Watford earn £1.3M from Elton concert

[Simon Pieman]

£80 000 is just on ticket sales. Don't forget we probably need to take VAT off as well  :-))(

[BrightonRed]

Do you think we could convince the organisers to 'mislay' one of the big screens?

[Titch]

The whole thing was very good last night and shows that Swindon and the club has the potential for much more.  This sort of event should surely show the council etc that a proper community stadium/sport/leisure facility would be brilliant for this town.

Will it happen though? Will it fuck! When we have reasonably good plans the NIMBY's don't like it or something goes wrong.  Or the council won't let us build somewhere etc etc.  Heard it all before but it just does my tits in!

[JTomlinson]

In Watfords case, Elton gave them every penny.

The Trust reckons about £100k, including hire fee, some of the booking fees, drinks, food etc.  However, I guess the drinks and food money will have gone to the people who rent the units (I doubt the club run them?), so I reckon less than £100k.

However, certainly better than nowt, especially as it won't have been budgeted for.

It would be good if this wasn't the one and only concert we get.

[Marie]

i heard 70k on the radio i think. Watford was a charity performance for the club.

[pauld]

The club were talking about making a six-figure sum when the idea was first announced (although whether this included VAT may be another matter) so that's where the 100k comes from I'd guess, but apparently BBC WS said 80k on Sunday/Monday. Now I'd guess that figure probably came from "sources within the club" as a more up-to-date guesstimate of what they'd have been likely to clear - ie they were prepared to give out a rough figure as long as it was unattributed, but not have (e.g.) Sandy Gray say publicly "Oh, yes, we made 80k on Sunday, come and get us Mr Taxman". As it came out late Sunday/early Monday, I shouldn't have thought they'd have a definitive final tally by that stage (still got to count dosh from food/drink/car parking) but they'd be likely to have a good idea. Whether the club then wanted to leak an accurate figure to the Beeb or perhaps underestimate it a touch is something we can only speculate on.

But we're certainly nowhere near 1.3 million - Elton John did the Watford gig essentially as a charity concert, so that's basically all profits from that gig. Still 100k's still a tidy sum, though, when you're struggling like we are. And the success of the Elton John thing does no harm at all at a time when we're trying to say to the rest of the town (ie the non STFC-supporting element) why their councillors should back a CG redevelopment.