Sold out! $3.1m weekend gate for WICB (16 April 1999)

16 April 1999

Sold out! $3.1m weekend gate for WICB

Forbes Persaud

Tickets for this weekend's Third and Fourth Cable & Wireless One-day Internationals between the West Indies and Australia at Queen's Park Oval have been sold out.

A full 48 hours before the first ball is due to be bowled in the third match of the seven-game series tomorrow morning, every ticket for the encounter-including those for the grounds section of the Oval which traditionally have not gone on sale before the morning of the game-had been sold.

For the fourth game, carded to begin on Sunday morning, tickets have been almost completely sold out as well but those who have not yet secured their passes for entry into the ground can still get in line to purchase the few remaining tickets for the Learie Constantine Stand and the cycle track.

According to Johnathan Nuttall, project manager for the ticketing systems, the tickets for tomorrow's game "were all sold out early yesterday".

Nuttall told the Express that "just a handful of tickets are left for Sunday's game and we anticipate that these will go very early today." He said that it was the first time tickets for grounds had been sold out before the actual day of the match.

He noted that last year the WICB had experimented with offering pre-sold tickets for grounds but only a few of the number put on sale were snapped up by the patrons.

Australia and the West Indies are tied at 1-1 in the series, the home side winning the opener in St Vincent by 44 runs and the Aussies pulling level by taking the second game in Grenada by 46 runs. That situation may have looked less than likely when the teams last met in Trinidad.

In the second innings of that match, the first game of the four-Test series, the West Indies sank to their lowest ever-Test score of 51. Coming after the 5-0, 6-1 whipping in South Africa, that performance might well have had a negative impact on ticket sales for the ODIs. But then Brian Lara thrice produced his magic of old in the next three games and instead of sinking to another ignominious defeat, the West Indies almost snatched a miraculous 3-1 series win.

Instead, a very convincing win in the Fourth Test in Antigua allowed Steve Waugh's men to retain their hold on the coveted Frank Worrell Trophy. Disappointed as they might have been, the fans have found new enthusiasm for the series.

The first two limited-overs matches, played at Arnos Vale Recreation Ground in St Vincent and the new Queen's Park Recreation Ground in Grenada, were also both completely sold out. Unlike this weekend's encounters at the Oval, however, in neither case did this happen prior to the game.

According to Nuttall, "this is an unprecedented event in West Indies cricket."

It might be unprecedented too in terms of the total gate although Nuttall declined to provide any figures.

In St Vincent where the buying public capacity was 9,800, according to a statement credited to WICB Marketing Manager Chris Dehring last week, the take was estimated at some US$176,400.

In Grenada, Nuttall put the buying capacity at 13,500 making the estimate of the gross take some US$243,000.

Still using Dehring's figure of "an average of US$18 per seat", the WICB stand at the Oval where the seating capacity is put at about 21,300, but the buying capacity at some 14,500, the WICB stand to rake in a whopping US$261,000 on each of the two days.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)