AEW Reportedly Made Recent Changes To Tickets, Cities Selected For Live Events

AEW attendance has been down in recent months, with TV tapings going down and only PPV events performing well. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that AEW has made some recent changes to live events that could have had an impact on ticket sales.

In the past, AEW would offer late ticket price reductions or buy-one-get-one-free offers. Recent events have not done this, resulting in poorer attendance. This means that late sales that typically improve the numbers haven’t happened. There had been an increase that led to better Q4 2023 sales, with Dynamite up 4.7% from the year before and Collision averaging 3,400. However, that has changed.

For example, one customer noted that the February 28 Dynamite in Huntsville, AL (which currently has 1,202 tickets out as of this past Tuesday) was only offering lower level “official platinum” seats that were very expensive. The Probst Arena could hold around 7,000 if sold out. And when told that only higher-priced seats were available, the source said they would assume it was if they didn’t now better. If people believe the show is sold out or close to it, they aren’t likely to buy tickets. The same goes for only offering expensive seats.

Some of the changes are a result of a management change from Rafael Morffi to Kosha Irby. Irby handles booking venues as well as merchandise. It is speculated that AEW may book bigger markets and less shows in towns like Bossier City, LA, or Savannah, GA going forward. Smaller markets cost less to book but also draw less people, which would affect ticket sales. Of course, they still only had a crowd of 2,815 in St. Louis for a recent episode of Collision.