AEW's Annual Attendance Trends Detailed In Report

Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics has provided new estimated information regarding AEW's annual attendance trends now that 2023 is in the books.

The company launched in 2019 with only 17 events and garnered an estimated 95,500 ticket sales. That number, unfortunately, did not grow in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in only 39,300 tickets sold across 11 events. 2021 marked a return to normalcy in the events industry as the company was able to garner 205,000 ticket sales across 36 events. Naturally, there was more growth in 2022 with 363,000 tickets sold across 71 events.

As for 2023, the company increased its events through limited house shows, the launch of "AEW Collision" on Saturdays, plus additional pay-per-views, which resulted in 502,000 ticket sales across a record 95 events. These numbers were calculated assuming a nine percent difference between the number of tickets sold and the number of tickets distributed on account of comped tickets. The Wrestling Observer was sourced for 2019 and 2020, while WrestleTix was sourced for 2021 through 2023.

Another interesting note is that the worldwide average attendance ticked upward from 2022 to 2023, going from an average of 5,100 in sales to 5,300. These numbers are still slightly down from 2021, which averaged 5,700.

AEW reportedly set a major record in 2023 with the addition of All In London at Wembley Stadium. The announced attendance was 81,035, which makes it a world record for highest paid attendance for a pro wrestling event.