ALL IN: The business numbers from Meltzer:
As far as business numbers go, the total attendance at the show was 11,263 (and a few days after the show they had already released an 11,263 T-shirt), which was, with the set up, was the fire department maximum they could put in. That figure is a combination of the 10,541 tickets sold in the first 30 minutes they were put on sale back in May, any late production seats that were opened up, and people in the suites. The suites were packed and it was 100 percent utilization of the building, which is rare even for what can be legitimately called a sold out show. Usually at events like this, a low percentage of the suites would have been full even if all tickets were sold.
The live gate was $458,525. We don’t have final merchandise numbers but every item they had sold out, and the key event shirt, the All In shirt, sold out at 3:30 p.m., 90 minutes before the show started and 30 minutes after the doors opened. The merchandise lines were the longest I’ve ever seen at any wrestling show, sports event or concert in my life. I was told the lines were one hour long. Part of the reason is there were only two merchandise booths set up, which was crazy since everyone going in knew merchandise should have been higher per-head than any pro wrestling event ever in this country with the possible exception of a WrestleMania. Still, they sold everything they had. A key thing to learn from this is to bring more inventory based on the number of spectators, and open up more merchandise stands so the lines won’t be so daunting that people skip buying merchandise for fear they may miss a match or matches.
Tickets were priced way too inexpensively for the live event. Even based in Chicago with the idea their merchandise partner, Pro Wrestling Tees, was located in town and expecting big merchandise numbers, they greatly undershot there as well.
FITE TV grossed more than $1 million between iPPV sales and Starrcast iPPV sales. That would probably indicate in excess of 20,000 iPPV orders, which was well above expectations if you figure 80 percent of the revenue came from the show and 20 percent came from the convention.
The Starrcast convention sold 11,000 tickets, but that doesn’t mean 11,000 people because people bought tickets for multiple events. There were complaints that tickets weren’t checked and that people who paid $190 were getting the same access as people who just wandered into the building and got on lines.
Pro Wrestling Tees did just under $500,000 worth of T-shirt business over the weekend through all channels, and most of the merchandise in the venue would be part of that total.
Highspots reportedly had its biggest merchandise day ever at the convention as well as its biggest weekend ever, which is huge because they are a key part of every WrestleMania weekend.
As far as overall financial success across the board, it was described by the organizers as a grand slam home run.
The first hour, airing from 6-7 p.m. Eastern, did 196,000 viewers on WGN. It was the best number on the station for the day and is in line with what most of the station’s top rated prime time original shows do, even on the worst night of the week for television and being out of prime time. It’s not a blow away number that is going to make the television world stand up and take notice suddenly, but it’s not a failure.
PPV numbers aren’t available at this point, and with no prior reference point it was impossible to predict. Illegal streaming numbers were about the same as for a non-major WWE PPV event, which these days don’t do more than 20,000 to 30,000 buys. Google trends, historically an excellent predictor, showed that the show did not crack the top 20 for the day, so this had its cult interest but it didn’t have the mainstream interest of a major UFC and WWE event. But nothing in pro wrestling that isn’t WWE or the death of a major star has ever cracked the top 20 in recent memory.
