How to Increase Attendance?

[Turbine]

Festival International was around 100K in the hole for 2023. That is with subsidies and volunteers.

The underwriters are making money hand over fist in the form of tax dollars due to the influx of tourists including those from neighboring parishes.

Which exposes the fact that Cajun Dome, managment is ungrateful for the money subsidy they recieve from Lafayette and Lafayette is to naive to call them on it.

What the Cajun Dome does to Lafayette would be like Festival International saying visitors can't spend nights in hotels, visit other attractions, or go out to eat afterwards.

[Ragin9221]

University owns Cajun Field, so anyone that setsup shop at Cajun Field the University makes money off anyone setting up shop!? One would assume? I am sure something can be worked out that a certain amount of proceeds goes back to Athletics.

[cajun4life]

So there is nothing we can do, and it is what it is so i go back and crawl back in my hole okay fine by me. What a ______ poor way of looking at it and never get anything done but sure!


There is nothing we can do to help attendance and so we should be happy with eating cow manure and be happy. Glad i get how the University looks at it.

They will continue to blame the city of Lafayette and the community for there attendance woes okay great way of thinking!

Never seen such a defeatist attitude. A reason never to do nothing.

If i am off base then come up with other ideas!

Until proven otherwise I truly don’t believe the administration wants to grow.

[Cajun90]

So there is nothing we can do, and it is what it is so i go back and crawl back in my hole okay fine by me. What a ______ poor way of looking at it and never get anything done but sure!


There is nothing we can do to help attendance and so we should be happy with eating cow manure and be happy. Glad i get how the University looks at it.

They will continue to blame the city of Lafayette and the community for there attendance woes okay great way of thinking!

Never seen such a defeatist attitude. A reason never to do nothing.

If i am off base then come up with other ideas!

By no means am I saying to not do anything. However much of what you present is how to spend money to get someone to buy a ticket for $15-20 bucks. The tradeoff just isn't there.

[Ragin9221]

By no means am I saying to not do anything. However much of what you present is how to spend money to get someone to buy a ticket for $15-20 bucks. The tradeoff just isn't there.

Okay so this is where we gotta break people up in subgroups, yes the primary purpose is getting into purchasing a ticket into Cajun Field, but i will have different people who may come for other reason. You may have the person who wants to enjoy a day with the family, i may be the kid that just want to play, i may be that person who just wants to come to socialize, hell i may be the person who is coming to just get drunk, whatever your motivation is on coming, so as a University needs to break everyone in these subgroups, and say what can i do to get each group to spend money, or what are they looking to do, if i am in thr family category okay lets see

I can do activities like face painting, balloon animals, and arts and crafts. They might also enjoy bouncy castles, treasure hunts, and puppet shows. Some festivals even have kids' zones with interactive games, storytime sessions, or hands-on science experiments. Whatever and they can spend money on that.

Okay let’s go to the next group that may be at Cajun Field so on and so forth. Figure out which ones are feasible and which ones are not.

Either way they are coming to purchase a product, and in the end showing up to a football game and watching the Cajuns play.

Face Painting is the hook , and coming into Cajun Field that is the bait, once you buy that ticket to go to the football game and go in that is it i been caught my hook and bait has worked. If i like it i may be coming back again and again.

I am not saying this needs to be free they gonna have to pay for all these things.

[RaginCajun77]

You "add" social media, its not a replacement.

Social media is far to fractured to drop everthing else that is required.

Just like you can never make a deal with a single newspaper, the media market is too fractured for that to be a good move.

Its a good move for the paper because it brings in some new readers. Readers who discovered the draw elsewhere

For the sake of your existing audience never abandon "elsewhere" because social media is just lagniappe

Excellent point Turbine. Social media is extremely fragmented with engagement varying based on demographics, In addition, social media platforms use algorithims that lead to posts being prioritized based on what the platform thinks you should see. Marketing is only as useful as execution on game day. Execution has been a pain point now for many years. Issues with scanners, concessions, parking, etc. aren't new issues. We aren't selling the game only, we're selling experiences and that experience needs to be uniform for each home game year over year. Finally, the best market to develop is already engaged with UL, our students. Go all in on getting students to games, build an attachment to UL athletics that lasts after graduation.

[fanof71]

Sir, $2 Natty is not catering to my demographic. I could give a crap about cheap bear. Parking is readily available, but people want it free. And while I have no problem with a number of your suggestions, people in this area are cheap. Sorry, even the old group have similar views on cost. Why, because when this program was losing frequently people could just drive up and park anywhere except around the parking lot next to the stadium.

With your suggestions and I applaud your efforts, there is no suggestions on how to raise revenue. This program is without student fees and continually robs Petter to pay Paul from the RCAF General Fund. Sorry, but I'm willing to listen to your or anyone else's suggestions but I need to see tangle ways to raise revenue to take any of it seriously. And finding revenue streams usually doesn't began with giving things away to attract the low-end casual fan to walk into Cajun Field.

Have to agree with T....some good ideas, but how do your raise the money to launch all of that. Most of what you mentioned includes people who want to be paid.

RCAF should start targeting (like never before).. Considering the Lafayette MSA (Lafayette, Acadia, Iberia, St. Martin, and Vermillion Parishes) mean HH Income is $58,150 and as many as 45% of the MSA HH make between $25k and $75k a year, 35% make $50-100k while 15% make $100-150k and 12% make $150k+…. Perception is that RCAF is ONLY FOR THOSE IN THE $150k+ AND ABOVE BUCKET.

So, why not be more visible and transparent with the group making in a lower income HH?They're missing out on nearly 50% of the above HH's.

You want better attendance, you've got to start including the middle income folks!

As far as social media goes, anytime you stop serving ads, you've got to pick it up again and that sets the process back. Target gross impressions in the above income levels, but you have to be consistent and have a meaningful call to action. Otherwise, like three quarters of the ads you get served, it just becomes background noise. Social Media posts about game time mean nothing. Also, for SM to be effective, there is a period of time before the ads secure enough gross impressions to be effective. Ads with a call to action won't resonate to attend a game being placed the week of the game. CPM's are $20 or below a thousand gross impressions in this market.

[Turbine]

Getting the people with little money into Cajun Basin at large and into The Swamp specifically is crucial.

(the ones you won't make a dime from)

They are the ones who will create a fantastic atmosphere where others will want to go and actually spend money.

[RedTails]

Best shot we have is to make the best impressions we can when stadium renovations are complete. Both before 2025 season and during the 2025 games. If we can't capitalize and convince Acadiana/Lafayette it's an event worth attending, won't look good long-term.

We need the casuals that choose TSAB over us, whether they are alumni or not. We'll get some of them when renovations are complete, but an impression needs to be made to get them to come back. I think that means making tailgating way more affordable until we have wait lists again.

[Fais do-do]

Valid points.
I drove 4 hrs to go to the App game and brought 10 to the game. The young adults looked at their phones more than the game, then left at halftime. No real interest in the game and they all live in Lafayette! Only the adults stayed until we could not take the extremely loud music in sec 103. Sadly, it was just not that much fun overall. Why does the tail gating band play at the same time as the UL band in the baseball stadium pep rally? You cannot hear crap. It really is the simple things they fail at, not the complex ones.