Poor pitches are hindering the A-League's style

norhener- BC place is used for many more purposes than 2 like football codes. You should explain that it has the latest ,multi-purpose,imitation turf surface installed with exactly that fact recognised, (the football codes demand and deserve excellent playing surfaces. Recently I went around Arsenal stadium in a conducted tour and it was explained that the playing surface was the latest development in a mixture of "real" and "imitation" turf, ensuring an A1 surface despite the vagaries of weather. That stadium is open to the elements ,BC Place has a roof which is held up by air pressure. So your case is not "rested" by just stating two football codes use the facility ,there are other factors to be considered. BC PLace and QE 11 were both erected with Commonwealth Games as the original event !!!!! Cheers jb

And BC Place is the stadium in which the Whitecaps (MSL) share the ground with the BC Lions (CFL). I rest my case.

KJ I don't follow your logic in your attempt to disseminate my comment. Nowhere did I say that concerts were not a good "investment",what I implied was that if they are looked upon as a good money getter, the owners of Suncorp are duly obligated to protect in some way the turf surface that is requested by the 3 football codes who are regular users for 12 months per year. Your last sentence doesn't make sense to me in any way. When I used the term "customers" I was referring to a business being run by a government "body" which leases the premises out to various events. As an aside ,I did not question your 50,000 attendance figure,right at the start I said I did not know the real figures for Cold Play concerts but pointed out that usually a stage set up blocked off a fifth of the seats thus reducing the potential seats to around 40,000 so according to you we had 10,000 people milling around the playing surface for 4 or 5 hours,not the best thing for turf is it????? Cheers jb..

JB. You cannot convince those that do not want to listen. You can give them the facts and in this case the facts relate to politicians that downright lied to get their edifices constructed. Lie one - Sallyanne Atkinson Mayor of Brisbane during the 1982 Commonwealth Games. QEII stadium is being constructed for the people of Brisbane and when the games are over the temporary stands will dismantled and local sports will have the opportunity to purchase them at a nominal fee to upgrade local sports grounds. Lie two - Peter Beattie Premier of Queensland when Lang Park was upgraded. This upgrade is in keeping with our pledge to fund sports at the highest level and there will be no concerts at this facility.(or words to that effect) I think the majority of objections to the upgrade were from locals fearing the noise of music concerts. Suffice to say politicians move on with their super or lucrative government posting and indeed Peter Beattie is now head of the Commonwealth Games Committee for 2018 and he is coming out with all sorts of promises in relation to the financial benefits of the 2018 Games. All of the negative comments on this page fail to realise that Brisbane has plenty of under utilized facilities that can cater for Summer concerts. Namely Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane Convention Centre, QEII and The Gabba (in fact the Gabba is being used for two Adele concerts in March I believe). So now that Stadiums Queensland have had some good earners with these concerts what are they going to do with the money? Should they invest in a massive concert hall to be used six times a year for international acts or maybe invest this extra cash in a boutique stadium so they can keep Suncorp for Rugby League and concerts.

As someone who attended a Coldplay concert at Suncorp a few years back, about 25% of the seats were unavailable, but the field was filled with people. They probably sold as many tickets as fire standards etc. would allow. No doubt 50,000 is well short of 450,000, however 150,000 patrons for 3 events would never be rejected unless they were required to and I assume Brisbane Roar do not have the strength to negotiate exclusive rights to the stadium in summer. I would put it to you that the football codes and music events are far bigger “customers” than just the football codes.

kj Sorry about the double post. Cheers jb.

KJ - The Broncos only used QE11 because of a spat between their major sponsors at the time. From memory Lang Park had signed over ground advertising rights to XXXX brewery and Broncos had just gained a major sponsorship deal from the newly formed Power's Brewing. This was at the height of the so- called "Beer Wars" and as XXXX forbade "Powers advertising" in any form, Bernie Powers wasted no time in arranging a lease from the BCC for use of the Nathan stadium, which had lain idle for almost 4 years. IIt may surprise some readers but Broncos enjoyed their best ever seasonal average gate while at this stadium ,a figure of 43,200 in 1993. Broncos stayed at that stadium for around 9 years only moving back to Suncorp after the re-vamp of the stadium by which time Powers had ceased to be the major sponsor of the club Cheers jb.

KJ - The Broncos only used QE11 because of a spat between their major sponsors at the time. From memory Lang Park had signed over ground advertising rights to XXXX brewery and Broncos had just gained a major sponsorship deal from the newly formed Power's Brewing. This was at the height of the so- called "Beer Wars" and as XXXX forbade "Powers advertising" in any form, Bernie Powers wasted no time in arranging a lease from the BCC for use of the Nathan stadium, which had lain idle for almost 4 years. IIt may surprise some readers but Broncos enjoyed their best ever seasonal average gate while at this stadium ,a figure of 43,200 in 1993. Broncos stayed at

norhener.- We are talking here about a stadium that not so long ago was revamped at a reported cost of around $270 millions. If you are looking for a return on investment on an expenditure of that kind then building stadia is not the way to go. Ok, it was government money,but that is the nature of the beast in today's building climate. There would be few,if any, of our major sporting clubs in this country own their own stadium outright. However ,governments being governments ,the aforementioned return on investment should always be on their minds for wasteful spending does not as a rule generate votes. Therefore,before re-vamping,or building a stadium much has to be done to incorporate ideas that may have taken place elsewhere QE11 is a classic example of this in Brisbane. When built for the CG's much was made of having the start and finish of races in front of the main stand (the 400 metres used as an example). Unfortunately this meant that when the running track was first laid the grassed area left in the middle was not big enough for international football games I believe that track has been re-laid 3 times since the games but am not sure if that "gaffe' has been fixed. Since the Games we have seen another grandstand erected resulting in the seating capacity reduced to 43,000 and under investigation in 2013/14 it was found that the venue had a 2.5% usage rating in it's crowds, (average crowd per usage 1075. Suncorp had a 53% usage rating (28,000 per usage.) Can you believe that differential.??? Now in 1982 ,in Canada, there was a stadium built in Vancouver call BC Place and has since been re-vamped a few times to incorporate improvements You should Google this stadium and get an idea of how observing what the other half are doing could improve our performance. The stadium hold 52,000 .bit if you wants more intimate crowd they simply lower curtains over the top tier inducing the crowd of around 27.000 into the lower seats which are closer to the playing surface,which has World Rating for an artificial pitch. Cheers jb.

KJ - This information was obviously aimed at my comment . I think the top seated accommodation for Suncorp is around 53.000 so if you are correct it means that many of the "fans" were actually "let loose" on to the playing area (the turf) for because of stage "set up" it is usual to have one end of a ground closed off to fans,(seats behind the stage). Don't know if you have witnessed a concert "in the round" where the performers are based on a raised stage in the centre of the venue and play accordingly to the whole crowd seated around them. This to me would be a far better method of presenting a concert in a football stadium for full use of the available seating could be attained thus lifting the overall attendance figure. Many years ago I witnessed Neil Diamond featuring in a "round" concert and found it to be quite acceptable. By the way that 50,000 you cite is a long way short of the 450,000 football fans who have used Suncorp in the last year. I would put it to you that the football codes are far bigger "customers" than any pop band. Cheers jb.

#Midfielder - Alas - seeing kids at primary school adopting this sort of culture - and seeing JVS defending it - it really is a bad look in any sport - and generally in our sports it is condemned because it's not seen as being a virtuous behaviour (although - culturally that can vary from sport to sport!!). JVS coming out with.... "You can't change the game that's being played all over the world. If you go to the World Cup, if you look in Spain, Italy and South America, that's part of the game," I'm simply in agreeance with Mr.Brown (for once) about " lows of a SIMULATION MASTER CLASS from Melbourne City". It makes it hard for a MCY follower to get excited about. btw - a mate was at the Real Madrid v Deportivo, right in front of him (he got a nice 30 second video of it) - Babel from Deportivo did a Jade North - innocuous contact, has a think about it and then down he goes like a sack of spuds. Seems it's just part of the game but it looks sh!t&.

Well, reading some of the comments, it seems to me that Suncorp did a reasonable job of protecting the pitch, given the circumstances. I'm sure the US does manage much more innovative ways to keep things going - but stadiums (stadia?) there are different proposition in terms of gate receipts than the A League and have a lot more revenue to plow back into the kind of experimentation you describe. In Canada, which is more comparable to Aus in terms of population, at least one MLS team has to share its ground with a CFL team - and the two seasons most definitely do overlap. Basically, until and unless the time comes when the A League teams can afford to own their grounds outright, it's all going to be about compromise.

It's quite simple some people are happy with their 4 weeks summer holiday in Foster, love Foster, been a few times myself. While others travel around, even work in different countries, meet their wife O/S & look back & sees, yes Australia is unusual in the fact that football is the no 1 participation sport & there other dominant codes. I worked in both England & visit France, both have Rugbies, they have their place, but football no 1 participation & dominant sport. So yes very unusual for me, not that difficult really. But don't get wrong, love me Test Cricket & a BBQ.

More than 50,000 attended Coldplay.

I too am looking forward to another tipping point article (we're up to about Mk VII)

northener- Very true but when your main customers use a part of your "business" that concerts don't, (the grassed area), then as a business man you have to protect the needs of your biggest customers,the football codes. Those regulars are contributing to your "revenue" year after year,and surely deserve special consideration. This "problem" is not new,there has been much experimentation in the USA to overcome the problem, "pitches" grown and nurtured in huge boxes that can be rolled in and out of the main arena, being one that jumps to mind, Extra benefits gained were more sunshine and natural rain for the "boxes" when "parked" outside the shadows of the stadium. Cheers jb..

Then it shouldn't be "very unusual" for you either! Anyway, no sign of midfielder's "mathematical exposition of the coming socio-institutional tipping point" article yet...disappointing

Lot of talk and debate,but not one has mentioned the cash flow generated by the "usual tenants" over a year when compared with one concert. Without knowing the actual figures for attendances and costs of entry to both genres we can take from the crowd numbers that attend Bronco, Roar,and QRU games over a year to make comparisons. At the time of writing some 450,000 people have attended "football matches " at Suncorp in 2016, The Broncos,with 1 SoO game included have pulled over 290,000. The 2 RU games (internationals)pulled 80,000, The Roar, in half a season, have pulled just under 83,000. Now under any stretch of the imagination ,because of the "set-up" for concerts there is no way 40,000 can be accomadated into Suncorp for a concert so the argument is raised,why put the noses of 3 regular customers out of joint just to satisfy a need that could be held in many other venues with that capacity. The QE11 had 60 000 in for the Commonwealth games and the whole of the central field was empty of spectators.???? jb

So am I & so is Mid, so hence why he said we are in an unusual situation, it's 3 other countries from your analysis.

Yes punter, I'm Australian ?