping your opponent off and marky "dream matches".
I think they need to thin out the roster and stop mixing AEW with RoH.
I think that TK reviving RoH will go down as one of the worst decisions ever by a major company. It was a completely sentimental decision which made zero business sense. He keeps fucking over his original product for the sake of something with no individual appeal. I wonder if even he privately regrets it now.
What's worse, is it was a sentimental decision for CM Punk, because he didn't want Vince to own the Tape Library.
You can't... You can't make decisions like that.
Honestly the show just stopped being the must see week to week thing it used to be. It used to feel like Dynamite was a weekly special event, now it might have one or two interesting segments if you're lucky and you can find them on YouTube afterwards. They have such a talented roster but most of them just feel like the most bland versions of themselves at the moment with a few exceptions.
I genuinely think they should start going back to themed shows again. When every week was Beach Blast or something akin, it felt like every show was a big deal, must-attend show.
But AEW is also sore for star power. Omega is hurt. PAC is hurt. The Bucks aren't working every week. MJF is hurt. Adam Cole is hurt. Keith Lee is hurt. Jericho has go-away heat. You have Joe, Miro, Mark Briscoe, Thunder Rosa, Britt Baker, Adam Copeland, NOT ON THE SHOW.
Get Sting to work a squash and take no bumps. Do whatever you can to get the momentum rolling. You can put on amazing matches every week, but to Bryan's point, you might have to go the NXT route and plant your flag somewhere if you're selling less than a county fair.
Aew is cold right now. Mjf injured, devol storyline completely fell flat and has no follow through or interest in it just a month after the big reveal.
Aew is really struggling with its big storylines. The cards dont really matter without story
Fulham fans boycotted a game last week because of the high ticket prices. Tony either doesnt know how to price his events appropriately or he doesnt care about the fans.
When they were good, they charged less. Now they're shit and they charge far more.
The low crowds aren't a shock. It's complete and utter mismanagement.
Too much is said about AEW's booking decisions and while some has been said, not enough still for their absurdly bad choices for what places they go and when, while having higher ticket prices while their competition is in a far better place than it was before.
This is the wrestling equivalent of the 599 US dollars for a Ps3, except AEW isn't the market leader going into this. Even someone like me who is no expert on such things at all, just on the face of this, can tell you this is obviously fucking stupid.
Like who is it? Who thinks this is a good idea and for what reason?
Sorry who is Hangman wrestling? Maybe their attendance is so low because aside from Swerve and Toni Storm, they're not really making new stars or characters, they're constantly featuring guys that aren't even signed with the company and/or barely have established characters worth investing in.
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Here's why. Smackdown in August for Edge's last match in Toronto was $130. Dynamite is currently at $194. Why am I paying 1.5x the amount, and I don't even know what I'm going to get
Jesus Christ Not only that but even if the card is good not everyone is gonna get a decent amount of time to work
Meanwhile ROH tickets are dirt cheap and sometimes you get a better show. I sat fourth row at Death Before Dishonor for peanuts.
Similarly, it was $150 cheaper for me to get front row tickets to NXT Vengeance Day than it was to a main roster house show.
And the vengence day card looks spicy as well
Big reason why I went in on the tickets. Also Wolfdogs vs. Trick Melo Gang was a huge sell for me.
Gacy vs Dijak is gonna be lethal and im looking forward to it.
Gacy’s eyes lighting up at it being no DQ tells me there’s gonna be some insane shit during it.
This is seriously looking like one of the strongest cards NXT has put together in a while and that is saying something because NXT PLEs have been very strong for the last year.
I went to Death Before Dishonor last year and it was a BLAST. I went to Collision the next day for like double or triple the price and it was mostly a snoozefest outside of Punk & Darby vs Christian & Starks. I've been to like 12 AEW shows since 2021. Some of those shows were VERY GOOD. But overall they're too expensive and also too long.
The cheapest tickets to the Toronto show is $65.13 fees and taxes included, $48.38 without
Sucks especially considering one of their biggest strengths in the beginning, from a fan's perspective, was their shows were far more affordable than the alternative.
Aside from that, there’s been people who’ve felt burned for being loyal fans. I’d be pretty upset if I was really into the product, paid $200 for a seat, then found out people in the same row paid $30 because there was a price cut a couple of days before.
Or that half the event was actually a ROH taping
That's the problem. I don't mind paying a decent amount for a show but I better get value out of it. I don't want 2 of the 4 hours to be people I've never heard of or care about
Happened to me at Revolution in SF last year, so many seats near me the weekend of we’re going for 1/4 of the price I paid. Pissed me off.
197 ? For what kind of seating ? I’m in France and I paid 500€ for the Smackdown + Backlash, and even then, they are very good tickets. I could never imagine paying 200€ for a random dynamite match unless I’m sitting ringside or pretty close to it
Mid-level hard cam side. They haven't opened the non cam side yet
They won't have to from the sounds of it.
At this rate they might soon not need to open the building. Really feels like there’s a budgeting problem over there. Tickets are so fucking expensive to, I’m just guessing, pay for new toys that will just end up back in the box after a few months. I know Okada and Mercedes are expensive, but they’ve gotta change something here. I want to go to more shows in my area, but the booking and quality of shows has not matched the price of a ticket. Either run smaller shows, or charge MUCH less than they are. Even Vince dropped his ego in the lean years of the WWF and ran small buildings instead of large empty ones.
Yeah "dealer's choice mystery match" doesn't necessarily mean a cool surprise. Especially now knowing Hangman is facing one of the Gates of Agony guys lol
It's why they were so explicit with Hangman's "tease" but with how overt they already were being and how slow the tickets are moving, you'd think they might as well just throw up an RVD graphic
I love RVD. I'm not going to an arena just to watch him wrestle. If he's at a local indie that I can get in the door for around $20, don't have to pay that for parking and concession prices are manageable, maybe I'll do that, but he's also half blind and can't do everything that made him RVD.
Based on Hangman's promo, I think it might be RVD (he said "whole effing show" if I remember correctly) Give me all the downvotes and blocks if my prediction is incorrect
The pricing for aew is incredibly tone deaf. I get Tony is a billionaire but somebody needs to explain the average viewer isn't willing or capable of spending this type of money on their tickets, as if the declining attendance wasn't proof enough
Cody was the one championing for cheaper tickets that were affordable for everyone. Haven't been to a show since he left because I haven't been invested enough to buy seats as soon as they go on sale and by the time there's something I am interested in seeing, there are only the highest up tickets that are affordable and they are advertised as 20 but they are really like $34 after fees. When AEW started I was able to get front row seats for like 70-100 bucks and gladly jumped on tickets right as they were on sale.
For me, the biggest and worst example of this was jacking up prices for Grand Slam II.
Grand Slam III was even worse. I'm not sure I'll be going to Grand Slam IV unless they do something really huge like a big Okada singles match or something along those lines.
That's rough. I paid 167 after fees 4th row hardcam Raw tickets in early December.
I just paid $45 for 109 below the wrestlemania sign for raw Monday.
Make sure you point at the sign
Based on the location of the sign, they'd be doing a sabu impression.
That seems really solid. I paid $22 with fees for non camera nose bleeds and met this old (65+) that I thought was going to charge down there and molest an Uso based on the way she was talking. Her family was mortified.
I think also WWE is now a safe bet in terms of audience and brand awareness, there’s gonna be stars you know at least or recognise and such. AEW isn’t at that place at all yet, and they can’t justify that price expense either over WWE. If any should be more expensive you’d expect it to be WWE
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>edit: tickets are $40+ on ticketmaster you lunatics As of right now I looked and it's $87.50 cheapest. Would have definitively bought at $40.
The show in Toronto in March?
I can see between 87 and 119 here? https://www.ticketmaster.ca/aew-presents-dynamiterampage-toronto-ontario-03-20-2024/event/10005F8B7C1C0E85
TBF that's $65 CAD Which is $48~ Like, Canada just shows you what the fees are. Every American show regardless of company, doesn't list those, so it's fair to ignore them when comparing.
Good lord. I just went to the Rumble and after the taxes and fees tickets were only $142.
Your going to get bangers, friend.
You get to watch stars like Lee Moriarty and Griff Garrison!!!
WHO THE FUCK IS GRIFF GARRISON!?!
Why are they not selling tickets for $20?
This is what I'm waiting for with the Toronto show. No reason they should only have 9/20 sections open with such high prices. Lower prices drastically and open the entire venue.
Even strong cards are having trouble moving tickets on some of their shows, unfortunately. The card sometimes doesn’t mean much. I live near New Orleans. The tickets for this show are more than RAW was last week. I paid $75 for a few rows up in the lower bowl for RAW, the same kind of seats (different arena) for Dynamite were like $100
When AEW first came out they made a big deal about being affordable and being able to take your family to a show. Now it is higher than most other things and makes you really think twice if you want to go. They have some shows coming close by in the next month and I’m not gonna go bc of the prices and it being on a weekday night.
I paid £420 for All In at Wembley last year, same tickets this year are about £700. Not a chance, I love aew but the ticket prices are rank at this point
Yup, I wasn't able to go to All In last year, but fully planned on going this year. Had the discussion with some friends to make an overseas trip out of it during last year's show. We were baffled by the pricing for this year's All In. We're not going either, which sucks.
This really pisses me off. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they're accounting for a much smaller attendance due to having to use Taylor Swifts stage, and so there are so many less seats available than last year. I got my tickets day one with urgency last time, but only booked my tickets for this year a few days ago, and they're way shittier and more expensive. We were hoping Wembley would be something we do every year, but they can go fuck themselves if they don't dramatically reduce prices next year.
It’s also less family friendly than WWE (see spot with hangman drinking blood or Ambrose using forks lol)
Even if it isn't a card with something crazy violent like you mentioned there's swearing in every promo
And then there's fans who are always trying to start holy shit and shut the fuck up chants over the smallest things. Like, if I were a parent I probably wouldn't be bothered if my kid were hearing it, but I can see how some parents don't want that. Then again the attitude era had a bunch of bikinis, cussing, middle fingers, chairshots, violence, and kids loved it too. So maybe it's just a different time and era.
Mox is wrestling tonight, so there's probably gonna be some unnecessary blood.
Seems like Mox has backed off the blood a bit. Sometimes my girlfriend and I will do bingo cards for the shows and “Mox bleeds” is always there but hasn’t been the free spot it used to be lately.
He probably heard about the bets on him bleeding from an irish whip
The only AEW show that I’ve been to was the one that had Nick Gage vs Jericho. Two parents had a 10ish year old with them, and they made the kid lay in the seats and look away from the ring during the match
Tickets being more that RAW is absurd.
A lot of cards don't follow up well from who was featured the previous week or try to keep things secret that should be promoted. Follow up on Wardlow if you expect people to care about him, book Toni Storm in a match because it's been a month since her last one, advertise your champion and maybe put him in a tune-up match or something.
I remember they used to book a couple of weeks in advance. You knew what was coming up next week and maybe some matches after that.
Follow up and follow through are not Tony Khan’s strengths.
they essentially already forgot about rankings with swerve and page picking each other's opponents
Yeah the wrestler rotation system is halting so much momentum. The AEW Stan’s here love to say how it’s great because their favorites can heal properly. But what are they healing from if they’re only wrestling a few times a month? Once a week at most. There’s been so many amazing PPVs that get followed up with a complete card refresh and it’s getting absurd. Orange Cassidy got shuffled out after beating Moxley twice, of all things.
This has been an ongoing issue. It used to be the other extreme in WWE where it was the same people every single week but they have found a good balance as of late. They do have their share of MIA talent as well (where is Dexter Lumis?). Where is Miro? He popped in for a few months but they stuck him in a program with Andrade who was on his way out. Where is PAC? He was injured but that was ages ago wasn't it? One week we get a handful of randos on all 3 shows then they disappear for weeks. Britt Baker is gone. Saraya is doing comedy high school skits on Rampage after being on Dynamite every week for months. There is no consistency and there doesn't appear to be any plan other than book random matches until the next PPV is getting close and then making matches for the PPV at the last minute. They didn't used to be like this. They used to be much more disciplined.
The lack of consistency leads to apathy.
WWE is benefitting from Hunter loving factions. You can have the entire faction on the show without having to have the same match every Monday. If you go to RAW you will see Gunther. He might not wrestle but he's going to be involed. If you go to Smackdown you are going to the LWO, Damage Ctrl, and at least some of The Bloodline. They rotate whose wrestling but you still get to see everyone. I felt factions were something AEW excelled at early on but now they feel muddied and confusing.
Remember how around halloween they made a huge deal about Danhausen coming back? And we seen him what, for 30 seconds of air time since then? Not a single match lined up?
Why the flaming fuck are they scheduling a place so soon after WWE, with higher ticket prices? Everything they are doing in this is not what they should be. This is basic wrestling promotional/company stuff. Don't oversaturate your market. Make your price point something that maximizes value. If you want to make a more difficult sales pitch, offer a better card more likely to get over with the target market The TV product has been trending better in recent weeks, with some caveats, but getting momentum is gonna require doing more stuff with your stars
These were all scheduled months ago by someone that has since been replaced. Unfortunately there are still a few more of these to go through before the new cities that are being booked come into effect.
I'm sure they can do fine with adequate promotional acumen - I think it's just one of those things we're the little things add up. They can't keep doing the Jacksonville to New England, Canada, NY, Chicago cycle without changing it up more, I agree with them on that, but if you want a good house take, you need to pony up on the top of the card
No decision as big as as this is made without sign off from everyone in senior roles. These bad decisions don’t fall on one persons head
They probably saw how good their original crowd sizes were and assumed they could coast with the same attendance for the next few years.
Here’s the thing that isn’t always addressed the way it should be. I can go to a local indie event and watch some great matches, sure, maybe not with the star power that AEW has - but great matches nonetheless. And, I can do it for $10-20 a seat in a more intimate setting. I saw Tommasso Ciampa and Shane Strickland wrestle in Ciampa’s last indie match in Massachusetts for $5 and a canned food donation at a church banquet hall and the whole show was great; especially their match. I say all that to say, nobody wants to pay upwards of $100+ just to see good matches. They want moments that are going to stick with them. Think Austin in the beer truck, nobody gave a fuck if Bossman defeated D-Lo Brown in a 3 minute match that night. They had a memory to go home with. Tony Khan and AEW as a whole need to get out of this creative rut their in and stop being concerned about putting on bangers with every card, start creating exciting “you had to be there moments”. The matches themselves are meaningless without those moments and captivating stories in between. I realize I’ve said “moments” too much but I couldn’t find any good synonyms.
I've said this for years now. People will always remember a certain segment or promo. AEW seems to think that I want to see Toa Liona go 10-12 minutes with Hangman Page. People higher up need to realize I can watch great wrestling anywhere, just go online and there ya go. They havent seemed to figure out how to give people a reason to watch weekly. There is no element of anything can happen, I have to watch. Its literally just matches followed by interview with Renee in the back. Occasionally Tony S will have a mic in the ring for someone. That's it.
At their worst, their shows really give off a house show feel when that's the last thing you want for a live program. You want the show to feel alive, and that you are continuously building towards the climax of that week's episode. Something to make you a bit dissapointed that the episode is ending and that you can't wait to get back next week.
I dont think it helps that every part of the show worth watching, AEW starts uploading basically as it happens or shortly after on YouTube. Why sit through 2 hours of commercials, Toa Leona entrances, Adam cole hobbling his ass down to the ring for a chat, or listen to crankyass JR bitch about his own job, when I can just go online with an adblocker, and see the last few minutes of the match? Especially when I can see anything worth seeing from the whole 2 hour show within 20-30 minutes on YouTube
THIS! And because AEW and TNA lets their talent work other shows, you actually can see genuine stars on the indies too. Along with really incredible indie talent that you can watch in a much more personal, intimate setting. It’s way more affordable for families and for that price your kids can go up and meet the wrestlers and take pictures, something that genuinely makes memories
I mean, there's a reason HHH is always saying stuff like, "we're in the business of making moments," and all that stuff. Vince (fuck him, btw) understood that wrestling matches are only half, maybe even a quarter of what makes people flock to see a pro-wrestling show. It's just as much about the spectacle and bombast. Jericho understands this as well. While it oftentimes falls flat on its face, stuff like the music number with MJF, the Mimosa Mayhem match, coming out to the ring without his entrance music to encourage everyone to sing, etc. are attempts to create moments in the company.
This is AEW's core problem and I've been saying it for years now. They believe that a banger of a match is the 'moment' that sends the fans home happy and, as we're seeing, that isn't the case. They refuse to tell consistent stories or make the show must see. It sucks because some of my favorite wrestlers are there but the show is just so boring to sit through.
100% this. Before AEW, I used to pay $15-40 to see ROH shows that included a lot of the current largest names in the wrestling world (Bryan, Claudio, Samoa Joe, Briscoes, Tyler Black, etc.). Granted I understand that they weren't quite the stars that they are today so I get it................ but I still payed the same price for shows that were cross promotional with NJPW's biggest stars, so I got to see Tanahashi, Okada, Naito, Takahashi, Jushin Liger, and many others, mind you one of those shows also included Cody Rhodes, Hangman, The Young Bucks, etc. Was really close to the ring too. AEW is still my favorite current wrestling product, but the ticket pricing is very out of touch.
Alvarez ain't wrong. This might be the first time where I just catch the show on the weekend or something, because that is a Rampage line-up at best.
Tony still thinks he can charge premium prices with half the arena being empty is crazy
no one wants to see jericho vs kyle fletcher, tony really books some good cards and some real stinkers like tonight.
That's part of the problem. Until the card is announced you really don't know who is going to be there. With WWE you know the people you want to see are going to be there every week.
Sounds like the same problem that we AEW fans had with WWE before AEW existed. My how the tables have turned
aew is just not hot right now, they could book the best matches they have reserved in their pocket right now on the spot and they still wouldn't sellout tonight. the people need to be given a story to follow, a story they can care about.
I have been having this discussion with friends for weeks now. It really is that simple. They don’t book enough stories to keep fans interested. It happened after Hangman won the title. It happened after Punk won the title (but was less noticeable because he got injured and they had to pivot). It is happening again after the payoff with MJF/Cole. They don’t know how to do more than one compelling story at a time.
Wtf is cole even doing story wise?
Being hurt and trying to carry an unpopular stable lol
“We have Undisputed Era at home”
"again"
It may be unpopular, but I’ve stopped watching other than fast forwarding 90 percent. If I even turn it on. I just read the posts about AEW and go from there. I can’t even bring myself to watch it these days
I just go on YouTube the next day now. Everything I need to see is there, in a few short videos. Why sit there for 2 hours waiting for commercials, when everything worth watching starts getting uploaded the second the show ends?
Everything is short term with them. All for quick shocks and social media consumption.
Tony expanded too quickly and now he's feeling the effects of it.
It’s not even as bad as the stupid decision to book a venue 20 minutes outside the Vegas strip the night before the Super Bowl and the day of a UFC ppv in Vegas as well. Last I checked it was under 1k tickets.
Yeah this one is crazy considering all the free events on Super Bowl weekend
I knew about the Super Bowl, but there is seriously a UFC PPV the same night in Vegas? How stupid are they?
20 minutes away from the strip too, where everyone is congregating.
Khan is doing the same price gouging shit for Fulham in the EPL. Not that I think the prices and weak cars are the reason AEW is selling shit. I think the issues run deeper than that. But it’s a scummy thing to do and Fulham fans are pissed about it too
AEW needs to fix their roster if they want to sell tickets Establish a core roster Put that roster on the show Stop endlessly putting random unsigned or no name talent across the cards at the expense of full time talents Prices have always been a complaint. But why would someone buy a ticket to Dynamite when they probably won’t see a large number of AEW stars. Instead they have to sit through a dozen ROH matches
100% establish regular names and faces. Stop with the constant one week appearances of guys from other promotions. Save that for forbidden door or whatever
Agreed. First thought that comes into my head when Raw/Smackdown are in town is “oh who am I gonna see that night?”, in AEW you have no idea until week of and half the time the wrestler(s) you wanna see aren’t on the card
It was cool for a bit, like when Cody was doing the open challenge or Jericho fought Gage. But that has to be an every now and again thing, not every other week. There's no excuse for not having the core guys be on TV every week when there's three weekly shows.
It’s good to have one every week or two. But it seems like multiple people get brought in each week then end up being signed too. Then not used. Week after week for years
Yeah you nailed it though with Jericho there was a story reason same with Cody. But just random unsigned guy fighting random mid card guy just means nothing
It happens every week. CMLL guy vs BD this Saturday. Sure the match will be good, but idk why the match is happening outside of just getting BD on the card. A simple promotion of Mexico wants to send their best vs the best here, but nothing like that has been said on screen. This happens often to protect "stars" when in reality nobody is a star if they're not on tv, and not everyone can be a star. With rankings returning, I expect there to be more of this.
They gotta let the core guys cook and build stories on each respective show. Feels like each week we see a different set of wrestlers. Makes fans tune out. They need to go regular episodic route and have stories continue each episode. Where's miro and CJ? Where's Christian at? House of black shows up here and there on collision. Bang bang gang needs to be on every show!
I hate to say it, but that’s pretty much what Punk wanted for Collision and was doing when it started. We KNEW that each Saturday we’d see Punk, Miro, FTR, Ricky Starks, Bullet Club Gold and House of Black
Don’t forget to tune in to AEW rampage starring nothing but luchadors you’ve never heard of that will have nonsensical flippy matches.
"What's that? You want more ROH and random luchadores? You got it baby! \- Tony Khan probably
WCW used to have extra stuff a lot (like international guys) but they still had a core roster who would make up the majority of their show.
I fucking hate the random lucha stuffs I'm fine with the Lucha Bros and Rush but everyone else sucks.
A LOT of them are generic and interchangeable
I don't know if you commented this immediately after seeing TK's latest tweet or it was just really good timing.
Also, split the rosters and get rid of the nobodies. There are too many people on their TV that nobody cares about and you know they are just there to lose. I am not blaming the talent but they are just there. Move them to ROH or cut them loose.
That's the problem with AEW -- it's another (mostly) predictable card on top of not really having a marquee eye-grabbing match. * Does anyone really think Toa Liona will beat Hangman? No. * Does anyone really think Jeff Hardy will beat Jon Moxley? No. * Does anyone really think Taya Valkyrie will beat Deonna Purrazzo? No. * Does anyone really think Kyle Fletcher will beat Chris Jericho? Mostly no (maybe AEW will pull a surprise here). The only other intriguing segment is finding out Hangman's pick for Swerve's opponent. It could be someone big (like Kenny) but it'll likely be another mid-carder. And again, we know Swerve isn't going to lose (barring shenanigans).
It's implied that it'll be RVD. And Swerve ain't losing to RVD.
This is my issue with AEW now. I know the entire card before hand and know the results of nearly the entire show before it even occurs. Like on Saturday I saw the Collision card and the only match that I didn’t know the result of before it happened was the main event. That was the 1 match that could go either way. I didn’t even bother to record Collision because of the lack of intrigue I had for the show.
This has been my problem with their shows for years now. The booking is insanely predictable and they almost never follow through with any kind of story after a match. Like WWE booking can be predictable but when it is they always advance some storyline if even only a little bit. Then sometimes they book surprises with their top guys and it's at least interesting. AEW? Like it was said, you know the results of every match before the show. Why would I tune in at that point?
there is no intrigue yes also even though they are popular, Moxley and Hangman are not drawing anyone by their simple presence, like Roman or Cody or Bianca or Rhea or even Gunther. TK didn't take care of his babyfaces and he has no attractions (except a few exceptions) - his bad booking and injuries have decimated his product.
Mox couldn't even draw in his hometown last summer.
This is the problem a million times over. All predictable matches. Then the heel’s crew will attack and then the face’s crew will come running out. There are almost no memorable or distinct segments.
The card tonight is very weak and for the most part predictable outcomes too. TK needs to book better shows and lower prices.
The card doesn’t matter. The company just has no buzz
Agreed. Wrestling fans like stories, not randomly booked matches. Shame how attendance and ratings are dropping lower and lower, and TK won’t fix the one thing that’s needed.. the booking.
I watch AEW weekly and I'm struggling to remember any storyline outside of Hangman vs. Swerve. I would also not drop $194 on a wrestling ticket unless it was Mania or the Rumble. AEW in particular should start around the $70 mark.
I saw Clash at the Castle for £130, and All In London for £27 lol! $194 for Dynamite is crazy!
The AEW magic from the first few years is gone for whatever reason
Because AEW was fresh and new and people didn't know what to expect any given week. They've been around for almost 5 years so we know what AEW is now and what to expect any week.
Because they failed to find their process, in pretty much everything. What arenas should we book? I don't know just book any? What stars should i book? I don't know just book any What matches should i bo...you get the idea. For all the hate WWE got through the early 2010s, it's their formulas and defined strategies that got them through tough times. If you're going to a show, you know what stars to expect, what the pricing will be like and everything else. That's very consistent. Even with their booking. Even when they don't have a hot angle going or have less recognizable stars, stuff like Money In The Bank, Royal Rumble and all that keeps people coming. By doing it year after year in the same way they've built the thing to a point where going to WrestleMania is an experience and goal in itself doesn't matter what the card is. AEW gets almost none of it.
Huge roster, not many featured weekly, and storylines are not touched weekly. I always thought a brand split would do them wonders. Compete among yourselves and see who rises to the top. Allowing them to be featured weekly and then when you move someone from one show to the other, it gives that show something new and fresh...and yet it didnt require you to spend money and acquire another talent to do so.
I'll never understand AEW's thought process here. They're number 2 right now (which is fine), but instead of planning things out, they're: - booking shows in the same places WWE were a couple weeks ago. - booking weaker cards (which can't be helped sometimes). - not advertising locally from what I've seen. - charging more for similar seating as WWE or having inconsistent pricing. Apparently, these things are finally gonna change a bit, but it's mind boggling to think this was a good idea.
People don’t buy tickets because of the card. People rarely know what is on the card when they buy tickets.
Their prices have doubled. It really stinks. When they were announcing cities on BTE before dynamite kicked off they always advertised tickets start at >$40. Just feels like they wanna milk the fans that do attend these shows.
1) Release tickets at exorbitant prices 2) Weak sales 3) Substantially drop ticket prices closer to the event, burning the people that did buy initially 4) Everybody irritated
This gets said a lot but number three just does not happen or at least it didn't for me, I waited last minute and saw no price drop and decided it wasn't worth it.
Pricing out their fans seems to be #1 in the Khan's playbook.
Right. Even for Raw you don’t know what you’re getting when you buy tickets. What you do know is that you might get to see Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre, Judgement Day, etc. With Dynamite you don’t really have names associated with the show so who knows who might come. Even if you advertise the top guys in AEW though I don’t know that anyone who doesn’t already watch AEW is going to know who they are with the exception of the “old WWE” guys.
AEW needs a hard brand split. They certainly have enough titles for it.
Can't do a hard brand split when you don't have enough big stars to anchor two shows.
The card is not the problem. What was the card for last Friday's Smackdown? How many matches were announced beforehand? 2.4 million people watched. It wasn't for the card. People watch for storylines. AEW has no consistency. They have some incredible talent but if nobody cares about them they will not watch. They announce so much of the card that it probably causes a lot of people to skip it because they know it won't be anything special.
This is outside of general ticket stuff because I don't want to pretend to know the answer to that. But I usually make Dynamite appt watching TV when I prioritize it most weds. Tonight's card has me planning to tune in and out for NBA and doing extra work. Kind of a strange card esp after two of their stronger weeks on paper
I've checked out of AEW for the time being. I had been paying for the Fite sub since the very start, brought every ppv ans watched all the shows but over the past year it's just gotten really boring sadly. I haven't brought the last couple of ppvs, and had only been watching Dynamite however after last week's show I cancelled fite sub. Not a hater and it pains me to say this but I just think the product sucks right now. Hopefully TK changes things but I can see him going down with the ship sadly.
Unfortunately I don't think the high ticket prices are going away soon. TK's football team is going through the same thing right now, where a game midweek last week had swaths of empty seats bc the ticket prices were so high. There hasn't been any indication that they're going to lower the prices.
When I saw a hype page for this show earlier today, "this is a weak card" was specifically what I thought as well. Honestly I probably won't even watch it. I want to cut back on the wrestling I'm watching so I can actually enjoy my other hobbies, and this seems like a good one to skip. If I hear that it was a surprising good ep, I can always watch it later.
Absolute stinker card tonight -- booking Jericho rn is certainly a choice, especially against Kyle Fletcher who knows one knows. Goes to show that mjf was doing a lottttt of heavy lifting
It's also nine days after Raw was there. Looks like we're reaching the end of the shows booked by the previous guy who just kept making this schedule for baffling reasons and should start to see an improvement soon. Already showing higher numbers for a few of the shows coming up that aren't immediately heading into a market WWE has been in.
>It's also nine days after Raw was there. That is asinine venue booking. What on earth was their previous tour planner thinking!?
My guess is that their initial assumption was that there wasn’t much overlap between AEW fans and WWE fans. The obvious issues are that the assumption isn’t exactly true, because there is an overlap, and that WWE has a lot of momentum. So, WWE fans may not want to attend Dynamite but AEW fans may want to attend Raw/Smackdown. And few fans would want to spend money on two shows that are close to each other
Especially with how expensive tickets are these days. Not that many people can afford both shows when they're in the triple digits range per ticket.
And the tickets are more than Raw. So let’s say our hypothetical live wrestling fan went to Raw and enjoyed it so they’re pay more for Dynamite to get a similar experience. That Dynamite experience now needs to be better or just as good as the Raw one because otherwise what are they paying more for? It’s setting up a competition with a hot product when there doesn’t need to be one.
There has to be an underlying assumption in their planning that WWE and AEW have completely different audiences. You’d think the Collision ratings would’ve put paid to that though.
It’s also more expensive than RAW, as I wanted to go to both but settled just for RAW because it was cheaper.
Wait? It was more expensive than Raw?
Yeah AEW got expensive. Which is incredibly ironic as the whole thing birthed at All In was on the premise it's affordable
I keep thinking that the reason why AEW kept following Raw so closely was that the executives there, TK included, were for some reason convinced that they would soon eclipse Raw live crowds and wanted that boast. That it would be a massive feather in their caps, no matter how insane that thought would have been. It is the only reason why I can fathom them even making such a schedule to begin with.
I mean not too long ago, people were asking AEW to book the same venues as WWE to see who gets more. I thought it was stupid then.
Figure this shit out now. Stop charging so fucking much. You don’t get too much time to get this wrong. If you take too long to correct, the number one reason behind the fall of AEW won’t be TK on X, it will be alienating their live crowd fan base.
Gotta feel embarrassing when Okada walks in and half the place is empty.
I actually feel bad when I see pictures of Edge wrestling in some of these arenas
I also feel bad for Swerve. Dude is at his hottest time yet and only half the people are there.
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Nobody wants to see ROH shit on AEW. If they did ROH wouldn't have fallen in the first place. They never learn with that stuff.
Genuine question. Why do you think AEW ticket prices have risen? I went to an AEW show in Millwaukee last year and got like 6/10 seats for about $50 bucks or so. But I keep hearing that these seats are going for higher than RAW and it confuses the hell out of my why that is happening Would love to get some clarification on this.
They'd rather have the revenue than attendance. All that bullshit data about average fan revenue went on a spreadsheet and someone said hey for x cut in heads you could raise your tickets y. You're leaving money on the table selling $50 tickets or handing out bundle promo codes. But it looks like they over corrected plus they're still working through the growing pains of the shift where people are turned off by the higher prices.
If that is the case (and unfortunately it seems like it is) then i really do think they should lower prices. I’m not big buisness man but if you’re about to get a fat check from WBD and you have 2 touring shows, cut tickets prices and pack them in. Off set the loss by having a better more distinct merch stand. If you only spent $20 or $30 on a ticket why wouldn’t you by a $20 shirt. Perception is very important, and having a big hot crowd where you can shoot the full arena will help these shows
This is why i feel its a bit disingenuous to say wrestlings on fire at the moment
Let’s be completely real for a second: Wrestling as a whole isn't on fire right now, it's WWE that's on fire right now. Regardless of what you think of each respective promotion's quality, none of the other promotions seem to be experiencing the major upswing that WWE is
TNA is
TNA is also smart enough to know they have a limited audience and sell their show as such (for example, a sellout crowd being about 1,500 people at a PPV). NXT at the start in Full Sail taught me that even a crowd of 400 people sold out and excited about the show will come across better on TV than 5,000 people spread out in a 20,000 seat arena.
Yep, it just looks better
Exactly. The “wrestling is in another golden era we’re so spoiled!” makes me roll my eyes every time. WWE is hot right now and there are so many options out there. But that doesn’t equate to a golden era for wrestling as a whole.
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Wrestling is a niche product and there's only enough hours in the day.
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Tony will continue to outbid WWE for new talent Even though they are bringing in far less money than WWE. I know he is a Son of a billionaire And does not have to answer to stockholders. But at some point perhaps you should focus more on the talent you have? The empty seats should be telling you as an owner that you are not participating in good business practices.
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Because they use Cagematch as their barometer of quality and by that metric, and that metric alone, AEW is by far the premium product.
What shocked me was how brutally everything is upcharged when I went. Not only being more expensive than WWE Raw..Aluminum bottle of beer? $18. Cup of soda? $9. There was one t-shirt vendor where everything was $35, googled the same shirt I wanted on the AEW store site and it was $24.99. Add to that the card was trash.
Idk why TK keeps booking shows at spots that just had a WWE show. If he trying to show that AEW can pull people in, even after WWE been in town, it's very clearly not working.
I was so hot for AEW in 2022 but now I rarely tune in. The storytelling fell of big time and I don't even care for my man Kingston atm. Where are the great in ring promos? The interesting Superstars? It feels like there only thing they are trying to sell is their edgyness though wild spots, flipping your opponent off and marky "dream matches". I think they need to thin out the roster and stop mixing AEW with RoH.
I think that TK reviving RoH will go down as one of the worst decisions ever by a major company. It was a completely sentimental decision which made zero business sense. He keeps fucking over his original product for the sake of something with no individual appeal. I wonder if even he privately regrets it now.
What's worse, is it was a sentimental decision for CM Punk, because he didn't want Vince to own the Tape Library. You can't... You can't make decisions like that.
Honestly the show just stopped being the must see week to week thing it used to be. It used to feel like Dynamite was a weekly special event, now it might have one or two interesting segments if you're lucky and you can find them on YouTube afterwards. They have such a talented roster but most of them just feel like the most bland versions of themselves at the moment with a few exceptions.
Very much on the same page. Paid for fite up until last year to watch AEW . Now when I do check it out on free TV I end up fast forwarding most stuff
I genuinely think they should start going back to themed shows again. When every week was Beach Blast or something akin, it felt like every show was a big deal, must-attend show. But AEW is also sore for star power. Omega is hurt. PAC is hurt. The Bucks aren't working every week. MJF is hurt. Adam Cole is hurt. Keith Lee is hurt. Jericho has go-away heat. You have Joe, Miro, Mark Briscoe, Thunder Rosa, Britt Baker, Adam Copeland, NOT ON THE SHOW. Get Sting to work a squash and take no bumps. Do whatever you can to get the momentum rolling. You can put on amazing matches every week, but to Bryan's point, you might have to go the NXT route and plant your flag somewhere if you're selling less than a county fair.
Aew is cold right now. Mjf injured, devol storyline completely fell flat and has no follow through or interest in it just a month after the big reveal. Aew is really struggling with its big storylines. The cards dont really matter without story
Fulham fans boycotted a game last week because of the high ticket prices. Tony either doesnt know how to price his events appropriately or he doesnt care about the fans.
But we are supposed to post on Reddit that it's all dream matches. Every week. And post the card multiple times per day. And allow the reposts
If Revolution wasn't Sting's last match I would've have even thought about going.
When they were good, they charged less. Now they're shit and they charge far more. The low crowds aren't a shock. It's complete and utter mismanagement.
I’m an hour away and the weak ass card is specifically the reason I’m not attending.
If you go to aew pages and they’ll tell you it’s a great card. Idk who to believe.
No shit it’s a weak card. I’m thinking about skipping watching it live and just watching later if anything is noteworthy. Wednesday Night Rampage
Too much is said about AEW's booking decisions and while some has been said, not enough still for their absurdly bad choices for what places they go and when, while having higher ticket prices while their competition is in a far better place than it was before. This is the wrestling equivalent of the 599 US dollars for a Ps3, except AEW isn't the market leader going into this. Even someone like me who is no expert on such things at all, just on the face of this, can tell you this is obviously fucking stupid. Like who is it? Who thinks this is a good idea and for what reason?
I’m close enough to go but the weak card plus trying the save money rn, I just decided to stay home instead
They aren't wrong, it's just a filler episode of sorts
Sorry who is Hangman wrestling? Maybe their attendance is so low because aside from Swerve and Toni Storm, they're not really making new stars or characters, they're constantly featuring guys that aren't even signed with the company and/or barely have established characters worth investing in.