Your questions answered...
When will we be getting rail seating?
The London Stadium is an all-seater stadium. As part of the match ticket Terms and Conditions, all supporters agree to remain seated during the match. We, as a Club, monitor guidance related to safe standing closely. There are no current plans to introduce further railed seating at London Stadium in the 2025/26 season. There are safety rails installed in the away section and supporters in Block 222, designed to ensure a safer environment in the upper tier.
Why don’t stewards help people up the stairs if they are struggling?
The role of stewards is to ensure the safety of all our supporters. The Club has a dedicated team of Disabled Supporters Assistants (DSAs) on matchdays who are here to assist supporters. We also encourage supporters with any accessibility needs to bring a personal assistant with them who will know what individual needs that person has and will best-placed to assist them on matchdays.
Can stewards take more action to remove away fans from the home end?
This is a matter taken extremely seriously by the Club. Before each fixture, daily checks are made on purchasing patterns, residential addresses and email addresses to identify suspected away fans and ticket touts. London Stadium stewards are trained to identify potential away supporters, including if they are wearing the colours of the away team and will take action accordingly at turnstiles. For the limited number of away supporters who manage to make it into London Stadium concourse or seats, the Club works, in line with a zero-tolerance approach, to share details with stakeholder authorities and take the strongest possible action, including indefinite bans from the London Stadium.
Can something be done to review the whole system of security and queue times?
The Club has been working closely with the London Stadium and has carried out audits of entry and exit times at two recent fixtures. Our priority is to ensure the safety of all our supporters whenever they attend a West Ham United match.
On arrival to the stadium we search bags and all persons, including our Junior Hammers, by way of wanding using a metal detector. We encourage supporters to avoid bringing bags, if they can and this information including size of permitted bags, can be found in our matchday guide. Our recent audits have found that over a third of supporters enter the stadium 20 minutes before kick-off, so the team have been sharing bridge timing comms and introduced new early bird offers to encourage fans to arrive earlier to reduce queue times.
The matchday exit time is heavily dependent on capacity at train station platforms and is again managed to ensure supporter safety and prevent overcrowding.
Is there a way we can put areas together for more vocal fans to sit in an area with people of the same mindset?
This was discussed at our most recent Fan Advisory Board meeting and you can read the minutes HERE. There are no plans currently to create this kind of fan area, but the members of the Fan Advisory Board are going to spend time understanding if there is appetite among fans for this kind of singing section.
Is there a plan to reconfigure the stands further?
The lower stands were moved closer to the pitch ahead of the 2020/21 season and there are no plans currently to further reconfigure the stands.
What is being done to improve the quality and value for money of refreshments inside and outside the stadium?
Delaware North are subcontracted by the London Stadium to deliver the catering in and around the stadium. This season, they have introduced a number of new catering outlets and worked with the Club to introduce four new early-bird offers for supporters in the 45 minutes after turnstiles open, to encourage fans to arrive at the stadium earlier.