There could be up to 14,000 empty seats at Westpac Stadium for this weekend's Wellington Sevens, Radio New Zealand reports.
The 34,500 seat stadium is usually a complete sellout but ticket sales for this year's tournament have been slow. Between 2002 and 2012 the Sevens sold out and in 2011, the tournament sold out in three minutes, but this year only 13,000 tickets were snapped up on the first day of sales.
In an attempt to boost sales organisers in October slashed prices for general tickets from $199 to $149. Since then just another 7,000 tickets have sold, leaving about 14,000 seats to fill.
President of the Wellington branch of the Hospitality Association, Jeremy Smith, is worried if things do not turn around, the tournament will move elsewhere while general manager of the Sevens, Steve Dunbar, put some of the blame on Wellington's saturated sports and entertainment market.
“If you look at the last couple of the weeks: Wellington Cup, Nitro Cirus, two Blackcaps matches here at the stadium last week,” he said. And just after the Sevens there were four Cricket World Cup matches were scheduled.
“There are external factors, but we're also looking at ourselves to make sure that we continue to freshen the product.”
Chief executive of Westpac Stadium, Shane Harmon, said the tournament was going through a transition, away from a booze-fuelled festival.
“We think this event is at a stage now where it does need to evolve. I think you'll see more focus on the rugby sevens itself,” he said. “We're certainly trying to gear more towards families and broaden the demographic who are coming to this event.”