NCAA Women’s Tournament – Price Drop!

22,000 People showed up to hear homeboy Chris Daughtry put on a show that was supposed to kick off the NCAA Women’s Greensboro Regional Tournament. The event was “designed” to help promote attendance to Saturday and Monday’s games.

At a rumored $16,000 in City expenses, it did not work. Who knows how many of those 22,000 fans on Friday were in the Coliseum on Saturday. Attendance at the Coliseum was reported at 6,392. One-Third the crowd of the Free Friday Night Concert.

The City and Coliseum dropped the ball on this one. At some point, the link between the the NCAA Women’s Tournament and Free Daughtry Concert was broken and they became separate events. I didn’t dare try to make it downtown Friday; but I did watch the Fox 10 O’Clock News, which should have been retitled “The Chris Daughtry Show with those other people”, at least for that night. I caught some of News2’s coverage as well. Neither made any attempt to point out that this was to kick off the NCAA Women’s Tournament.

Back to basketball – Ticket Sales were not moving, so the Coliseum launched their Family Four Pack (4 for $40 deal). Regular tickets were going for $26 adults / $16 students & seniors.

With Duke no longer in the picture, who knows what the turnout will be Monday Night at 7 PM. The game will be on ESPN and ESPN-HD.

Greensboro owns the trademark “Tournament Town”; that’s nice. But words can’t make people attend an event anymore than High Point can prevent Las Vegas from stealing the Furniture Market. Both require hard work and a realization of what people are willing to pay for perceived value.