Cardiff Bay “Masterplan” including a 15,000 seater arena!

Kevlar68

Well-Known Member
#21
Best option for a new arena in my opinion demolish the Motorpoint, it was a rubbish idea from the start. Build in to Churchhill Way, Traders Tavern, car park and out towards Park Inn, make it all pedestrianised around that area.
Loads of Car parks in and around the centre empty at night time so parking would be easy and city centre bars and restaurants would benefit from it also.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#22
Best option for a new arena in my opinion demolish the Motorpoint, it was a rubbish idea from the start. Build in to Churchhill Way, Traders Tavern, car park and out towards Park Inn, make it all pedestrianised around that area.
Loads of Car parks in and around the centre empty at night time so parking would be easy and city centre bars and restaurants would benefit from it also.
I always thought that the current site of the prison would be ideal with Queen Street station next door. The problem with anywhere in the city centre though is that the mess the council have made of the road system has made it a nightmare to get in and out by car or coach. With the PDR next to it and the some work on bute street station and the proposed location is fine.
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#23
It would be so good to have an ice pad there just as a luxury and a back up for big events and even the possibility of a Playoff Weekend.
Commercially I guess it is not practical and Nottingham is so well placed as a fairly central location. ( Let’s not forget Wembley was the best and far from being central )
Wembley was far from the best, it had bugger all outside the Arena, yes good memories because we were winning, but other than that looking back after the last x amount of years it was crap compared to today’s weekends.
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#24
I always thought that the current site of the prison would be ideal with Queen Street station next door. The problem with anywhere in the city centre though is that the mess the council have made of the road system has made it a nightmare to get in and out by car or coach. With the PDR next to it and the some work on bute street station and the proposed location is fine.
Great point about the prison, that place could be anywhere but certainly not in billionaires row, time to ship the garbage out to the sticks now instead of penthouse City Centre.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#25
Wembley was far from the best, it had bugger all outside the Arena, yes good memories because we were winning, but other than that looking back after the last x amount of years it was crap compared to today’s weekends.
As to that how expensive it was staying in London.
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
#27
It won’t be 15,000 for hockey, it will be more like 10,000, for hockey, and as for concerts they will take preference as that’s where the money lies. We would need 6/7,000 to get the place buzzing.
Cardiff Blues were getting on average 7300 fans back in 2018/19 at Cardiff Arms Park. Now that's a sport with a much bigger following and exposure. So as much as I'd love to see it, it's hard to see crowds that big for a Devils game. I remember Todd saying that an extra thousand seats at IAW would be useful and I think that's about it. You look at Nottingham and Sheffield, they are significantly bigger cities than Cardiff which probably helps generate bigger crowds.
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#28
Sheffield and Nottingham’s population is more than double that of Cardiff, so we would probably be wanting to punch way above our weight. Add maybe getting kicked into some mid week games due to ice not available, that’s never a clever move, and if then the land at IAW is wanted then where do the Devils train. It’s all to much of a gamble for me, there again what do I know, but if it ain’t broke. Stay Safe all.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#29
Cardiff Blues were getting on average 7300 fans back in 2018/19 at Cardiff Arms Park. Now that's a sport with a much bigger following and exposure. So as much as I'd love to see it, it's hard to see crowds that big for a Devils game. I remember Todd saying that an extra thousand seats at IAW would be useful and I think that's about it. You look at Nottingham and Sheffield, they are significantly bigger cities than Cardiff which probably helps generate bigger crowds.
I'm not sure that you can relate things with rugby. The local rivalries and tribalism are such that people from 10 miles up the road wouldn't come to support Cardiff. Hockey doesn't have that problem and the devils can draw fans from all over South Wales. It's simply a matter of marketing and price. It's a pity that Bristol's new rink is going to be so small as we could have had a nice rivalry there.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#30
Sheffield and Nottingham’s population is more than double that of Cardiff, so we would probably be wanting to punch way above our weight. Add maybe getting kicked into some mid week games due to ice not available, that’s never a clever move, and if then the land at IAW is wanted then where do the Devils train. It’s all to much of a gamble for me, there again what do I know, but if it ain’t broke. Stay Safe all.
Firstly the population of the Cardiff metropolitan area is listed by Google as 478000. Nottingham is listed as 787000, so not quite double. But this fails to take into account Cardiff's huge hinterland from which we already draw some fans. No one is suggesting that IAW would be lost. The demand on it for general use (rec hockey, various skating clubs etc) is huge without even considering devils matches. I won't deny however there are economic challenges, but this is why I'm glad we had the fantastic GM that we do.
 

Ocko

Well-Known Member
#31
But the Devils aren’t a team for just the Cardiff area. We are the only EIHL team in Wales and the only EIHL team in the South.

The Blues isn’t a great example of potential crowds either - there is a lot of deep rooted issues with the regional game and the fans definitely aren’t on a regional level. Add in the mix that the Welsh regional game is struggling, international players are rarely playing - it’s just not an attractive option to watch.

I also don’t think we can base whether we can potentially get crowds of 6k+ on our current market reach. We play out of a 3.1k rink, we often sell out but I would imagine our total fan base is probably about 500-1k more than that (take into account casual fans) so our reach is somewhere in the region of 4k. Which means that if the game is a low profile/friendly/dead rubber then we are likely to see the percentage of fans who want to attend at about 60-70%. Hence the 2-2.5k crowds. Those dead rubbers will still occur in a larger facility and the crowd will still represent a similar percentage but the key is to make the pool of fans bigger.

To say that crowd will transfer without increase into a bigger facility is just a wild assumption and not taking into account marketing we have never done on the scale we would and with recent successes we have.

I sometimes think, especially with the comments moaning about people using the game for a night out, that sections of the fan base like keeping us a small entity. I get the whole community feel thing but the club has to grow.
 

hip check

Well-Known Member
#32
Cardiff Blues were getting on average 7300 fans back in 2018/19 at Cardiff Arms Park. Now that's a sport with a much bigger following and exposure. So as much as I'd love to see it, it's hard to see crowds that big for a Devils game. I remember Todd saying that an extra thousand seats at IAW would be useful and I think that's about it. You look at Nottingham and Sheffield, they are significantly bigger cities than Cardiff which probably helps generate bigger crowds.
Belfast population 280,000, average Giants attendance 4,500.
Cardiff population 478,000ish (as posted above), average attendance 2,800/2,900.
Smaller cities can draw the crowds if the facilities are right, Devils have great potential to increase our following with good marketing and a larger venue.
 

august04 2.0

Well-Known Member
#34
But the Devils aren’t a team for just the Cardiff area. We are the only EIHL team in Wales and the only EIHL team in the South.

The Blues isn’t a great example of potential crowds either - there is a lot of deep rooted issues with the regional game and the fans definitely aren’t on a regional level. Add in the mix that the Welsh regional game is struggling, international players are rarely playing - it’s just not an attractive option to watch.

I also don’t think we can base whether we can potentially get crowds of 6k+ on our current market reach. We play out of a 3.1k rink, we often sell out but I would imagine our total fan base is probably about 500-1k more than that (take into account casual fans) so our reach is somewhere in the region of 4k. Which means that if the game is a low profile/friendly/dead rubber then we are likely to see the percentage of fans who want to attend at about 60-70%. Hence the 2-2.5k crowds. Those dead rubbers will still occur in a larger facility and the crowd will still represent a similar percentage but the key is to make the pool of fans bigger.

To say that crowd will transfer without increase into a bigger facility is just a wild assumption and not taking into account marketing we have never done on the scale we would and with recent successes we have.

I sometimes think, especially with the comments moaning about people using the game for a night out, that sections of the fan base like keeping us a small entity. I get the whole community feel thing but the club has to grow.
I couldn’t agree more. The club must continually evolve and hopefully grow and this has to include an increased capacity at either IAW or an alternative at some point. We all like competing at a higher level in the CHL but we’ll never make any real impact on a competition like this until we can compete financially with the big boys. Our current capacity/arena corporate facilities restricts our potential for growth. It’s fine for the EIHL but is that enough longer term? Perhaps so for some. Personally, I think a capacity nearer 6000 for hockey would be ideal and this proposed new arena is probably too big for us to sustain. I’d love to be proved wrong though and if anyone can sell those extra tickets, our management can!
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#35
CHL games for us are mere drops in the water financial wise, and they are a different level even for Steelers and Panthers with their bigger Arenas, for me that holds no water and is far from our bread and butter. There’s also the theory that the bigger some teams get, the smaller other teams get,yes we all have to improve but there’s a balance here, and I realise small clubs shouldn’t stifle others, but we were smaller not so long ago, and obviously don’t want to go back to those dark insecure days, it’s a fine line and at the moment with what’s going on I just want to watch hockey, it would be a few years anyway.Stay Safe all.
 

Kevlar68

Well-Known Member
#36
I couldn’t agree more. The club must continually evolve and hopefully grow and this has to include an increased capacity at either IAW or an alternative at some point. We all like competing at a higher level in the CHL but we’ll never make any real impact on a competition like this until we can compete financially with the big boys. Our current capacity/arena corporate facilities restricts our potential for growth. It’s fine for the EIHL but is that enough longer term? Perhaps so for some. Personally, I think a capacity nearer 6000 for hockey would be ideal and this proposed new arena is probably too big for us to sustain. I’d love to be proved wrong though and if anyone can sell those extra tickets, our management can!

So shall we look at some of the facts here.
Cardiff Devils were established in 1986, they have been a fully functioning team for now 34 years.
At one point British ice hockey Finals were live on main stream terrestrial TV , we had a Super league on Sky Sports and we would have sometimes a full page in the sports section of the South Wales Echo with Terry Phillips writing it who would attend most matches at the WNIR .
During this period of high tv exposure of the team we had a capacity at the WNIR of 2800 and only 2/3 of a season were sell outs.
Now we have a 3,100 capacity arena with very little main stream TV exposure, even with the welsh news we're a foot note on ITV and again from what I've seen maybe 2/3 of a season are sell outs.
So the question is where do those extra 2,900 fans come from of a 6000 arena?
If we haven't been able to build up the numbers over 34 years with better exposure than we have now how are we going to gain that 2,900 fans needed?
That's nearly double the fan base that goes to the IAW now.
 
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Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#37
It’s always great to want to take your club to another level, we all want what’s best for our club, that’s the only reason our club still exists in fairness. But in reality no one in Council power gives a flying do da whether we exist or not, if it ain’t played with a egg, then forget it, we only exist due to two factors, our Amazing owners, and our Amazing fans, it’s us against the rest unfortunately. We have only been in the IAW 5 mins, it’s the best facility we have ever had let’s enjoy a few more seasons safely of course and cross the other bridges when they need crossing, we are far from being the poor relations of this league. Call the EIHL what you like it’s what we have and what we all need. Stay Safe all.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#38
I was reading this article and it sort of shows what a change of a venue can do but not for the better. There were other factors but the venue seems to have been the final nail in the coffin.

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/18941650.remembering-brighton-tigers-citys-lost-ice-hockey-team/
I need to re-read Stewart Roberts' book: flashing blades, but there was a lot of upheaval in the 50s and 60s around entertainment - just look at what happened with cinema and football at the time. I don't think that you can easily equate circumstances then with now.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#40
It’s always great to want to take your club to another level, we all want what’s best for our club, that’s the only reason our club still exists in fairness. But in reality no one in Council power gives a flying do da whether we exist or not, if it ain’t played with a egg, then forget it, we only exist due to two factors, our Amazing owners, and our Amazing fans, it’s us against the rest unfortunately. We have only been in the IAW 5 mins, it’s the best facility we have ever had let’s enjoy a few more seasons safely of course and cross the other bridges when they need crossing, we are far from being the poor relations of this league. Call the EIHL what you like it’s what we have and what we all need. Stay Safe all.
I get what you're saying, but the opportunity to influence a new venue like this will come up only once. If we stay in our current venue forever we will ultimately get left behind. At the very least this is about keeping options open.
 
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