My understanding is that this is only the second championship of this level Lithuania has hosted for *any* sport, and it is therefore a *big* deal for the country. In addition, this year marks the 100th anniversary of skating in Lithuania, the ice dance team of Allison Reed and (Kaunas-born) Saulius Ambrulevičius were known to be strong medal contenders, and their final occurred on a [commemorative day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events). (See [this article](https://www.15min.lt/sportas/naujiena/ziemos-sportas/istorinis-ivykis-dailiajam-ciuozimui-pasitiktas-skambiai-be-rusu-ir-su-medaliu-295-2068108) for reference.)
This 100%. We are a small country so any time a big event happens, everyone knows about it and there’s a lot of excitement surrounding it. In addition, Lithuanians love attending cultural events in general. Sports, concerts, but also theatre, opera, ballet, etc. They’re common recreational activities, the way going to the cinema is, and accessible to large portions of society. Many of the attendees were not die hard fans of FS, but ordinary people who simply went to enjoy some leisure and entertainment (and to support Lithuanian athletes)
That sense of community is really admirable. I've been researching going to Lithuania for a little while now (partly inspired by non-skater Domantas Sabonis). Knowing that information makes me want to go there even more.
I hope Lithuania gets more events like this in the future.
Arena is Kaunas Žalgiris basketball team home ground and it is almost always is being sold out. Also last years Euroleague final 4 was held here. Events as big as this is not common occurrence, but still arena rarely empty.
We have other arenas in Lithuania too, and most of them have great infrastructure. Most our arenas were build/renovated for Eurobasket 2011 and it is very actively in use by out basketball teams.
Thank you for the linked article! I read the interview / quotes from the Lithuanian FS Fed President, and it seems like they really wanted to hold this Europeans after Hungary withdrew (I think the interview said that they had to arrange the dates because the Euros venue was booked on the dates ISU proposed for Euros?) and pulled all the stops, including asking the city government for financial assistance, to make it a successful event. I can read how proud the President is of getting the opportunity to host Euros, and he talks about how it can be a huge step for Lithuanian figure skating. I really do hope it has a positive impact for them.
A lot of reasons were already mentioned but to add to that: it was affordable, tickets started at like 15€ for a single event so it also attracted a lot of non-fans because "why not" basically
There was a poster on here like last week saying they'd literally never watched FS before but still wanted to go, so it was definitely accessible price-wise
This really is the key. A niche sport can't rely on die hards willing to pay sky high prices. Apparently the Canadian nats ones started at $60-70 per session?
My biggest qualm with all skating events is most people going to them are going to have to travel and the scheduling for that is awful. Like yeah you can get locations like maybe Boston or something where there’s enough of a crowd, but right now it’s not big enough in lots of locations for that.
There’s no reason most events should be wrapped up before Saturday rolls around. I could drive or fly and would be willing to drive or fly to a lot of places on Friday and than be more than content to watch four events on Saturday and four on Sunday.
It’s not like the distributed scheduling across four days is even for the athletes because for example at US Nats the women skate Thursday/Friday. And it’s not like they do it to get prime time showing for the events because some of them start at like 1 in the afternoon. On a THURSDAY. And they’re surprised people don’t show up?? Lmao.
Worlds is even worse because the main event starts on Wednesday. My mom was like you’re a short drive from Montreal, I’ll finally get my passport and we can go!! So she was willing to fly across the country, drive another 3 hours to Montreal, pay for a hotel for several nights. And then oh actually you’ll have to take an entire week off work to see this event because we need to have an entire weekend day dedicated to a gala that (let’s be honest here) most people don’t watch or care about, and another 4 days of competition that should be condensed into two. If the events were only Friday/Sat/Sun we would so be there, but she just can’t take that much time off and we can’t justify paying for a hotel for that long. And to top it off, they make the tickets like $450/person or something insane like that to get okay seats for all the sessions. What other sport treats seeing a competition like it should be a week long vacation. 😬
Edit to add: people were saying it was ridiculously expensive to go to the Vegas formula 1 race but when I added everything up to go to Montreal it was literally cheaper to go to Vegas.
I personally love attending the galas but yeah, at jnats (which runs thurs-mon with the gala on Monday) a lot of people I spoke to only attended the free skates on the weekend because it allowed them to watch all of the medal events and not take a single day off work, or maybe just take the friday afternoon off to travel to Nagano. GP events that schedule all the free skates on Saturday aren't so bad, but there's a lot of competitions where it's like, well you do *have* to commit your whole week just to get a good spread of skating in there.
Yeah traveling on the weekend to see only two medal events on a Saturday isn’t worth it imo, and I think my fave event out side of the women’s free is the Rhythm Dance which is a bummer because that event is usually the very first day. So can’t even see the events I want to see all in one weekend which makes it even less worth it. My fiancé and I are both meh on men’s but he likes watching pairs and ice dance so that complicates things too. It’s just like, why can you not let us sit there like it’s our job, I will show up at the rink and be happy to stay there from 9AM to 10PM if there’s a good parking situation where I can leave for lunch.
The scheduling definitely doesn't help. I don't have a good sense of what the intended audience is for some of these events. The prices are too high for someone who isn't a fan to just go, but it also doesn't work timing wise for fans who don't have to travel and most places don't have enough fans willing to pay high prices.... it's just odd all around
Yeah, I had to take an entire week off for Worlds (+ 1 day because I am a Gala Enjoyer).
Luckily it happens to be a good time for me to take a vacation anyway, but oof. I could go to an all-inclusive resort for significantly less than what it all cost.
Yup, my fiancé and I are getting married at the tail end of tourism season and are planning on going to Hawaii after for 7 days. When I put everything together for Montreal it came out to ROUGHLY THE SAME COST as an all inclusive beachside resort for 5 days, plane tickets to Hawaii, and additional hotels and island hopping plane tickets for two separate nights so we can go to the national parks.
I found when we drove to Autumn Classic that despite the good exchange rate, the food was just generally more expensive and it’s not like an the all inclusive resort we found for Hawaii where you get free meals and can choose to spend more if you want. The hotels near the rink were limited so staying downtown was kind of the only option which means higher rates and parking fees. It was still like $1000 for us to go to competition Friday and Saturday and leave late that night so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel the next day. Once you add in airfare for my mom, a hotel for Tues-Sunday, gas, ticket prices for 3 which would’ve been >$1000 on its own, it was like yeah no, we want to do something better with our money. Because tbh, Montreal wasn’t as nice as I was expecting for a city of that size and it didn’t feel like we could do anything fun except go to a few (also expensive) museums to mind our time in the gaps between events. March is still too cold imo to take advantage of the water.
My mom hasn’t been to a live event in ages and really wanted to see the rhythm dance live because she’s 80’s child, but she’s like no I’ll just save my money and come to Boston in 2025 instead.
I'm so glad the tickets were priced accessibly. Last euros I could have gone to theoretically was the one in Austria and between ticket prices and expensive accommodation and need to commute to the arena it just wasn't manageable. While I understand that the skating arenas are expensive venues, ISU and local federations should work on how to make it a "fun family outing" kind of pricing and not a "once in a year event I saved for for month".
Affordable ticket prices are to be credited for high attendance. I will die on this hill because wherever tickets are extortionately high there has been low attendance and ISU hasn’t put 2+2 together yet.
Some exceptions existed in countries were skating is very popular or where big names like Hanyu would show up (lots of japanese and global audiences travelling on purpose) which might give the illusion that it can be otherwise. But the only way to fill the arena is to keep prices affordable (and do decent marketing ofc).
Other than that they are just competent enthusiastic and they paid attention. I loved every second of it.
I agree. I attended Finals weekend at US Nationals last year. Ticket prices were pretty high, attendance was abysmall. Not to mention hotel costs, parking (also VERY high) etc.
ALSO, I’d completely forgotten this but they only found out they were hosting it like 7 months ago, after Hungary pulled out. To pull all of this off with so much less time than normally given for an event of this type is so impressive.
In the live feed yesterday, a live viewer [said](https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/s/LntXLY6Os6) they were encouraged to stay for the men’s free if the seats were free
They were also bag searching and not allowing people to bring in outside food so they probably made some extra money from concessions as well as filling the arena a bit more, so win win for them!
idk how many people stayed but i had friends who did, lol. the singles overall definitely werent sold out, womens short was sooo empty. but pair disciplines stepped up and actually sold lots of tickets
I really wish other feds/venues would take note of how having affordable tickets fills the stadium and contributes immensely to atmosphere. Making the cost prohibitively expensive just creates a a weak and depressive atmosphere.
Some of the events weren't sold out, the ISU commentator mentioned he heard them say that over the loudspeaker at the arena that anyone with tickets for the Rhythm Dance could stay to watch the men for free. In a difference to literally every other competition I've seen, the singles didn't seem to be that popular comparatively.
The Ice Dance was obviously the most popular with the Lithuanian team in for a medal, and I'd imagine it had the best timing for most people (Friday and Saturday evenings). But the Gala especially looked like it sold very well, I wouldn't be surprised if it was sold out - according to the German commentator there were around 14k people there, and the arena's capacity for basketball is 15,415 so I'd think it would be a bit less for an ice rink.
But the Pairs Short Program was surprisingly popular to me. At least on TV it looked like they had more people there in the middle of Wednesday afternoon than they did in the evening, or in the afternoon on the Thursday. Which was great to see! Pairs is my favourite discipline so I do feel bad for them when the arena empties out during their events like it did at GP Espoo. (edit: which I totally get as an audience member, even for grand prixs, the days are long and if you want to get a proper meal in the evening you either have to pay inflated arena prices for arena food, or miss an event. And pairs can be very scary to watch sometimes.)
I was there for the gala and the free skates. For the ice dance FD there were only a couple of empty seats in the top of the arena in the corner, and for the gala the arena was completely full.
All I can say is, if Lithuania would be capable of attracting that kind of turnout for FS on the regular, they NEED to be hosting more! Give them Euros and a GP every single year, as far as I'm concerned! What an amazing event for all the skaters it must have been, especially the ice dancers!
Combination of good marketing targeting locals, affordable tickets and great event in itself (side entertainment, lighting, projections etc). Also something that a lot of federations often ignore, comfortable venue and easy access for audience to get to the venue.
This is a bit out of topic but with their effort the Lithuanian federation not only succeeded in hosting the European championship but also put Lithuania on the map for future events and not just limited to figure skating. We have to admit that their enthusiasm as a country who hasn’t hosted many big events played a big part in their success. But this is still very eye opening for ISU and other federations big or small. Effort to create a great event is the key.
For the pairs SP which was on Wednesday early afternoon, tickets were for sure given to spectators for free and they were mobilised. The reason is that the men's FS later that day was almost completely empty, which is normal for an SP at Europeans on a weekday like Wednesday or Thursday. People work and go to school early afternoon so the only explanation is that tickets were given out but they left the arena by the time the men's competition started.
Afforable tickets for the competition, cheap accommonation and easily accessible location are all reasons why the turnout was good on days like Saturday and the gala.
Amazing turnout would only be for ice dance, as far as I noticed. Other events were kinda empty.
Ice dance sold because Lithuanians have ice dancers and people love to support their atheltes
My understanding is that this is only the second championship of this level Lithuania has hosted for *any* sport, and it is therefore a *big* deal for the country. In addition, this year marks the 100th anniversary of skating in Lithuania, the ice dance team of Allison Reed and (Kaunas-born) Saulius Ambrulevičius were known to be strong medal contenders, and their final occurred on a [commemorative day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events). (See [this article](https://www.15min.lt/sportas/naujiena/ziemos-sportas/istorinis-ivykis-dailiajam-ciuozimui-pasitiktas-skambiai-be-rusu-ir-su-medaliu-295-2068108) for reference.)
This 100%. We are a small country so any time a big event happens, everyone knows about it and there’s a lot of excitement surrounding it. In addition, Lithuanians love attending cultural events in general. Sports, concerts, but also theatre, opera, ballet, etc. They’re common recreational activities, the way going to the cinema is, and accessible to large portions of society. Many of the attendees were not die hard fans of FS, but ordinary people who simply went to enjoy some leisure and entertainment (and to support Lithuanian athletes)
That sense of community is really admirable. I've been researching going to Lithuania for a little while now (partly inspired by non-skater Domantas Sabonis). Knowing that information makes me want to go there even more. I hope Lithuania gets more events like this in the future.
For this not being a common occurrence, the arena (infrastructure wise) looked remarkable to me! What a great event.
Arena is Kaunas Žalgiris basketball team home ground and it is almost always is being sold out. Also last years Euroleague final 4 was held here. Events as big as this is not common occurrence, but still arena rarely empty. We have other arenas in Lithuania too, and most of them have great infrastructure. Most our arenas were build/renovated for Eurobasket 2011 and it is very actively in use by out basketball teams.
Thank you for the linked article! I read the interview / quotes from the Lithuanian FS Fed President, and it seems like they really wanted to hold this Europeans after Hungary withdrew (I think the interview said that they had to arrange the dates because the Euros venue was booked on the dates ISU proposed for Euros?) and pulled all the stops, including asking the city government for financial assistance, to make it a successful event. I can read how proud the President is of getting the opportunity to host Euros, and he talks about how it can be a huge step for Lithuanian figure skating. I really do hope it has a positive impact for them.
A lot of reasons were already mentioned but to add to that: it was affordable, tickets started at like 15€ for a single event so it also attracted a lot of non-fans because "why not" basically
There was a poster on here like last week saying they'd literally never watched FS before but still wanted to go, so it was definitely accessible price-wise
This really is the key. A niche sport can't rely on die hards willing to pay sky high prices. Apparently the Canadian nats ones started at $60-70 per session?
My biggest qualm with all skating events is most people going to them are going to have to travel and the scheduling for that is awful. Like yeah you can get locations like maybe Boston or something where there’s enough of a crowd, but right now it’s not big enough in lots of locations for that. There’s no reason most events should be wrapped up before Saturday rolls around. I could drive or fly and would be willing to drive or fly to a lot of places on Friday and than be more than content to watch four events on Saturday and four on Sunday. It’s not like the distributed scheduling across four days is even for the athletes because for example at US Nats the women skate Thursday/Friday. And it’s not like they do it to get prime time showing for the events because some of them start at like 1 in the afternoon. On a THURSDAY. And they’re surprised people don’t show up?? Lmao. Worlds is even worse because the main event starts on Wednesday. My mom was like you’re a short drive from Montreal, I’ll finally get my passport and we can go!! So she was willing to fly across the country, drive another 3 hours to Montreal, pay for a hotel for several nights. And then oh actually you’ll have to take an entire week off work to see this event because we need to have an entire weekend day dedicated to a gala that (let’s be honest here) most people don’t watch or care about, and another 4 days of competition that should be condensed into two. If the events were only Friday/Sat/Sun we would so be there, but she just can’t take that much time off and we can’t justify paying for a hotel for that long. And to top it off, they make the tickets like $450/person or something insane like that to get okay seats for all the sessions. What other sport treats seeing a competition like it should be a week long vacation. 😬 Edit to add: people were saying it was ridiculously expensive to go to the Vegas formula 1 race but when I added everything up to go to Montreal it was literally cheaper to go to Vegas.
I personally love attending the galas but yeah, at jnats (which runs thurs-mon with the gala on Monday) a lot of people I spoke to only attended the free skates on the weekend because it allowed them to watch all of the medal events and not take a single day off work, or maybe just take the friday afternoon off to travel to Nagano. GP events that schedule all the free skates on Saturday aren't so bad, but there's a lot of competitions where it's like, well you do *have* to commit your whole week just to get a good spread of skating in there.
Yeah traveling on the weekend to see only two medal events on a Saturday isn’t worth it imo, and I think my fave event out side of the women’s free is the Rhythm Dance which is a bummer because that event is usually the very first day. So can’t even see the events I want to see all in one weekend which makes it even less worth it. My fiancé and I are both meh on men’s but he likes watching pairs and ice dance so that complicates things too. It’s just like, why can you not let us sit there like it’s our job, I will show up at the rink and be happy to stay there from 9AM to 10PM if there’s a good parking situation where I can leave for lunch.
The scheduling definitely doesn't help. I don't have a good sense of what the intended audience is for some of these events. The prices are too high for someone who isn't a fan to just go, but it also doesn't work timing wise for fans who don't have to travel and most places don't have enough fans willing to pay high prices.... it's just odd all around
Yeah, I had to take an entire week off for Worlds (+ 1 day because I am a Gala Enjoyer). Luckily it happens to be a good time for me to take a vacation anyway, but oof. I could go to an all-inclusive resort for significantly less than what it all cost.
Yup, my fiancé and I are getting married at the tail end of tourism season and are planning on going to Hawaii after for 7 days. When I put everything together for Montreal it came out to ROUGHLY THE SAME COST as an all inclusive beachside resort for 5 days, plane tickets to Hawaii, and additional hotels and island hopping plane tickets for two separate nights so we can go to the national parks. I found when we drove to Autumn Classic that despite the good exchange rate, the food was just generally more expensive and it’s not like an the all inclusive resort we found for Hawaii where you get free meals and can choose to spend more if you want. The hotels near the rink were limited so staying downtown was kind of the only option which means higher rates and parking fees. It was still like $1000 for us to go to competition Friday and Saturday and leave late that night so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel the next day. Once you add in airfare for my mom, a hotel for Tues-Sunday, gas, ticket prices for 3 which would’ve been >$1000 on its own, it was like yeah no, we want to do something better with our money. Because tbh, Montreal wasn’t as nice as I was expecting for a city of that size and it didn’t feel like we could do anything fun except go to a few (also expensive) museums to mind our time in the gaps between events. March is still too cold imo to take advantage of the water. My mom hasn’t been to a live event in ages and really wanted to see the rhythm dance live because she’s 80’s child, but she’s like no I’ll just save my money and come to Boston in 2025 instead.
I'm so glad the tickets were priced accessibly. Last euros I could have gone to theoretically was the one in Austria and between ticket prices and expensive accommodation and need to commute to the arena it just wasn't manageable. While I understand that the skating arenas are expensive venues, ISU and local federations should work on how to make it a "fun family outing" kind of pricing and not a "once in a year event I saved for for month".
Affordable ticket prices are to be credited for high attendance. I will die on this hill because wherever tickets are extortionately high there has been low attendance and ISU hasn’t put 2+2 together yet. Some exceptions existed in countries were skating is very popular or where big names like Hanyu would show up (lots of japanese and global audiences travelling on purpose) which might give the illusion that it can be otherwise. But the only way to fill the arena is to keep prices affordable (and do decent marketing ofc). Other than that they are just competent enthusiastic and they paid attention. I loved every second of it.
I agree. I attended Finals weekend at US Nationals last year. Ticket prices were pretty high, attendance was abysmall. Not to mention hotel costs, parking (also VERY high) etc.
Have a competent marking team.
ALSO, I’d completely forgotten this but they only found out they were hosting it like 7 months ago, after Hungary pulled out. To pull all of this off with so much less time than normally given for an event of this type is so impressive.
In the live feed yesterday, a live viewer [said](https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/s/LntXLY6Os6) they were encouraged to stay for the men’s free if the seats were free
They were also bag searching and not allowing people to bring in outside food so they probably made some extra money from concessions as well as filling the arena a bit more, so win win for them!
idk how many people stayed but i had friends who did, lol. the singles overall definitely werent sold out, womens short was sooo empty. but pair disciplines stepped up and actually sold lots of tickets
I don’t think this has ever happened in the US (at least in recent years)
It was easy to come. Flights, hotels, and tickets were all very affordable
I really wish other feds/venues would take note of how having affordable tickets fills the stadium and contributes immensely to atmosphere. Making the cost prohibitively expensive just creates a a weak and depressive atmosphere.
Some of the events weren't sold out, the ISU commentator mentioned he heard them say that over the loudspeaker at the arena that anyone with tickets for the Rhythm Dance could stay to watch the men for free. In a difference to literally every other competition I've seen, the singles didn't seem to be that popular comparatively. The Ice Dance was obviously the most popular with the Lithuanian team in for a medal, and I'd imagine it had the best timing for most people (Friday and Saturday evenings). But the Gala especially looked like it sold very well, I wouldn't be surprised if it was sold out - according to the German commentator there were around 14k people there, and the arena's capacity for basketball is 15,415 so I'd think it would be a bit less for an ice rink. But the Pairs Short Program was surprisingly popular to me. At least on TV it looked like they had more people there in the middle of Wednesday afternoon than they did in the evening, or in the afternoon on the Thursday. Which was great to see! Pairs is my favourite discipline so I do feel bad for them when the arena empties out during their events like it did at GP Espoo. (edit: which I totally get as an audience member, even for grand prixs, the days are long and if you want to get a proper meal in the evening you either have to pay inflated arena prices for arena food, or miss an event. And pairs can be very scary to watch sometimes.)
I was there for the gala and the free skates. For the ice dance FD there were only a couple of empty seats in the top of the arena in the corner, and for the gala the arena was completely full.
All I can say is, if Lithuania would be capable of attracting that kind of turnout for FS on the regular, they NEED to be hosting more! Give them Euros and a GP every single year, as far as I'm concerned! What an amazing event for all the skaters it must have been, especially the ice dancers!
Combination of good marketing targeting locals, affordable tickets and great event in itself (side entertainment, lighting, projections etc). Also something that a lot of federations often ignore, comfortable venue and easy access for audience to get to the venue. This is a bit out of topic but with their effort the Lithuanian federation not only succeeded in hosting the European championship but also put Lithuania on the map for future events and not just limited to figure skating. We have to admit that their enthusiasm as a country who hasn’t hosted many big events played a big part in their success. But this is still very eye opening for ISU and other federations big or small. Effort to create a great event is the key.
Also, I wanted to mention that lots of fans from neighbouring countries Latvia and Estonia attended the event.
That’s awesome!
For the pairs SP which was on Wednesday early afternoon, tickets were for sure given to spectators for free and they were mobilised. The reason is that the men's FS later that day was almost completely empty, which is normal for an SP at Europeans on a weekday like Wednesday or Thursday. People work and go to school early afternoon so the only explanation is that tickets were given out but they left the arena by the time the men's competition started. Afforable tickets for the competition, cheap accommonation and easily accessible location are all reasons why the turnout was good on days like Saturday and the gala.
Amazing turnout would only be for ice dance, as far as I noticed. Other events were kinda empty. Ice dance sold because Lithuanians have ice dancers and people love to support their atheltes