Sources: various
Many recent reports have suggested that TNA drew very low attendance in the 150 – 200 ticket range in Port Huron Michigan. Several sources are now saying attendance was in the upper 600 to low 700 ticket range. Apparently many of the fan videos that have been circulating were taped pre-show.
TNA was drawing around the same crowd this time last year so this isn’t as bleak as it first appeared. While 700 isn’t nearly the draw that WWE gets TNA’s events do not have nearly the same overhead as the WWE either.
I was at the TNA event in Port Huron, Michigan.
There were FAR more than 700 people…that is FOR SURE!
In fact, McMorran Sports Center in Port Huron has a maximum capacity of 4,500 people. The entire lower deck was sold out, and about 80% of the upper deck was sold out.
Based on what I saw it looked like the reason why parts of the upper deck were not sold out was the same reason why NFL games are not sold out when they are played on Baseball fields…That reason is simply because those seats are not ideal for watching the event since objects are in the way.
I have that event on video with quite a few videos, and quite a few pictures. I can prove that Sports Complext in Port Huron, Michigan was packed.
If there were times when it didn’t appear that way, it may have been because at the halftime intermission many of the wrestlers such as The Beautiful People and Samoa Joe were signing autographs. There were literally hundreds of people in line, stretching across the outer permiter of the entire lower deck. This may be why things “appeared” to show empty seats at one point.
One thing TNA may want to do in the future is give people more notice about events. I watch TNA every week and I only saw the first advertisement for Port Huron, Michigan two weeks prior to the event. TNA needs to give more notice to fans so there is time to buy the tickets.
Michael,
I figured that might have been the case with the videos released on the web. If you’d like to share your pictures and/or video with the rest of the TNAStars.com community you can hit Joe up at http://www.tnastars.com/contact-us/ and he would be more than glad to post them on the site for everyone to see.
Thanks for your report on the show.