How Is Ring Of Honor's Live Event Business Looking In January?
With a significant amount of talent moves at the end of 2018 for Ring of Honor, many are curious how business will hold up going into 2019. One area to look at is attendance at the gate. Below is a look at tickets sold for January thus far (beginning with Saturday's Center Stage event). Where available, visual counts were taken of seats sold on Ticketmaster sales pages (or Showclix, where applicable) and compared to on-sale date screenshots to determine what seats had been put on sale initially and which never were put on sale. Historical numbers used for comparison purposes are from The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
On January 12th, ROH opens the year in Center Stage in Atlanta. The show is already sold out, with 700 tickets sold. ROH is on a 5-show sellout streak in Center Stage, its current longest streak (but also one of its smallest venues).
On January 13th, ROH completes the double-shot in North Carolina's Cabarrus Arena. Tickets at the highest price level, $55, are sold out and as of 1/9, the best seats are in the 5th row. The seating chart does not show specific seats so a full count is not available. ROH announced that it will provide free tickets to United States military veterans via Vet Tix. Generally, the venue can be configured up to 5,500 fans and would easily accommodate any free demand for tickets. Prior shows at this Concord, NC venue have drawn between 500-1,100 fans.
In a rare ROH triple shot, the weekend of January 24th through January 26th is being promoted as The Road to Supercard G1. The 24th will be a return to ROH's regular Dallas venue, Gilley's. So far, about 385 tickets have been sold. In 2018, the venue sold out with 800 tickets and in two appearances in 2017, sales were 600 and 750.
The 25th is the use of an ambitious venue in Houston, the NRG Arena. A venue that can hold up to 8,000, appears to be set up with a little less than half of the seats opened. Just over 500 tickets appear to have been sold up to this point. Please note that according to a review of first day ticket sales, the corner floor sections near the ring were never opened up for sale. ROH has not been in the area since under previous ownership in 2009 for WrestleMania weekend. Those two weekend shows drew well at the time, between 1,800-2,000 fans each.
Finishing up the month on the 26th is a show at the Austin Highway Events Center. 424 tickets appear to have been sold thus far for the event. 4 events were held in the city between 2016-2018, drawing between 400-1,000.
One must wait until the final tickets sold have been tallied to do a true comparison to previous years but it does provide insight that sales would have to pick up significantly in a few venues for a good showing.
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