Set piece magic
John Solomon (38)
THE Melbourne Rebels are heading for a sell-out debut against the NSW Waratahs at AAMI Park on Friday.
Melbourne officials said strong ticket demand and membership, combined with predicted healthy "walk-up" sales, guaranteed a crowd of about 25,000.
More than 17,000 tickets had been sold.
Rebels' bosses expect that to increase to about 29,500, the capacity figure at AAMI Park when it is configured for TV requirements for Super Rugby.
Officials said there was still a number of general admission tickets available.
"If we have a great night and the hype keeps building, who knows?" Rebels chief executive officer Ross Oakley said.
"We have no idea how many people we will have there because we haven't been there before.
"We're sort of saying at the moment, we're expecting a crowd between 20,000-25,000.
"It's very hard when you don't have history to look at. "This is our first game and the walk-up at AAMI Park to date for (Melbourne) Storm and (A-League teams) Victory and Heart hasn't been monstrous.
"I think they said the record walk-up was 4000 and we had 4800 for the Crusaders game, so we broke the record at a trial game for a walk-up. So maybe our community is more walk-up.
"The normal sort of ratio is booked tickets to walk-up, you'd probably double it."
Oakley said the Rebels had sold out platinum and gold tickets and memberships "were approaching 7000".
The scramble for tickets will provide a vital financial boost for Melbourne, which was heartened by steady demand in trial match tickets.
The new Super Rugby outfit attracted more than 13,000 to its match against the Canterbury Crusaders.
Oakley said Melbourne expected to exceed budget.
"In the first couple of years, you're struggling to find out where your revenues are and an understanding of your cost base," he said.
"That's why you have capital to cover those things. We operated last year without basically any revenue at all."We're quite pleased with the way things are going.
"Our memberships at the top-end have been very strong. We expect we'll sell more of the lower-end memberships on match day.
"We've built into our budget certain expectations, but in the first couple of games we should exceed those expectations.
"Then it just depends on how the team is travelling as to how we go further on.
"We'll exceed our budget expectations in these early games because there is a big hype about it all."
Melbourne officials said strong ticket demand and membership, combined with predicted healthy "walk-up" sales, guaranteed a crowd of about 25,000.
More than 17,000 tickets had been sold.
Rebels' bosses expect that to increase to about 29,500, the capacity figure at AAMI Park when it is configured for TV requirements for Super Rugby.
Officials said there was still a number of general admission tickets available.
"If we have a great night and the hype keeps building, who knows?" Rebels chief executive officer Ross Oakley said.
"We have no idea how many people we will have there because we haven't been there before.
"We're sort of saying at the moment, we're expecting a crowd between 20,000-25,000.
"It's very hard when you don't have history to look at. "This is our first game and the walk-up at AAMI Park to date for (Melbourne) Storm and (A-League teams) Victory and Heart hasn't been monstrous.
"I think they said the record walk-up was 4000 and we had 4800 for the Crusaders game, so we broke the record at a trial game for a walk-up. So maybe our community is more walk-up.
"The normal sort of ratio is booked tickets to walk-up, you'd probably double it."
Oakley said the Rebels had sold out platinum and gold tickets and memberships "were approaching 7000".
The scramble for tickets will provide a vital financial boost for Melbourne, which was heartened by steady demand in trial match tickets.
The new Super Rugby outfit attracted more than 13,000 to its match against the Canterbury Crusaders.
Oakley said Melbourne expected to exceed budget.
"In the first couple of years, you're struggling to find out where your revenues are and an understanding of your cost base," he said.
"That's why you have capital to cover those things. We operated last year without basically any revenue at all."We're quite pleased with the way things are going.
"Our memberships at the top-end have been very strong. We expect we'll sell more of the lower-end memberships on match day.
"We've built into our budget certain expectations, but in the first couple of games we should exceed those expectations.
"Then it just depends on how the team is travelling as to how we go further on.
"We'll exceed our budget expectations in these early games because there is a big hype about it all."
