AEW WrestleDream Records All-Time Low PPV Attendance in Company's History

AEW's WrestleDream event took place at Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena, the home venue for the NHL's Kraken team. Comparable in size to other NBA/NHL arenas across North America, the arena can accommodate over 18,000 attendees for sports events, and 13,000 or more for professional wrestling shows. While WrestleDream received praise for its high-quality matches, it posted disappointing attendance figures for a non-pandemic era AEW PPV. Industry expert Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter disclosed the official attendance numbers.

"The show drew 7,300 total fans with 6,500 paid. Aside from the pandemic shows in Jacksonville, this would be the lowest numbers for an AEW PPV show in its history. Some have tried to make the excuse that they had two shows in the market with the Saturday Collision show. But almost every time AEW does a PPV show, they have two shows in the market and often three, and last year they were doing consistent $1 million gates."

"This is also a market they haven’t run to death (one show previously which outdrew this one) and a market where three people in top matches (Danielson, Darby Allin and Swerve Strickland) were from the market. A negative was that even in tight shots of ringside, you could see a lot of empty seats just a few rows down. They kept trying to change camera angles from usual to avoid shooting them. WWE covers that using seat fillers. It was noticeable even deep into the show."

AEW's next PPV event, Full Gear, is slated for November 18th at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.

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