AEW London 2023

[Loki]

Meltzer is reporting that the rent on Wembley Stadium is $400,000.
 

@d-d-d-dAz does that sound right?

[Tsurutagun]

1 minute ago, Loki said:

Meltzer is reporting that the rent on Wembley Stadium is $400,000.
 

@d-d-d-dAz does that sound right?

Meltzer quoted Eddie Hearn when saying this fwiw 

I would imagine that Tony knows every bit of worth when it comes to Wembley considering the Jaguars play there once a year and his dad tried to buy the stadium several years ago. 

 

[SuperBacon]

57 minutes ago, Loki said:

Meltzer is reporting that the rent on Wembley Stadium is $400,000.
 

@d-d-d-dAz does that sound right?

That sounds quite cheap!!!

[Healy52003]

1 hour ago, Loki said:

Meltzer is reporting that the rent on Wembley Stadium is $400,000.
 

@d-d-d-dAz does that sound right?

Is that good or bad news for the ticket prices ??

 

[d-d-d-dAz]

10 hours ago, Loki said:

Meltzer is reporting that the rent on Wembley Stadium is $400,000.
 

@d-d-d-dAz does that sound right?

It’s hugely variable. But yeah, I could maybe see that. Typically rental costs for Wembley will vary - I think, I’ve been more involved with the flogging shows than renting them - between around 200k at the low end (charity connected events usually) and 1mil at the top end (events with a higher than normal expectation of misbehaviour, events that require Wembley to pay for stewarding in the surrounding area or events where the promoter simply doesn’t want to give much of the gate away).

If you’re paying 400k US, you’re nearer the lower end - so maybe you’ve done a deal because of who you are, or maybe you’re giving away 20% or 25% of your gate to the stadium.

But, like, venue rental shouldn’t *really* be your headline costs and is a bit of a red herring. At an average ticket price of 100 quid you’d only need to sell 4k to break even. It’s a big number, but it’ll be dwarfed by the sum of everything else.

The costs come from - what’s your marketing budget; what’s your PR and promotional budget; what’s your presentation budget for the night itself; what’s your cargo cost if you need to ship any of the staging elements in; you’re going to have to pay for in-stadium and concourse staffing to some degree; what’s your talent travel, accommodation and per diem allowance; what’s your medical budget to ensure you can pay for on-site paramedics and doctors; are any of your talent on gate deals…

There’s loads of other costs that rack up in a hurry. Insurance will probably take the guts right out of you too.

I’m sure they’ve done the maths and will get out alive financially. The Khan’s are richer than God, anyway.

But if it’s true that they’ve got 25,000 people on the waiting list, then I reckon they’ve then got to hard sell about that number all over again (presuming they sell 25k or thereabouts at pre-sale) to make it so they can slap the ring in the middle of the stadium and make it look good from every angle.

If they want to hoik the ring up one half and run half a stadium they might get there on pre-sale alone… but feels like an awful step down from the mega statement of running Wembley Stadium.

I remain pretty excited to see what they do. I hope they don’t just take what they can get and run half the stadium, I’d love to see them give it a good go and get around 50 in - but to circle back to my original point, that won’t be easy no matter how big a brand you think AEW is.

Edited April 10, 2023 by d-d-d-dAz

[Keith Houchen]

@d-d-d-dAz Just wanted to thank you for your posts in this thread. They’re super informative and give us a perspective that we don’t usually have a reference of. Thank you!

[d-d-d-dAz]

12 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

@d-d-d-dAz Just wanted to thank you for your posts in this thread. They’re super informative and give us a perspective that we don’t usually have a reference of. Thank you!

That’s very kind, thank you. I’m definitely no expert compared to many in the industry and just relaying information I’ve earwigged over my time (usually when someone screams at me “WEVE SPENT X AMOUNT OF POUNDS ON THIS FUCKING SHOW AND YOUVE ONLY SOLD Y AMOUNT OF TICKETS”)

If you want to discuss the difficulties of getting talent into newspapers or on TV, or the costs associated with marketing shows then I’ll really flex my muscles 😂😅

For stadiums, where wrestling has a head start on boxing, for example, is they won’t have to pay two single talents tens of millions of pounds and work back from there. So that’s one thing in their favour.

 

[herbie747]

On 4/6/2023 at 11:06 AM, Factotum said:

I would hazard a guess there are more than 30k fans of AEW in Europe.

I don't watch any wrestling anymore, and I'm 70% tempted to fly over from Ireland to go. Make a weekend of it. 

The crazy bastards just might do big numbers here, based on spectacle and buzz. 

[westlondonmist]

I was wondering if they got a lower fee because it isn't during the usual peak Wembley event time. The concerts are around june/July and they must skin them alive. 400k may still be a large amount but all those larger fees on top would need to be paid whether at Craven Cottage or Wembley. The show is itself just promotion isn't it? I'd imagine breaking even would be seen as partial success. Selling 40k plus tickets would look pretty good. May get some new fans. I don't watch aew but a Wembley show has me excited as a wrestling fan, and I'll start watching to enjoy the show more. 

25k on the waiting list, can't really tell how many they will sell. Some may buy none, some may buy 4.

Edited April 10, 2023 by westlondonmist

[d-d-d-dAz]

7 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

I was wondering if they got a lower fee because it isn't during the usual peak Wembley event time. The concerts are around june/July and they must skin them alive. 400k may still be a large amount but all those larger fees on top would need to be paid whether at Craven Cottage or Wembley. The show is itself just promotion isn't it? I'd imagine breaking even would be seen as partial success. Selling 40k plus tickets would look pretty good. May get some new fans. I don't watch aew but a Wembley show has me excited as a wrestling fan, and I'll start watching to enjoy the show more. 

25k on the waiting list, can't really tell how many they will sell. Some may buy none, some may buy 4.

Anecdotally, your pre-sale churn rates usually mean you net out at a similar number to what’s on the list. But that’s hugely variable based on loads of other factors; are people likely to travel for the event, have touts taken over the list, what’s your max amount saleable per transaction.

In terms of the other costs, they all increase based on the size of venue. You’ll need more security, more medical, more staging, more insurance etc etc

40k would probably be a discussion point about where you put the ring. You’d maybe squeeze everyone down to the lower bowl and mid tier, tarp the upper deck and try to comp any gaps. At that point it’s a ‘make it look good’ exercise. Fortunately, black cloth isn’t that expensive.

I’m purely guessing but I think at 50, with creative staging you could fill floor, lower bowl, mid tier and some of the upper deck. The higher you can push tarping, the more you can pull to wide shots and look good.

The worst thing in the world is having to consistently film tight because of gaps. At that point, you may as well be running York Hall for how cheap it’ll look.

Edited April 10, 2023 by d-d-d-dAz

[Infinity Land]

12 hours ago, Tsurutagun said:

Meltzer quoted Eddie Hearn when saying this fwiw 

I would imagine that Tony knows every bit of worth when it comes to Wembley considering the Jaguars play there once a year and his dad tried to buy the stadium several years ago. 

 

Unless there's other quotes out there, this seems to be a round about way of getting there when attributing it to Hearn.

Eddie Hearn appeared on Ariel Helwani's MMA hour and said that the cost of Croke Park was 3 times Wembley. Now that was for the cost of everything not just rental. None of the reports have Hearn giving specific numbers.

In response Croke Park's Commercial Director used some numbers purely on the rental side of things "The last time we talked to them properly was before Christmas. Our rent was coming in around 400,000 euros (£355,000). I think the rent for Wembley is about £250,000 to £300,000."

[d-d-d-dAz]

20 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

Unless there's other quotes out there, this seems to be a round about way of getting there when attributing it to Hearn.

Eddie Hearn appeared on Ariel Helwani's MMA hour and said that the cost of Croke Park was 3 times Wembley. Now that was for the cost of everything not just rental. None of the reports have Hearn giving specific numbers.

In response Croke Park's Commercial Director used some numbers purely on the rental side of things "The last time we talked to them properly was before Christmas. Our rent was coming in around 400,000 euros (£355,000). I think the rent for Wembley is about £250,000 to £300,000."

I think Croke Park, and EU countries in generally, take a higher cut of the gate and require promoters to cover more costs too so maybe Hearn has a point. Hard to say, isn’t it, as both sides of that conversation have reason to obscure and fudge.

What I will say is, Croke Park is an absolute belter. I’d love a wrestling company to get an Irish star so hot they could fill that out. The dream used to be McGregor there but… you know… he’s a dickhead.

 

[El Hijo del Mikey Jr]

When I was involved with Rugby League and had an in with the RFL, I was told they spent 750k on the rent for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup double header at Wembley.  This is why they didn't go anywhere near it for the 2021 RLWC.

I think part of the reason for that number was that the RFL were selling all the tickets centrally.

Edited April 10, 2023 by El Hijo del Mikey Jr

[Chris B]

How much of an unknown was Wembley Stadium back with SummerSlam 92, especially without Hulk Hogan?

I'm not comparing current AEW with early 90s WWF in terms of popularity, but I remember it being mainstream for wrestling rather than truly mainstream. 

It was quite a jump from places they'd toured before, especially for a non-Hogan show.

Basically, I wonder how much of it was a must-see because it felt like a one-off. It must have been a serious amount of the audience's first wrestling (or WWF at least) show.

And that makes me wonder how much it seeming like a one-off big show will bring out people who wouldn't go to see it otherwise. 

I'm fascinated to see how they do. 

[SuperBacon]

Never underestimate just how over Bulldog was. They probably could've sold another 20,000 tickets because of him.