quite an interesting pod about ground improvements at villa park

before you get your foghorn out it's not all about capacity with regard to how you "fill" your stadium with bums on seats on matchdays but how you address problems like pre/post matchday congestion; fans leaving early to avoid getting stuck in traffic, moving people out of cars to other modes of transport, maximising revenue streams by creating customer friendly points of sale in bars/food outlets, better service/better product offers etc (carrow road is awful at this inside and outside of the stadium), provision of alternative so called multi-use "active entertainment zones" (a bit like boxpark at wembley) where fans can enjoy major sporting events outside of ncfc football year round. they even plan to put their own micro-brewery inside, really lots of well thought out initiatives like improved public transport links, better parking,initiatives to keep fans in or around the stadium to keep spending/reduce congestion/have a more enjoyable experience. be nice if ncfc could build on the work of stewart webber on improving the facilities and go a step further by creating a customer experience (not just for fans but joe public as well) both inside and outside the stadium not just on matchdays.

at the moment, carrow road is geared up to fulfil the needs of a proportion of 27k people once or twice a week for a part of the year. if the right infrastructure was put in place it could potentially attract many times that throughout the year.

it looks like villa are prepared to take the pain not only of two or three seasons of reduced attendances in order to let them build two new stands but to create a product/experience that will serve well the club and it's future supporters down the years. in comparison our plan of bunging up big banners on the outside of the stadium of untested players seems a little bit "we really haven't got a f**king scooby doo". anyway, watch the pod, or not up to you. User Posted Link

Posted By: Tombs, Jul 8, 20:21:18