Quote:
Originally Posted by Resolute 14
IIRC, total attendance for the entire week last year was 6000 - and was hailed as a massive success. I don't think they expected demand to be this high, especially for the weekday draws. They could probably expand the bleachers a bit though.
The problem with using Winsport is that this is a two-court tournament. So cutting the availability of ice in half for two weeks in February is likely a non-starter for the city.
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I think this level of event should continue to be held at the tennis center as it promotes the facility which is top notch in terms of lighting, court quality and keeping it an intimate experience that challenger events are really supposed to be. Hockey issues aside, you run into other issues as soon as you start building a tennis court in a non-tennis facility which would surely include far more expensive tickets to cover the added costs, and likely price many away from this level of tennis. Winsport would be a perfect facility for a large scale Canadian indoor 250 event in the fall though
For next year at ATC, I would say they need to remove 2 rows of box seating on one side of the main court and add larger bleachers to both sides in general. The box seating is basically empty on weeknights (aside from last night) and the revenue can be recovered by charging a little more, and the added capacity gained. Pushing the grandstand court over to the other side would be helpful as well so you can cram more fans over there, but they'd have to get rid of the players area in order to keep practice courts available.
Either way, it's good to see the popularity increasing. Although if it continues, I will certainly miss being able to show up and take in this event with very little fanfare while it lasted.