Wembley Stadium - One Year On
One year on, 2½ million visitors later and with Madonna waiting in the wings, Wembley Stadium today reflects on an action-packed year as it approaches its first anniversary – this Saturday’s FA Cup Final.
In an incredible first year in which the stadium has hosted 35 major sports and entertainment events, Wembley has successfully re-established itself as a world class venue and as the ultimate live experience. At Saturday’s FA Cup Final clash between Portsmouth and Cardiff City, Wembley will welcome its 2½ millionth visitor!
Since opening, Wembley Stadium has seen a total of 54 different teams walk out onto its pitch and 68 different music acts perform on stage. Wembley’s events have included the best of Football and Rugby League, global music concerts such as Live Earth and Concert for Diana as well as American Football and Motor-Racing.
With fans eager to see inside the new world class venue, the Wembley Stadium Tour is already breaking the old stadium’s attendance records month on month with 100,000 tours having already taken place since its launch in November. Accolades have also started to roll in including Best Live Venue at both the prestigious NME Awards and the Vodafone Live Music Awards.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2008, to complement the guaranteed calendar of showcase football events, two of the biggest names in world music - the Foo Fighters and Madonna will be playing at Wembley later this year.
The oval ball will also be making a number of appearances in the latter half of 2008, kicking off with the annual Rugby League Challenge Cup Final in August, followed by American Football in October and a Rugby Union - Barbarians v Australia game in December. At the end of August Wembley will also feature in the world's largest one day running event - The Nike+ Human Race which will see up to one million runners across the globe competing in a 10k race, including 30,000 Brits who will start their ‘Run for Britain’ from the stadium.
Wembley Stadium’s Managing Director, Alex Horne, said: “It has been a challenging and incredibly rewarding first year. Since our opening event, The 2007 FA Cup Final, we have gone on to host a fantastic variety of world-class events which have allowed us to showcase the new national stadium to approximately two and a half million visitors and an estimated global TV audience of three billion across The FA Cup Final, Concert for Diana and Live Earth alone. Looking ahead to the rest of 2008, we’ve got a fantastic line up of events to come which will further showcase the flexibility of the stadium and its increasing global appeal."
One Year On – Stats and Facts Summary
Events:
• Total number of visitors to the stadium: 2,422,272 (events, conferencing and tours)
• Total number of visitors will exceed 2.5 million after this Saturday’s FA Cup Final between Portsmouth and Cardiff City
• 35 major events in total (25 football)
• 550 football players have started at Wembley (that’s 25 games x 22 players)
• Total of 54 teams have played at Wembley – 25 football games
• 68 different acts have performed in the music events (including multi-act events)
• Wembley Stadium was voted the best live music venue in both the Vodafone music awards and the NME awards
• In October last year, Wembley Stadium hosted the first American Football regular season home game outside of North America
Match stats:
• The official opening of Wembley Stadium was The FA Cup Final 2007 between Chelsea and Manchester United. Attended by Chief Guest and president of The FA – Prince William, the event was watched on television by 12.9 million across the UK and approx 450 million worldwide
• Most Wembley appearances – Chelsea (won The FA Cup Final in 2007 and were runners up in The Carling Cup Final and Community Shield)
• 550 players have run out at Wembley, with many more players featuring as substitutes
• First player to score (in an official fixture) – Giampaolo Pazzini (England U21s v Italy U21s)
• First hat-trick – Giampaolo Pazzini (England U21s v Italy U21s)
• Fastest goal (in Wembley history) – Giampaolo Pazzini in 29 seconds (England U21s v Italy U21s)
• First Englishman to score in an official fixture - David Bentley (U21 England v Italy).
• The first team to collect a trophy from the Royal Box – Stevenage Borough (FA Trophy Final 2007)
• First match decided on penalties – 2007 Community Shield (Manchester United won 3-0 on penalties)
• England have scored an average of just over two goals per game
• England’s first victory at the new Wembley was a 1-0 victory over Spain by the England U16 side (Jack Rodwell scored the winning goal)
Stadium Tour:
• Busiest Stadium Tour day – 1,800 visitors
• Total number of visitors since opening (November 2007) – 99,898
• Wembley Stadium has over 30 Tour Guides and an average of 500 people a day take a behind the scenes Tour of Wembley Stadium.
• The first proposal happened on the Tour in February 2008. A woman proposed to her boyfriend in Wembley Stadium’s Royal Box whilst on the Tour.
Food and drink:
• Pints of Carlsberg – 1,049,003
• Cups of Coca Cola, Sprite and Fanta - 265,038
• Pies sold – 79,682
• Burgers – 153,296
• Hot Dogs – 211,796
• Chips – 134,820kgs
Hospitality:
• Number of conferencing and banqueting events held at the stadium: 543 events with 83,674 people attending
Retail:
• Programmes – 908,352